Note: to get the most out of these reports you will need to have goal values set up for each of your goals.
Finding the Opportunities From Interactions
Knowing the number of interactions a visitor has with your site before they convert can help identify whether you might benefit from remarketing in order to maximise the probability that they will eventually convert.
In the Conversions section, filter down to Multi-Channel Funnels and then to Time Lag. This report will show how many days it takes for each visitor to make a conversion after their first visit to the site.
Although in the example above most come from the first interaction, it’s clear a significant number come after the 12+ days column, and that the conversion value rate is high. You could assume, therefore, that this is because visitors are researching in that time between their first visit and purchasing. You can then test this assumption using remarketing; by adjusting your remarketing lists and extending the duration of membership of these lists to 12 days, you’ll be able to see whether the number of visitors coming back to your site after 12 days increases – and whether your revenue does too.
As well as the Time Lag report, Path Length is also useful (found just underneath the Time Lag report link). This shows the number of visits to the site visitors make before making a conversion. Again, as seen in the above example, whilst many are making a conversion on their first visit, it’s clear that 24% need 2-3 visits, and 40% need at least one interaction before they convert. In addition, the conversion value rate of those that convert on their first visit is lower than those requiring multiple visits, meaning that those people who go away, research and return to the site a few times are more valuable to your business, and therefore definitely worth encouraging back with a little remarketing.
In addition, you could target these repeat visitors with a special offer or a dedicated landing page to encourage them to convert.
So How Do I Set Up Remarketing to Target Repeat Visitors?
Even if you already have remarketing running, you can create new, smart remarketing lists in order to specifically target previous visitors and encourage as many back to your site as possible.
In the Admin section, within the Property column, select Audience Definitions, then Audiences. A list of the recommended audiences then appears when you go through the process of setting up a new audience.
Ignoring All Users and New Users as they won’t target the right people in this instance, you can play around with the other options in order to target the people you want. For example you could choose ‘users who have visited a specific section of my site’, and target all those who have filled out a shopping cart but not purchased, in order to try and encourage them to do so. Alternatively, you can choose the Smart List, which is compiled automatically by analytics, based on previous conversion characteristics to target the visitors who are most likely to convert in future. Nifty!
Finding Opportunities Elsewhere
If you’re doing all you can to target new and existing visitors in your local or regional market, then it might be time to spread the net further afield. Luckily, with Geo reports analytics can help you identify audiences elsewhere in the world.
Within the Audiences section of the reporting element of analytics, select Geo and then Location. This will show you a map and stats telling you which geographical locations your site visitors are coming from, and which are converting best/worst. If there are any sources of traffic outside where the bulk of your conversions happen, it could indicate an untapped audience. It might mean improving your systems to cope with another currency, or translating your website into another language, but knowing where your interest is coming from could enable you to easily grow your business without any guesswork.
As well as Location, you can also use Search Traffic Comparison to see where there is potential to expand. Within the same report, changing your segment to Search Traffic should show you which countries your revenue is coming from. As per the initial Location report, if there is significant revenue coming from a location which is driving minimal traffic, then this indicates a potential untapped market.
Attributing Success
So you’ve found out where your interest is and how visitors use your site, and you’ve set up remarketing and other campaigns to maximise your conversions. How do you know whether they’re delivering? Is the traffic from those display ads actually converting? With Multi-channel funnel reports you can find out! These reports help attribute credit to the various conversion paths which result from your campaigns, so you can measure their success, and whether you need to adjust anything at any point in the pathway to improve their performance.
There are several attribution models which track conversions and attribute credit differently depending on what you want to measure. You can find a list and explanations here.
To access the reports, head over to the Conversions tab, and filter down to Multi-channel Funnels and Overview, you’ll see an overview of which channels are providing most interactions.
Digging deeper, Assisted Conversions (below the Overview report link) shows the interactions that site visitors have before they convert (the conversion pathway) – but do not include the actual conversion. As above, these can help you analyse how brand or remarketing campaigns are performing. Notably, they contribute to the overall picture of your marketing activity, and especially if a campaign is not receiving as many direct conversions as you would expect, this report can be useful in identifying snags.
Lastly, the Top Conversion Paths report shows the unique conversion paths which lead to conversions, the number of conversions from each path, and value of those conversions. This is useful if you run lots of different types of advertising (display / remarketing / search ads etc) as it will help you see what is and isn’t working.
If you’d like help demystifying analytics and extracting information which will help your business grow, don’t hesitate to get in touch.
