The rise of digital platforms has given marketers the ability to track everything that our customers are doing. Tracking “all the things” presents problems though. What metrics show that a platform is effective? How do we collect the data in the first-place? In this workshop we’ll cover how to combine three Google products into the ultimate data gathering and reporting workflow. One that will save you time while giving you the answers you need and moves beyond “page views.”

1. THE GOOGLE
MARKETING WORKFLOW
Dave Olsen / david.olsen@mail.wvu.edu
University Relations - Digital Services
May 31, 2019

2. If you want to follow along…
• Do you have a Gmail account?
• Do you have Chrome?
• Do you have a Google Analytics
account you can play with?
• Then log in.

3. My Goal
Analytics is often seen as a tool for reporting
“vanity metrics.” Vanity metrics like: pageviews,
users, and sessions. These metrics are largely
useless in aggregate.
This workshop will help you tie analytics to goals.
By tying analytics to goals we can take better
action on insights we learn.

4. Overview
Google has three tools that, when combined,
allows us to track and report activity related to our
goals.
• Capture data with Tag Manager
• Store data with Google Analytics
• Report data with Data Studio
We’ll bring all three together in a cohesive
workflow so you can make the most of your data.

5. We Need to Determine…
• What the goals for our business are.
• The strategies that help you achieve those
goals.
• The tactics that advance the strategies.
• Measurements that help us validate tactics
and prove we’re achieving our goals.

6. An example
Goal
Increase applications for program A by 5% YTY.
Strategy
Highlight program A on social media.
Tactic
Tweet about program A and highlight different
aspects of the program to see which resonates.

7. What should we measure?
Simple
Page views using a segment.
Next Level
Tracking individual tweets using campaign
parameters.
Deep Cuts
RFIs and applications using direct and assisted
conversions.

8. Determining What to Measure:
Goals, Who, When and What
What
Who
Goals
When
SWOT
Goals
Mindsets
Personas
Messaging
Funnel

9. Determining What to Measure:
Goals, Who, When and What

10. SWOT Chart
Strengths Weaknesses
ThreatsOpportunities
Helpful to achieving our objectives Harmful to achieving our objectives
External(environment)Internal(organization)

11. SWOT: Questions to Ask
• Are you known for anything? What do you want to be known
for? How do you close the gap if not the same?
• What areas are you best resourced? Worst resourced?
• What critical feedback do you hear most often?
• Is there anything threatening to hold you back?
• In what ways do you feel you’re delivering to stockholders? In
what ways are you falling short?
• Do you have a strong brand?
Source: VisionPoint Marketing

12. Goals: Questions to Ask
• What are your president’s/board’s/dean’s/chair’s priorities?
• What measurable goals are established in your strategic plan?
• Based on SWOT, are there weaknesses that need to be
addressed to achieve goals? Need goals to address these?
• Are there qualitative goals that be institutional priorities (brand
perception, excitement, etc.)?
• What tone best characterize or best drives your institution’s
pursuit of goals?
Source: VisionPoint Marketing

13. Matching Enrollment to Sales
Awareness and attract
Nurture
Convert
Convert
Nurture
Sales FunnelEnrollment Funnel vs.
The sales funnel provides another way of determining what to send and when (aka targeting).

14. Awareness and attract
January
Junior
August
Senior
January
Senior
August
Enrolled
Leads
Admitted
Students
Awareness and Attract
Nurture
Convert
Convert
Nurture
Matching Enrollment to Sales

15. Defining a Goal
For each goal you should provide a note on how
you’ll measure it. These goals will influence how
you measure the success of your digital marketing
efforts. Answer the why, what and how you’ll
measure.
Because we know or think .
We have a goal of .
Which we will measure by .

16. Why are Goals Important?
Goals mean we can track web activity (aka
conversions) that matter to our business.
That web activity can be used in other
platforms like Google Ads to improve the
performance of ads and focus ad spend dollars
on good targets.

17. Keep Goals Simple
Don’t try to measure “all the things” at once.
Prioritize your goals and what you track.
You can build up to more complex interactions
if you find you have time.

18. An example
Goal
Increase applications for program A by 5% YTY.
Strategy
Highlight program A on social media.
Tactic
Tweet about program A and highlight different
aspects of the program to see which resonates.

