Google Ads are a great way to advertise your business and products. Linking your Google Ads to your Google Analytics account helps business owners learn about what happens after users choose to click on your ads.
Why Link to Google Analytics? Google analytics allows you to target specific users based on their previous behavior and patterns on the internet. This means that when you link Google Analytics to your Google Ads, you will be able to objectively promote your ads towards specific types of customers. Additionally, Google Analytics helps you to understand your Google Ad traffic on a larger scale. With Analytics, you will be able to determine if the keywords in your ads are promoting sales, and largely determine patterns in your ad traffic.
How to Link Google Analytics to your Ads:
Create an account for each individual product that you intend to advertise
Once this is done, click the “Admin” tab within Google Analytics
From the “Property” column, click on “Google Ads Linking”
Once this has been clicked, you will then see all of the different product accounts that you made. From here, click on as many product pages as you’d like to link, and then press “Done”
Working with Google Analytics comes with an abundance of features. Below is a brief explanation on two of the advanced features that are offered on Google Analytics so you can best take a look at this data for your business.
Dimensions Dimensions essentially describe your data, as each dimension used can describe a different value. Secondary dimensions are used to view data with granularity, because an additional dimension is being added to your report. You can use Secondary dimensions to tell Google Analytics what you want displayed in a custom report.
Segments Segments are groupings of your data within Google Analytics. Various segments in Analytics can be isolated in order to closely identify the trends in your business. Segments can be used in order to enhance your understanding of the activities of a specific audience, or in order to create marketing campaigns to target groups. When on Google Analytics, use the “explorations” segment to build your dimensions and segments. Within explorations you will find the “Segment Builder” which allows you to create various groupings of users, sessions and events.
A native of Pittsburgh, graphic designer expert Ken Falk has over 50 years of experience working with unique clients from all different realms. Through creating thousands of logos, brochures, campaigns, and more, Ken’s unique perspective on graphic design is valued by many. Starting off as an Art Publisher for Penton Publishing, Ken has grown his professional career all the way to building his own Marketing and Communications company out of Potomac, Maryland. Currently residing in Rockville, Maryland, Ken is still passionate about the importance of good design in our everyday lives.
Ken Falk shares his experience as an EGBI volunteer.
To get started, do you mind telling us a fun fact about yourself? In my free time, I enjoy doing calligraphy.
How did you first get involved with EGBI? So, I recently retired. A former client of mine mentioned that they use Catchafire, a skills-based volunteer match program, to get volunteer design work. I thought this would be perfect as I was looking for short duration volunteer work where my skills could be used. This is actually my first job with Catchafire, so it is an initial experience. It’s nice because I am planning to travel more now that the pandemic is controllable, and I don’t want to take on large long-term commitments, so short-term ones work pretty well.
Why do you volunteer for EGBI? What intrigues me about EGBI is that it helps people learn to help themselves in a sense. People that have skills in one area, like carpentry, need help in learning how to start a business and all those things, which can be somewhat daunting. I like the idea of being able to help people become more self-sufficient and successful.
How has your involvement with EGBI helped you grow professionally and personally? One reason why I chose this project with EGBI is because I like working on annual reports as a graphic designer. I think annual reports are interesting because they encapsulate telling a story about an organization, through highlighting accomplishments at a certain period of time. Annual reports can show transition and transformation of organizations. Additionally, Monica is really easy to work with, and I was able to make suggestions on the project which created a collaborative workspace. I really value working on projects where my input is heard and taken into consideration.
In 2021, EGBI volunteers put in more than 130 hours to help EGBI support and serve over 400 small businesses. Volunteers like Ken make this possible and continue to help EGBI pursue their mission of training, coaching, and supporting aspiring and existing business owners who face barriers to growing a successful business.
Want to get involved too? Contact us to find out how you can volunteer or donate.
In our previous blog, Google Analytics for Your Business Website , we explored the basics of Google Analytics. In this article, we are going to dive into how using Google Analytics data can help you to complete your business goals.
Step 1 = Outline Goals It is important to outline goals in order to clearly target what you are trying to achieve. Without an outline, the process of completing goals can get confusing and muddy. One great method of outlining goals is using the SMART goal method. Check out our recent blog post for more information on how to create your own SMART goals .
