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Top 9 Metrics Marketers Need to Track on Google Analytics

November 12, 2013

Tracking online success is an important task of every marketer and there is no better option then Google Analytics. Those who are not familiar with this service might be thrown back by complex tools and metrics that they encounter at the first sight; however, once you get the idea of how it works it no longer seems that scary and becomes a perfect assistant each marketer would wish to have by their side on a regular basis. By using proper metrics your experience on Google Analytics will transform into a pleasurable work. In this article you will find top 9 metrics marketers need to track on Google Analytics in order to achieve guaranteed success.

1. Know the origins of your visitors — Traffic Sources

First and foremost, you should realize where your traffic is coming from; this way you will have a thorough understanding of which platforms are the most profitable for you.

Basically, there are three options of driving traffic to your page. The most popular and well-known one is, of course, traffic (both paid and organic) driven through search engines. Next on the list is direct traffic, visitors who enter the exact domain in search. Lastly, there is referral traffic that comes from external sites that send traffic your way. The key, obviously, is to find out where most of your visitors are coming from.

There are several details that monitoring traffic source will clear up for you. For example, if you notice that majority of visitors come from Facebook and nearly none from Twitter, you should focus your efforts on the first one. Also, you can find out whether the event you held was useful or not by checking out the number of hits received from the event link. As for SEO experts they can scrutinize organic traffic separately and improve search rankings accordingly.

2. Is your traffic actually engaged? — Bounce Rate

The second metric every marketer has to track on Google analytics is the bounce rate. Organic traffic does not always drive visitors who are actually related to your website and as a result some of them might leave, or “bounce off”, the page immediately. The bounce rate lets you know if your keywords are driving the right traffic or not. Moreover, it can also indicate that your landing page is poorly optimized and does not call to action evidently.

The goal is to keep the bounce rate as low as possible and have higher percentage of visitors actually interested in your offer. Every industry has its appropriate bounce rate that marketers should keep in mind, usually it is somewhere between 20%-40%.

3. Do they actually take action? — Conversion

If your endeavors as a marketer on Google Analytics are truly paying off, then you will notice that conversion is taking place and visitors are taking action after visiting your page. Action does not necessarily imply purchase; it can be a banner or link click, newsletter signup, etc.

What you need to track is the process of visitor getting from talk to action. You should know how much time it took the visitor to get to conversion as well as other details like search engine, Keywords, PPC, etc.

4. What drives visitors to and from the site? — Landing and Exit pages

Another very powerful metric that marketers need to track on Google Analytics is Landing and Exit pages. They will tell you all about visitor interest. By monitoring landing pages you will realize which pages are more popular then the others and where visitors spend the most time.

Consequently you will find out what part of your content is engaging and on which parts you should work some more. Landing pages should be compared with the Exit pages and if they match closely then there is lot to work on as visitors do not find any reason to come back.

5. Leader Pages — Content

One of the keys to attracting new customers and keeping old ones involved is having great content. Regular blog posts are just as important as basic Web copy. Content metric will help you clarify if your content is actually working or not. Check out the most popular pages and you will get a feel of what your visitors are mostly expecting to find on site.

6. Is your business growing? — Percentage of New Visits

Marketers need to track percentage of new visits to make sure that they are not standing on one place and they are getting more and more people interested in their offers. However, lot of new visitors is not always a positive thing. No doubt, high percentage of new visits is great when you have just launched the page, but it changes when you have already been on the market for a while. There is no use of getting tons of new visits if at least some of them are not converted into loyal customers.

7. Social reports

Social metric is also extremely useful tool that will help you find out which of your social media activities come across as the most functional. Social reports depict how many people have found you through social media sites and evaluate efficiency of immediate campaigns.

8. What keywords work in your favor? — Organic Search Terms

We have already talked about the fact that high quality content is one of the key points to success. One of the major parts of the content is the keywords and accordingly it is another important metric that should be on every marketers list. With right keywords you will expand your reach. Focus on keywords that drive the most traffic that is of the highest quality.

9. All-in-one — Dashboard

Dashboard is practically all-in-one metric on Google Analytics. You will be able to observe most of the significant information at a glimpse using charts and graphs.

These are top 9 metrics that every single marketer needs to track on Google Analytics in order to achieve desired results. Do not lose time and get started right now; good luck!

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