19. What should we measure?
Basic
Page views for program page.
Next Level
Use a segment to see how SM works. Track
individual tweets using campaign parameters.
Deep Cuts
RFIs and applications using direct and assisted
conversions.

20. Exercise Time
Develop a list of goals for your company. List
high-level strategies, tactics and how you might
measure them. We’ll share in 10 minutes.

21. Why use a Google Workflow?

22. Why use a Google Workflow?
• Connected, customizable and free.
• Easy to track and report goal conversions
across multiple channels.
• It’s a foundation for future efforts. Can expand
tracking and reporting to Google Ads and
Search Console.

23. Tag Manager is free tool that
consolidates your website tags
with a single snippet of code
and lets you manage everything
from a web interface.
Getting to know: Tag Manager

24. Getting to know: Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web
analytics service offered that
tracks and reports website
traffic.

25. Getting to know: Data Studio
Data Studio helps you
transform your raw data into
the metrics and dimensions
needed to create easy-to-
understand and share reports
and dashboards — no code or
queries required.

26. Summing them up
Tag Manager
Makes it easy to track “all the things.”
Google Analytics
Where “all the things” are stored.
Data Studio
How we share our insights based on “all
the things” with others.

27. Diving into Tag Manager

28. Advantages of using TM
• Add one tag and manage others via web. You can then add tags
whenever you want without editing HTML (e.g. Facebook Pixel).
• Pre-built configurations. You can use a boilerplate set-up from
Bounteous to track things like file downloads, clicks on telephone
numbers and how long people watch videos.
• Compatibility. TM has a number of pre-built tags that work with
other products like Hotjar, Crazyegg and LinkedIn.
• Preview mode. See if your changes to TM will work before
deploying them on your production site.
• Conversion tracking. Events and selectors allow for granular
conversion tracking.

29. Exercise Time
Are you going to follow along? Make sure you
have the following:
1. Download Bounteous “GA Complete Pack
for GTM” at bit.ly/2Ki4ctZ
2. Find your property tracking ID in Google
Analytics.

30. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Set-up Tag Manager with Google Analytics and
some extra goodies.

31. Exercise Time
1. Set-up an account.
2. Create a new container.
3. Import the Bounteous boilerplate.
4. Update the GA tracking ID variable.
5. Publish v1 of our Tag Manager code.
6. Find the code to add to our site.

32. Migrating from GA to TM
• Swap GA for TM. Don’t want to run at same time.
• Swapping and/or installation dependent on your
CMS.
• Check out real-time traffic in GA to make sure
analytics are still being captured.
• Check-out events to see if new events are being
captured.
• Don’t do it on a Friday afternoon!

33. Tag Manager Basics
Tags
Tags are segments of code provided by analytics, marketing, and
support vendors to help you integrate their products into your
websites or mobile apps. Invariably HTML code like <script> or
<img> tags.
Triggers
Tags fire based on events, such as when a form is submitted or
when a video is played. Triggers are used to listen for these
events, and they govern when a tag is fired or blocked.
Variables
To a computer programmer, a variable is a symbol in code that
can be used to represent a value that will change.

34. Tag Manager Basics
Tag
Trigger
Variable

35. Tag Manager Basics
Tip: Tags can also be tracking things like form
submissions or clicks on specific links.

36. Tag Manager Basics
Tip: Tracking links works best with a selector.
Give links IDs to make it easier to build triggers.
Selector

37. More TM Examples
Other things you can do:
• Track what's submitted in a form submission.
• Watch for form abandonment.
• Add Google Ads conversions and Google Ads
remarketing tags.
• Load JavaScript only on certain pages. For
example, selectively load a chat solution only on
certain pages.

38. What are your examples?
Take 10 minutes to go through your site and
think of triggers that might help you track goals
using conversions. We’ll share.

39. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Add Facebook Pixel to your site using Tag
Manager. Also, add conversion tracking.

