Martijn Scheijbeler @ All Things DATA 2016

Web Analytics; Reaching the limits of what’s possible!

Martijn Scheijbeler / Director of Marketing / [email protected] / @MartijnSch

Martijn Scheijbeler

Marketing Director at The Next WebFormer Lead Growth, SEO & Analytics

[email protected] @MartijnSch

@MartijnSch@MartijnSch

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Reaching the limits of what’s possible!Better tracking, better data

Better data, better decisions

“What you’re not tracking, you don’t know!”“Implementing better tracking creates more insightful data”

Better decisions, better results

“The better the data is the more insightful your decision will be”

“Your results get better by the decisions you make”“Just as long as the decisions you make are better decisions”

Know why, you track and how to track what matters:

@MartijnSch

WHAT YOU GET OUT OF THIS?

We’ll be sharing the set-up we use at The Next Web to get started immediately!

WhyHOW WE GOT STARTED?

Set-upHOW DO YOU GET THERE?

FutureWHAT’S NEXT?

How it allStarted

@MartijnSch

THE START:

Why we feel, the need for so much data?

@MartijnSch

INDEX.CO

20,000 +140,000 +6,000visitors startups listed square meters

7,000,000unique users

INDEX.COConference

Why am I showing you this slide?

@MartijnSch

MEDIA News

E-commerce

EVENTS Events

Conferences

WORK SPACES TQ

INTELLIGENCE Index.co

@MartijnSch

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Unique UsersGrowing our unique user base willincrease the potential to reach Generation T.

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Our goals for success

User Engagement: PV/SessionA higher engagement with our user base will increase the number of pageviews per session.

User Retention: Returning %Increasing the percentage or returning users will increase our brand awareness.

Newsletter SignupsTo get a relationship with our users we’d like to have their email address for the newsletter.

Social SharesMore shares will influence our reach amongst new and returning users.

SEOANALYTICS/CROTNW DEALS

INDEX.COCONTENT

GROWTH

@MartijnSch

Front-end Developers

MARKETING:

Web Analytics Figures Data from 2015 - 2016

450 Million Hits Monthly 2016

December ‘15 Started using Google Analytics 360

15 Million Hits Monthly 2014

200 A/B Tests per Year

Priceless Amounts of fun

35% Traffic v.s. Tests

@MartijnSch

@MartijnSch

3 Months

7 Months

2 Months

Our timeline for getting to 450 million hitsJan ‘15

Hitting the limits?Hitting 15+ million hits monthly started to really mess withthe data quality in our reports. We needed a solution.

Apr ‘15

Finding an alternativeGoogle Analytics was the obvious way to go, but we wanted to know if there would be any alternatives, there were: 3.

Dec ‘15

Setting the roadmapTalk to our agency and our internal teams to find out:what we needed to built to create the best analytics set-up.

Feb ‘16

Hitting 450 millionEnd of December we started moving all our tracking toGoogle Tag Manager and adding all functionalities we wanted.

Why wait for 7 months? It’s all about the money!

You need a plan! This is what our ‘Tracking Plan’ looked like.

TLDR: Why we do what we do?

1. Know your goals 2. Know every detail about your user 3. Know the maximum you can track? 4. Leverage all the options available 5. No use of additional data sources 6. Create a tracking plan 7. We needed Google Analytics Premium 8. But Google Tag Manager even more!

@MartijnSch

But how did we get to450 million hits monthly?

@MartijnSch

What we track &How we do this?

@MartijnSch

OUR SETUP:

We needed to learn,knowledge building?

@MartijnSch

Thanks for all your support!

We learn from you!

• Less time to redo our set-up • Know what to track, best!

Find theperfect process

Google Analytics (GA) & Google Tag Manager (GTM)

• Send data to the dataLayer • Able to create variables • Use the data however you want

The DataLayer

Custom DataCustom information:Content, Metrics, Data

EngagementWhat’s a user doing:Scroll tracking, event tracking

TestingWhat does(n’t) work:Testing via Google Tag Manager

Enhanced EcommerceImproving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process

FiltersExcluding + Improving:Page information + cleaning

Cost DataCalculate your ROI: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc.

• 57 Custom dimensions • Examples:

• Author • Adblocked • A/B Testing • Post ID • Client ID

CustomDimensions

• 4 Custom Metrics • Examples:

• Ads Loaded • Comments • Ads not Loaded • Words

Custom Metrics

• 23 Calculated Metrics • Examples:

• Customer Lifetime Value • AVG Cost per Session • Non Bounces • Cost of Acquisition

Calculated Metrics

Custom DataCustom information:Events, Content, Metrics, Data



Enhanced EcommerceImproving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process



Event TrackingWhat is going on and why is that

happening? That’s what event

tracking helps with.

