This article was contributed by Abhyudaya Tripathi.

Google Analytics is a web analytics tool by Google that allows one to track and report on a site’s performance. Here’s how to use it to support your marketing in 2016.

Ever since its launch (November 2005), it has become the most preferred and widely used web analytics tool on the Internet. Integrated with AdWords, it allows users to inspect online marketing campaigns by tracking landing page quality and conversion goals. The conversion goals primarily include lead generation and sales.

With the aid of Google Analytics, you can reassess, revise, and rework on your marketing strategy to create a win-win situation for your business.

Here’s exactly how Google Analytics can support your marketing strategy in 2016.

Setup a Goal for Your Marketing Strategy

Well, for getting off to a good start, first you need to setup a goal for your marketing strategy.

Now, you must be wondering, “How to do it?”

Don’t worry! You have Google Analytics, and it allows you to:

• Create a new goal
• Configure goal
• Revise or edit a goal
• Record status
• Share & import goal

For more details, you can click here to learn more.

View Your Critical Analytics Data

It is always valuable to see your data as it gives you an idea whether things are working the way you want.

With Google Analytics, you can view your most important analytics data every time, and anytime you log into your analytics. You can customize your dashboard area, in the case; you want to check more than one piece of data.

Further, you can create a new panel and add multiple widgets that allow and empower you to check and monitor data with convenience.

Track Campaigns That Are Yielding the Best Results

Google Analytics allows you to create an advanced segment where you can watch the campaign that brings high traffics and conversions. You can also customize segments as per your requirement.

For instance, if you want to check how much traffic your website is receiving from local search directories, then you can create a custom segment. For creating it, first click on ‘Add Segment’ button, then click on ‘New Segment’ button, and then you can customize your filter as per your requirement.

Thus, by creating custom segments, you can check ROI of your campaigns so that you could make the required changes in your marketing strategy.

Identify Your Visitors’ Location

For getting assured success in your marketing campaign, an identification of audiences is the most crucial factor.

With Google Analytics, you can easily check the location, demographics of your visitors. It will also show you the most refined worldwide results concerning average time and bounce rates on the sites. Google Analytics gives you a tremendous control to explore results – country-wise and location-wise – to identify your maximum audience.

If you wish to view your visitors country-wise on the panel, you will find an option ‘Acquisition’ on the left side of your account page. Expand it and click on ‘All Traffic’ then go to ‘Source/Medium’ and finally choose ‘Country’ as your ‘Secondary Dimension.’

Learn What Visitors Search On Your Site

To create a win-win situation for your business, you need to think creatively and go beyond the traditional ethics of marketing. For instance, in the current scenario, almost every company knows how to find the keywords that drive traffic to the sites. However, only a few know what their visitors look for at their website.

Well, with the aid of Google Analytics, you can easily track down what visitors search on your site. You can click on the ‘View Settings’ under ‘Admin’ tab, then turn ‘ON’ your ‘Site Search Tracking’ and place parameter ‘s’ as your ‘Query Parameter’ in the end.

Check What People Click On the Most

It is always interesting to check ‘where’ and ‘what’ your visitors clicked at on your site. You can see it through ‘In-Page Analytics’ under the ‘Behavior’ menu.

Google Analytics allows you to visualize the clicks’ percentage of every internal link on your site. Further, you can also check the additional details by hovering over each link. By doing so, you will be able to understand which part of your site is most popular so that you can place valuable links at these locations to receive maximum clicks.

Highlight Your Top Content

With the help of Google Analytics, you can quickly identify the piece of content that holds your visitors for the maximum time. Besides this, you can also identify which one is not performing up to the expectations so that you could make necessary changes to them.
You can see your top content by clicking ‘All Pages’ under ‘Site Content’ Menu of ‘Behavior’ section.

This feature helps you in generating or modifying content to sustain the zeal of your potential buyers.

Identify Your Least Performing Pages

You can explore your top ‘Exit Pages’ under ‘Site Content’ menu of ‘Behavior’ section.

Google Analytics provides you the functionality to identify your worst or less performing pages where you can quickly notice arrivals and departures on your underperforming pages.

Don’t get demoralized after finding out some pages are not performing up to the mark. Instead, seek it as an opportunity to improve those pages to achieve higher success.

Determine Where Buyers Face Problem While Making Purchase

Google Analytics provides you the opportunity to review your checkout process. Knowing where buyers abandon the shopping cart is crucial concerning conversion rates.

If purchase related problems pertain to your site, then Google Analytics provides you the feature of ‘Goal Funnel.’ By using it, you can set up a goal for your website.

All you need to do is to click on the ‘Admin’ tab, and then click on ‘Goals’ where you can create a new ‘Goal Type’ of ‘URL Destination.’ Once you are finished with all the settings, do not forget to check the ‘Use Funnel’ box.

Through this setup, you can find the reason when and why people deny going further during the purchase process. By doing all these, you will come to know the things you need to work on to boost your sales.

Identify Whether You Need a Mobile Site

By using Google Analytics, you can surely check whether your business needs a mobile site or not.

For this, you can expand ‘Mobile’ under ‘Audience’ then click on ‘Overview’ to discover the percentage of visits your website is getting through mobile devices.

We all know that in the future times, searches through mobile devices are going to explode.

Case Study

LA TIENDA, a renowned online food retailer, with the help of Google Analytics had increased e-commerce sales by 70 percent in the critical regions.

By using Google Analytics, you can supercharge your marketing and we hope these points will prove beneficial for your business. If you have any questions, let us know!

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Abhyudaya Tripathi is a digital marketing expert with over 8 years of experience, and presently he is an Associate Director at ResultFirst Organization.