Measuring Website Success for Big Time Impact

Measuring “Website Success” for Big Time Impact

1@wiredimpact

David Hartstein & Jonathan Goldford

MEASURING “WEBSITE SUCCESS” FOR BIG TIME IMPACT


2@wiredimpact

WIRED IMPACT

We Make Websites for Nonprofits

David HartsteinContent, Measurement

Jonathan GoldfordProgramming, Usability


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WHAT WE’LL COVER

The importance of website measurement

Defining “website success”

Best practices for configuring analytics

Google Analytics features that matter


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THE IMPORTANCE OF WEBSITE MEASUREMENT


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WHY IS MEASUREMENT IMPORTANT?

• Objective

• Based on visitor behavior

• Allows for constant improvement

• Measures the impact of your website

Your website should be helping you do more good


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TIPS FOR MAKING YOUR DATA MATTER

• Set up a point person

• Set a regular time to discuss data

• Record data in one place

• Pick key pieces of data (KPIs) to focus on

• Set concrete goals

• Tell the story behind the numbers


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DEFINING “WEBSITE SUCCESS”


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WHAT WE’LL COVER

Defining your “website success”

Setting solid website goals

Focusing on metrics that truly matter


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DEFINING YOUR “WEBSITE SUCCESS”

• Allows you to focus on measuring what matters

• Defined by your website goals

• Allows you to know if your website is helping you serve your community

An important process that is often skipped


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CHARACTERISTICS OF GOOD WEBSITE GOALS• Tied to organizational goals

• Tied to specific website visitor actions

• Quantified

• Set in a timeframe

• Ambitious, but realistic


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START WITH ORGANIZATIONAL GOALS

• Generally will be in service of your mission

• Benefit to organization should be clear

Example:

Raise more money through donations


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Website Visitor ActionOrganizational Goal

TIE TO SPECIFIC VISITOR ACTION

A concrete action a website visitor can take on your website

Raise more money through donations

Visitor completes donation process on website

When an action is successfully completed it’s called a conversion

Example:


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QUANTIFY AND SET TIMEFRAME

• Quantify to make it measureable

• Set your goal in a timeframe

Example:

Raise $2,500 online per month

Timeframe

Quantified


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AN EXAMPLE

Organization: Safe Homes for Animals (SHA)

Mission: To rescue stray animals, place them into loving homes and teach pet owners how to better care for their animals


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SAFE HOMES FOR ANIMALS

Organizational Goal:

Quantity and Time:

Place more animals into loving homes

Signup to adopt a specific animal

10 website signups per month

Website Action:


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WHAT METRICS REALLY MATTER?

Two types of metrics that matter:

Success Metrics• The metrics that determine “website success”

Supporting Metrics• Help tell the story of why you are or aren’t able to

achieve your success metrics


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EXAMPLE: SAFE HOMES FOR ANIMALS

Success Metrics

• Donations made on the website

• Volunteers registered through the website

• Registrations to adopt an animal on the website

• Downloads of a PDF on how to care for your pets


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EXAMPLE: SAFE HOMES FOR ANIMALS

Supporting Metrics

Visitors that signup for our newsletter are 15x more likely to become donors

Visitors from social media sign up to volunteer 3x more than visitors from our emails

Driving more newsletter signups

Driving more traffic from social media

Improving the experience of visitors coming from emails

We Notice We Focus On


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WEBSITE DATA AS A STORY

Success Metrics• The key plot points

Supporting Metrics• Tell the story behind the numbers

• Explain why you are or aren’t able to meet your goals

• Inform website changes that will help you better meet your goals moving forward


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Measure what really matters, not just what’s easy

BEWARE OF “VANITY METRICS”

Vanity MetricsThe metrics that make you feel good but don’t truly benefit your organization in their own right

Website Visits Pages Per Visit

Social Media Followers Email Newsletter Signups


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BEST PRACTICES FOR CONFIGURING ANALYTICS


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WHAT WE’LL COVER

Include analytics code everywhere

Remove visitors that skew results

Prevent unusable data

Set up search tracking

Annotate your analytics

Set up goals and funnels


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INCLUDE ANALYTICS CODE EVERYWHERE

Every Page, Blog Post, Donation Screen


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REMOVE VISITORS THAT SKEW RESULTS

Traffic from

interested SHA

visitors

SHA staff visits

Web company traffic

Marketing

director’s home traffic

Traffic from

another domain

Traffic from

interested SHA

visitors


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PREVENT UNUSABLE DATA

All, unfiltered, website traffic No staff visits tracked No web company visits

tracked No visits from the marketing

director’s house tracked No other domains tracked

This is the profile you use for analysis.

Traffic from interested

SHA visitors

Traffic from

interested SHA visitors SHA

staff visits

Web company traffic

Marketing

director’s home traffic

Traffic from

another domain

Create two profiles and leave one unfiltered

All Website Traffic

Filtered Traffic


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SET UP SEARCH TRACKING

Setting up search is pretty easy…

And you get a wealth of information…

All you need for WordPress

Learn what people find interesting, what’s missing and what phrases are used to talk about your

organization


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ANNOTATE YOUR ANALYTICS

Keep a record of everything done that may affect your traffic

Track directly in Google Analytics or in ExcelWhat should you be tracking?