Examples: • JavaScript Errors • Ads Loaded or Not Loaded • Share Buttons • Contact Forms

Scroll DepthDo you really know if people

read your content, you don’t,

right?

Time on PageDo you really know if

people read your content,

you don’t, right?

But on a high bounce rate

page it’s really hard for

web analytics tools to

calculate the perfect time

on page.

Custom Data


Custom information:Events, Content, Metrics, Data



Improving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process


Enhanced Ecommerce

Google AdwordsJust connecting your Google

Adwords account calculate

ain’t gonna cut it anymore.

On how many platforms are

you advertising?

But what else?It’s hard to measure the ROI

for, for example social

networks: Twitter,

Facebook, LinkedIn which

are most likely your second

biggest spending platform

after Google Adwords.

Custom Data





FiltersImproving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process

Excluding + Improving:Page information + cleaning

Enhanced Ecommerce

“If you double the number of experiments you’re going to double your inventiveness”

- Jeff Bezos

@MartijnSch

Google Tag Manager is making our lives easier + scalable

The opportunity is

350-400 tests a year. As

ROI per test is low we

need to run a lot to have

a positive return.

Efficiency <> Costs

@MartijnSch

We didn’t move to any ‘real’

CRO tool but decided to

iterate on our own: GTM <> JS.

Supporting: A/B/n & MVT.

GTM Testing

@MartijnSch

Download: Github.com/TheNextWeb/CRO

http://github.com/MartijnSch/CRO

Custom Data





FiltersImproving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process


Enhanced Ecommerce

Override the collected data

to refine, clean and update

the data that you would

like to see in your reports.

Examples: • URL Changes • Remove parameters

Filters

@MartijnSch

Custom Data





Enhanced EcommerceFiltersImproving Ecommerce:More info on the transaction process


You want to know what

happens in the funnel of your

ecommerce shop, right?

But how does that work for a

publisher? We figured it out.

Enhanced Ecommerce

@MartijnSch

TLDR: The set-up

1. Take care of the basics 2. Save custom data for internal use 3. Track engagement: scroll + riveted 4. Make calculating ROI easier 5. Always be testing; GTM is a great alternative 6. Go advanced! Enhanced ecommerce?

@MartijnSch

What does the Future look like?

@MartijnSch

WHAT’S NEXT:

Work with Google DataStudio 360 to

get rid of the other reporting sheets

and tools that we need to use at the

moment.

Please fix: realtime reporting!

Automated Reporting

@MartijnSch

Currently measuring the scroll

depth and the engagement on

page is separated. Merging the

data will make sure the tracking

is improved and loadtimes will

decrease a tiny bit.

Content Enagement V2.0

@MartijnSch

Two extra front-end developers, to

make sure long-term we can iterate

and improve our set-up even faster.But also work on testing even more!

Front-end Dev

@MartijnSch

Work with even more (big) data. We

need to know in a more advanced

way what works and what doesn’t.

So using more data ware house like

structures to leverage more data.

Big > Biggest

@MartijnSch

Keep up the pace as we do right now.

Make sure to leverage data sources

even more and upgrade our tracking

whenever we can.

Continuous Improvement

@MartijnSch


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You’re closer to the limit on what’s possible!Better tracking, better data

Better data, better decisions

“What you’re not tracking, you don’t know!”“Implementing better tracking creates more insightful data”

Better decisions, better results

“The better the data is the more insightful your decision will be”

“Your results get better by the decisions you make”“Just as long as the decisions you make are better decisions”

One More Thing…

@MartijnSch


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We make most of this available, today!Download via:Github.com/TheNextWeb/GTM

Import the container in GTM

Configure what you (don’t) need

Download as ZIP, import the container inGoogle Tag Manager to get started.

The documentation in Github will tell you whatto configure in Google Tag Manager.

Share the love!

You can import a container in Google Tag Manager with a preconfigured set of tags,

variables, values to get started immediately.

Our GTM set-up is now available for you!

http://github.com/TheNextWeb/GTM

Who is excited about this!?

Take Aways:

1. Learn from each other

2. Know what your goals are 3. Focus on: Events, Custom Data, Cost 4. Always be testing!

5. Download our GTM Container

6. Have fun!

@MartijnSch

Do you have any Questions?

@MartijnSch

Data & Analytics

Martijn Scheijbeler @ All Things DATA 2016