RezStream Webinar: Google Analytics 101

Editor's Notes

• #5: So we’re a small company, but we have a lot of love for the travel industry which really appealed to to me when I took the job 4 years ago because well, I love travel and I was going to be able to become an expert in the field, not just a jack of all trades Reservation software is the foundation of the company and we’re currently in Beta testing for the new reservation software release which is expected to launch in the next few months Online booking engine includes a desktop and a mobile booking engine Website design services include custom and template website solutions Digital marketing services include SEO, PPC, Social Media and Email Marketing services
• #6: Google Analytics was originally developed from the Urchin on Demand software that Google acquired in the spring of 2005  The first Google-branded version was released in November 2005 Early on, Analytics was available by invitation only, as demand for the product was very high. It wasn’t fully available to all users until nearly a year after its initial release (August 2006)
• #7: Allows you to track website traffic GA tracks website activity by using cookies so a cookie is dropped every time you visit a website A cookie is a text file that captures information about the visitor or the visitor’s computer
• #8: RezStream recommends setting up a unique Gmail account for your business/property To create a unique Gmail account, select “Create an account” on the Google Analytics landing page From there, you’ll be prompted to fill out your account information
• #10: Important to have all information accurate especially the website’s URL and time zone for reporting purposes
• #11: If your booking engine supports Google Analytics for revenue tracking, your website developer may need to implement a few additional tracking items
• #13: To prevent your own website visits from being tracked, make sure you exclude the business’ IP address by creating a filter You can use filters to include or exclude certain pieces of data or record data in a specific manner
• #14: When you link Google AdWords to Analytics, you can share data between the two accounts as well as receive additional reports via Google Analytics, i.e. revenue generated, what campaigns are working effectively and keywords referring traffic, etc. Same applied to Google Webmaster Tools
• #15: Goals let you measure how often users take or complete specific actions including form submissions or online reservations RezStream sets up booking engine goals for desktop and mobile booking engines to track between the two Although it’s not mandatory, it’s recommended to receive additional information including what steps are causing friction to prevent users from completing that reservation and/or what page is performing well
• #16: You can give users access to your Google Analytics account Users can be assigned with specific permissions including read only, collaborate which applies to certain reports and edit ability to update the account’s settings
• #18: Change to reflect whatever period you want to analyze, i.e. yesterday, last month, last quarter, this month For the travel industry, you’ll most likely want to use “previous year” allowing you to compare to last year’s results due to trending/seasonality that can occur with your business If you don’t have YOY data, utilize previous period to get a sense of how your site is performing over time
• #19: Use this report to compare traffic from search engines, referrals, and email campaigns. How actively are users engaging with your site and content? Review engagement metrics like Bounce Rate, Pages/Session, and Avg. Session Duration. Do users complete activities important to the success of your business or site/app? Look at conversion metrics like Goal Completions or to measure ecommerce outcomes, look at Transactions, Revenue, and Ecommerce Conversion Rate. Source: reflects the website’s URL , i.e. Google, BedandBreakfast.com, TripAdvisor Medium is the traffic channel, i.e. organic, email, referral and/or PPC Sessions: Total number of visits to your website (counts as a new session after 30 minutes of inactivity) Transactions: The number of online reservations or bookings resulting from your website’s booking engine, i.e. online reservations Revenue: Total reservation revenue generated through your website’s booking engine. Conversion Rate: Percentage of visitors who made an online reservations, i.e. 1.5% or above is positive
• #20: These reports show you what happened after people clicked on your ads and arrived at your site.  Traffic, engagement metrics like time on site as well as revenue generated associated to the campaign, ad group, keyword Sessions: Total number of visits to your website. % of New Sessions: Percentage of new users landing on the website, i.e. positive to see a high percentage due to online growth New Users: Unique visitors landing on your website, i.e. positive to see a high percentage due to online growth Bounce Rate: The percentage of visits in which the visitor only views one page of your website before leaving, i.e. 30%-40%, anything lower is great Pages / Session: The average number of pages viewed during a session. Repeated views of a single page are counted, i.e. low pages per session could mean they got what they wanted or they couldn’t find what they needed so they left Avg. Session Duration: Avg. time spent by each session/visitor Transactions: The number of online reservations or bookings resulting from your website’s booking engine, i.e. online reservations Revenue: Total reservation revenue generated through your website’s booking engine.
• #21: The Audience reports provide insight into your audience characteristics including demographics and mobile devices used Geographic locations to better target users Mobile users to enhance your mobile strategy and the platforms you need to develop to grow those audiences
• #22: The mobile reports allows you to understand your mobile users both on smartphones and tablet users so you can enhance your mobile strategy Use the mobile report to identify what types of devices are performing well for you in terms of traffic, new users, online reservations and online revenue Mobile = Smartphone Tablet = Tablets Desktops = Desktops Our clients are seeing increases in both mobile and tablets users which then impacts their online revenue This report will allow you to identify if smartphone users are having a positive experience on the website and/or if they are having a terrible experience which is negatively affecting the amount of revenue you could be generating from those visitors
• #23: This section of Google Analytics is focused on your site- its content, performance and interactivity. The report allows you to identify new opportunities, user intent based on the pages they’re looking at and assist in evaluating poor performing content on the website All Pages report shows traffic metrics for each page on your site.  Look for very high bounce rates, exit rates, low average time on page to determine lower quality pages These pages should be addressed immediately because they could be preventing visitors from making reservations with you Pageviews is the number of times a page was viewed whereas Unique Pageviews is the number of sessions in which the page was viewed. Bounce Rate is the percentage of visits in which the visitor only views one page of your website before leaving.
• #24: Google Analytics announced yesterday that they’ll be rolling out new benchmark reports over the next few weeks, allowing users to compare their results to industry standard acquisition and engagement metrics. The new benchmark reports are located in the “Audience” section of the reporting interface and will be available to users who have opted-in to share data anonymously.