40. Exercise Time
1. Add a Facebook Pixel tag.
2. Create a Facebook conversion tracking tag.

41. Questions?
Are there any questions about Tag Manager
and how to use it?

42. Diving into Google Analytics

43. Google Analytics Basics
• Account
• Properties
• Views
• Reports
• Metrics and Dimensions
• Segments

44. Basics: Filtered Views
Filtered views are good when you routinely do research
with certain segments. All data is “filtered” to match your
criteria. Important: Data is lost when using filters.
• No internal traffic
• Mobile traffic-only
• Specific sections of a site traffic-only
• Search engine traffic-only
• Completely unfiltered view

45. Standardize Data
Filters can be used to standardize data so it’s easier to
work with. Some example of filters to standardize
content:
• Lowercase campaign names
• Lowercase campaign sources
• Lowercase campaign medium
• Lowercase campaign content
• Prepend hostname to request URI**

46. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Review account, property and views. Learn
how to modify a view so captured data is
cleaner and clearer.

47. Exercise Time
1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one
go to bit.ly/2Mhgg0U
2. Review the admin section.
3. Create an unfiltered view.
4. Create a test view.
5. Add a filter to the test view.

48. Basics: Reports
Audience: who came to our site?
• From where geographically?
• Have they been here before?
• How often do they come back?
• What devices do they use?
Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

49. Basics: Reports
Acquisition: how did they get here?
• What channels are driving the
most traffic?
• Which sites are sending traffic to
our site?
• Which campaigns are driving the
most traffic?
Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

50. Basics: Reports
Behavior: what did they look at?
• Which pages?
• Where did they enter and leave?
• What did they search for?
• What actions did they take?
Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

51. Basics: Reports
Conversions: were they successful?
• Did they complete our goals?
• Did they complete a transaction?
• If not, where did they drop out?
Source: Analytics Tune-up presentation

52. Basics: Dimensions vs Metrics
Dimensions
The "what": traffic source, city, pages. An
attribute of your data.
Metrics
The "how many"/"how long": sessions, bounce
rate, time on page. Quantitative measurements.

53. Basics: Dimensions vs Metrics
In this example, the dimension is “Page” (red) and
the metric is “unique pageviews” (orange).

54. The Curse of Metrics
Metrics are very much business/goal dependent.
There is no magic bullet in Google Analytics. You, a
human, need to read the tea leaves.
Sessions, users and pages tend to be worthless in
aggregate. They are vanity metrics that might
impress higher-ups but aren't terribly useful for
achieving most goals.
Ideally, look for goal conversions and growth across
mediums (e.g. search or email).

55. The Curse of Metrics
To improve your site you need to look at engagement metrics
like the following:
• Time on site
• Bounce rate
• Page depth
• Goal completions and conversion rates
• Qualitative data from outside GA
Important: Be critical of what you find. A high bounce rate
isn’t necessarily bad.

56. Tangent: Web Visitor Recordings
One interesting way to collect qualitative data is
via web visitor recordings.

57. Basics: Segments
Segments
Allow you to compare how subsets of traffic are
doing against one another.

58. Review: Google Analytics Basics
• Account
• Properties
• Views
• Reports
• Metrics and Dimensions
• Segments

59. Google Analytics Next Level
• Google Analytics Solution Gallery
• Events
• Goals and conversions

60. Next Level: Solutions Gallery
Analytics gallery has pre-built solutions that you
can use. Dashboards, segments and more.
Important: It only works in Chrome for me. YMMV.

61. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Install a community solution from the Solutions
Gallery. Review how segments and reports
work.

62. Exercise Time
1. Go to bit.ly/2JIAi2v. Should be “Occam’s Razor
Awesomeness.”
2. Click import in top left.
3. Add solution to the test view we created earlier.
4. Add a segment and analyze the data.
5. Go to customization section and review a
report.

63. Next Level: Events
Events are user interactions with content that
can be measured independently from a web
page or a screen load. Downloads, link clicks,
form submissions, and video plays are all
examples of actions you might want to
analyze as Events.

64. Next Level: Events

65. Next Level: Events
Events are comprised of: a category, an action, a
label and an optional value. Example: Save a form
field as an event.
Category: major search
Action: submit
Label: what someone searches for

66. Next Level: Events
Event label
Event category

67. Next Level: Events
Event labels
are search terms

68. Next Level: Conversions
Conversions are a completed activity that is important to
the success of your business. Conversions, for me, are
almost the be-all end-all of Google Analytics.
Conversions can be one of four types:
• Destination (e.g. RFI thank you page)
• Duration on the site
• Pages/screens per session
• Event

69. Next Level: Conversions
Tip: Give your conversions values. If you have
data on what activities lead to a purchase you
can use that to determine a value.

70. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Set-up a goal to track conversions based on
your work earlier in the workshop.

71. Exercise Time
1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one
go to bit.ly/2Mhgg0U
2. Open your test view.
3. Select “Goals.”
4. Set-up a new goal.

72. Next Level: Multi-Channel
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports show how
your marketing channels (i.e., sources of traffic
to your website) work together to create
conversions.
The Multi-Channel Funnels reports are
generated from conversion paths, the
sequences of interactions (i.e., clicks/referrals
from channels) that led up to each conversion
and transaction.

73. Next Level: Multi-Channel

74. Next Level: Multi-Channel
The Top Conversion Paths
report shows all of the
unique conversion paths
(i.e., sequences of channel
interactions) that led to
conversions, as well as the
number of conversions
from each path, and the
value of those conversions.

75. Next Level: Multi-Channel
Tip: Standardize your use of campaign parameters
(e.g. ?utm…) with all links featured on social, email
and digital ads.
url?utm_source=acceptance&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fr-400-2008
• Campaign builder: bit.ly/2QuO6hs
• Create a Google Campaign URL: bit.ly/2WsqUpr

76. Deep Cuts
• Tracking pages with 404 errors
• Custom alerts
• Annotations
• Benchmarking

77. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Set-up a custom report that shows the paths
that are returning 404 errors. Create custom
alerts to be notified of when traffic increases (or
decreases). Add annotations to document
changes.

78. Exercise Time
1. Open your GA profile. If you don’t have one go to
bit.ly/2Mhgg0U .
2. Select Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.
3. Switch to the “Page Title” view. Search for common
404 page title.
4. Create a custom report from result.
5. Open your test view.
6. Create a custom alert and annotation.

79. Questions?
Are there any questions about Google Analytics
and how to use it?

80. Diving into Data Studio

81. Data Studio Basics
Each of these can be filtered independently.
• Report
• Page
• Chart

82. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Learn how sources work by linking your Google
Analytics account to a demo spreadsheet.

83. Exercise Time
1. Open Data Studio by going to datastudio.google.com.
2. Select the “ACME Marketing” sample
3. Click “Use Template”
4. Choose to add a “New Data Source” if you want to link to GA.
Otherwise choose a sample.
5. Select “Google Analytics” from connector listing.
6. Choose the appropriate account, property and view
combination.
7. Explore!

84. Sourcing Data
You can add multiple data sources to a report
and they can be outside the Google product
listing. Including Facebook, Bing, and Hubspot.
This makes Data Studio more powerful than
dashboards in Google Analytics.

85. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Modify what is showing in the overall report by
adding a filter and using a segment.

86. Exercise Time
1. Choose File > Report Settings.
2. Create a filter.
3. Select a segment.

87. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Modify an existing chart and table. Add your
own table of data.

88. Exercise Time
1. Select the map chart.
2. Change the dimension to “Region.”
3. Select the table chart.
4. Change the dimension to “Region.”
5. Add a chart and choose a table.
6. Drag it where you want.
7. Change the dimension to “Keyword.”

89. Exercise Time
Goal of Exercise
Filter a chart and modify its title and how it
looks.

90. Exercise Time
1. Select the “Bounce rate” chart. Duplicate it.
2. Update the Scorecard Filter.
3. Change the Metric and rename it.
4. Update the style of the chart.

91. Don’t Skip This Step!
Important: The first step is to write out and
sketch what you want to report on. Save
yourself agony and work.
The reports you sketch should be tied to your
goals and measurements.

92. Need inspiration?
Check out the Data Studio gallery to get ideas
and to copy reports as a starting point.
datastudio.google.com/gallery

93. Questions?
Are there any questions about Data Studio and
how to use it?

94. Reviewing the Google Workflow

95. THANK YOU / QUESTIONS?
Dave Olsen / david.olsen@mail.wvu.edu
University Relations - Digital Services
May 31, 2019