When your website launches When you publish a new blog post When you start promoting a major

event When you run a direct mail

campaign Any other major event that could

affect website traffic


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SET UP GOALS

Our SHA Success Metrics• Donations made on the website

• Volunteers registered through the website

• Registrations to adopt an animal on the website

• Downloads of a PDF on how to care for your pets

Goals are not tracked automatically in Google Analytics


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SET UP GOALS AND FUNNELS

Tracking a contact form submission in Google Analytics.

Thank you for contacting us. We will be in touch with you shortly.

Contact Formwww.sha.org/contact/

Thank You Pagewww.sha.org/thank-you-

contact/


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Tracking a contact form submission in Google Analytics

Goal funnels show how many people abandon at a step in the process


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Funnels allow you to see how many abandon and where they go. Wouldn’t this be cool with a donation process?


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Other Resources for Learning About Goals:

Google Analytics Goals Help

A Beginner’s Guide to Setting Goals in Google Analytics

A Guide to: Goals and Funnels in Google Analytics

Remember to create goals through your analytics tool for each website goal you developed

http://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012040?hl=en&ref_topic=1007030

http://searchengineland.com/a-beginner%E2%80%99s-guide-to-setting-goals-in-google-analytics-101826

http://www.hongkiat.com/blog/google-analytics-goals-funnels-tips/


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GOOGLE ANALYTICS FEATURES THAT MATTER


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WHAT WE’LL COVER

eCommerce Tracking

Advanced Segments

Content Experiments

Report Emailing


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ECOMMERCE TRACKING

It’s not just for eCommerce businesses. You can use it for donations too.

The data you’ll see also includes…

The number of days from first visit to donation Which pages lead to the most donations Which traffic sources are driving donations A wealth of other data


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Compare traffic from different segments

ADVANCED SEGMENTSAdvanced segments allow you to analyze specific

types of visitors.

View most reports for a chosen segment of visitors


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Mobile Traffic

See how engagement changes for mobile visitors

See what content mobile visitors are viewing

See how conversion rates change for mobile visitors

Email Newsletter

Signups

See what pages are driving email signups

See where visitors are located

See which traffic sources are driving signups

Visitors fromTwitter

See how Twitter traffic compares to other sources

See how engaged Twitter traffic is

See what content Twitter visitors are landing on


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CONTENT EXPERIMENTS

A/B testing allows you to test the results of one small change on a webpage by showing users two versions of the same page. A B

The photo from version B increased conversions by 19%


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CONTENT EXPERIMENTS

Google Analytics includes Content Experiments for you to run A/B tests.

Features include…

Email notification of the winner of the experiment Ability to adjust percentage of visitors who see experiment Ability to stop an experiment at any point


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REPORT EMAILING

You have a million things to do. Emails are a good reminder.


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WE’RE DONE! WHO HAS QUESTIONS?

If you have questions don’t hesitate to reach out.

[email protected] @wiredimpact


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David Hartstein & Jonathan Goldford

MEASURING “WEBSITE SUCCESS” FOR BIG TIME IMPACT


43@wiredimpact

ATTRIBUTION

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/286709039/http://www.flickr.com/photos/79286287@N00/201605058/http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgraths/3266611552/http://www.flickr.com/photos/heavyweightgeek/2334939683http://www.flickr.com/photos/calleephoto/5040199394/http://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=iconset%3AVistaICO_Toolbar-Icons http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/google-analytics--737.htmlhttp://all-free-download.com/free-icon/icons/excel_100767.htmlhttp://www.beaconfire.com/blog/2011/02/better-donor-analytics-with-ecommerce

/http://findicons.com/icon/249658/iphone?id=379519http://arbent.net/blog/social-media-circles-icon-sethttp://kylerush.net/blog/optimization-at-the-obama-campaign-ab-testing/http://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1745152?hl=en&ref_topic=

1745207

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/286709039/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/aussiegall/286709039/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/mcgraths/3266611552/




http://www.flickr.com/photos/heavyweightgeek/2334939683

http://www.flickr.com/photos/heavyweightgeek/2334939683

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calleephoto/5040199394/

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calleephoto/5040199394/

http://www.iconfinder.com/search/?q=iconset:VistaICO_Toolbar-Icons

http://www.iconspedia.com/icon/google-analytics--737.html



http://all-free-download.com/free-icon/icons/excel_100767.html

http://www.beaconfire.com/blog/2011/02/better-donor-analytics-with-ecommerce/



http://findicons.com/icon/249658/iphone?id=379519

http://arbent.net/blog/social-media-circles-icon-set

http://arbent.net/blog/social-media-circles-icon-set

http://kylerush.net/blog/optimization-at-the-obama-campaign-ab-testing/



Technology

Measuring Website Success for Big Time Impact