Step 2 = Ask Questions Google Analytics provides an abundance of data about your business. It is important when planning out a goal to think about what types of data you need to support your intention. There are four main questions that are important to ask …
Reach: Who is your audience – What are people searching for? How do they find you online?
Convert: Do leads become customers – Which channels drive conversions? What calls-to-action drive conversions?
Engage: Can visitors find answers – What do people do once they find out about your business? How do people interact with you online?
Sustain: Are customers loyal – Do people continue to engage with your business online? Do you respond quickly to customer inquiries? Step 3 = View Reports This step involves looking at all of your Google Analytics data, and determining how you can find the answers to your questions from step 2. Without a plan of how to find the data you need, you will likely get overwhelmed. There are a few different types of reports that you can drawinformation from:
Realtime= This type of report allows you in real time to monitor site traffic from new content that you post. This allows you to watch goal completions as you try out different changes to your site.
Acquisition = Acquisition reports allows you to understand how visitors arrive or your site. For example) mobile app, website, tablet, etc…
Engagement = This report gives you information on what consumers are doing on your site. Engagement reports show you data on how long sessions are, the pages and screens customers have open, and the conversions that individuals use.
Monetization = Measures the amount of revenue that your business generates. This includes seeing how users interact with various items, and measuring purchase and advertising funnels.
Demographics = Demographics tell you the types of people who are visiting your side. Information is organized by age, location, gender, and language.
Retention = the retention report measures the loyalty of your customer base. In other words, how frequently and for how long do people engage in with your site after their initial visit.
In the modern age of technology, there are hundreds of technological tools that exist for small business owners to utilize online. One of the greatest programs currently out there is Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides basic statistics, as well as tools for search engine optimization (SEO). Google Analytics is free to anyone with a Google account.
To begin, it is important to highlight the reasons why analytics are important for small businesses:
The use of Google Analytics can be used to track website traffic, and collect visitor insights. This means that as a small business owner, you will be able to see how often and how many people are viewing your website.
Google Analytics can track the success of marketing campaigns, through discovering patterns and trends in user engagement. For example, if your company is doing a marketing campaign on your website for a new product, Google Analytics is able to determine how often consumers are buying this product.
It is important to understand the demographics of the type of customers that your small business is catering to; Google Analytics contains software that collects the demographics of visitors. How does Google Analytics Work? Google Analytics collects user data from website visitors through the use of something called page tags. Page tags are inserted into the coding of website pages through JavaScript software. Essentially, the tag that is coded into the webpage collects data and sends it to Google’s data collection server. Through this server, Google Analytics is able to report data of all kinds. For consumer safety, Google Analytics relies on cookies … the system can not collect data for users who have cookies disabled. Things to look for in your Google Analytics Report:
Dimensions = Dimensions in Google Analytics are categorical variables. Some examples include colors and names. Below are some examples of important dimensions to look out for on your Google Analytics Report.
Browser: the specific type of browser your site is being viewed on. Examples include safari and chrome.
Location: the geographic location of where consumers are viewing your site.
Landing page: the first web page that users see when they get onto your website.
Device: the type of device your website is being viewed on.
Customer type: this determines if your customer is a new or returning viewer.
Metrics = Metrics in Google Analytics are quantitative variables. Some examples include population and age.
Sessions: the total amount of time that a user is active on your site.
Pageviews: total number of pages that are viewed or loaded when someone visits your website.
Conversions: determines if visitors are engaging with marketing and design efforts throughout your website (moving through the expected steps of creating a sale).
Bounce rate: the percentage of times on your website in which users only viewed a single page before closing out.
Session duration: measures the average length of how long a consumer spends on your website. Tips to Improving Analytic Numbers:
Before checking into Google Analytics, ensure you have specific action items that you want to address. Checking data aimlessly can be a waste of time, and make things more confusing than needed.
Have your top reports emailed to you … oftentimes Google Analytics takes a long time to extract data that is actually useful. Instead of browsing through Analytics for hours, you can create custom reports of the information that you actually want to see. Then, this data is emailed directly to your inbox.
Don’t let yourself fall into a marketing rut! Consumers love exciting changes; make sure that you update your website at different points throughout the year to keep customers on their toes.
Google Analytics can be confusing and overwhelming at times … don’t hesitate to ask for help. Google Analytics has a 24 hour support website that will answer your questions about anything and everything.
