Google Analytics offers a variety of helpful reports that can improve your online marketing presence, help you better understand your website visitors, and ultimately increase leads.
In two recent posts, we shared tips on how to use the Behavior and Audience reports within Google Analytics to improve your website performance. In this post, we’ll share a case study demonstrating how to use the Acquisition report within Google Analytics to determine the most effective traffic sources for your website.
Asking these three key questions within the Google Analytics Acquisition report will identify which sources of traffic you should focus on to increase your incoming leads.
- What traffic sources are actually benefiting my business?
- What should I add to my online marketing mix to gain more quality website traffic?
- Are digital ads a good investment for my business?
First, what traffic sources are actually benefiting my company?
Organic traffic - traffic from Google search results, direct traffic, referrals, paid search, and email marketing could all be excellent traffic sources for your business. That said, it’s best to know which sources are generating leads so that you can focus on that traffic source in your marketing efforts.
For example, we had a home services client with the business goals of increasing incoming lead volume and becoming a top 5 home services company in their city in the next 3 years. After our team reviewed which traffic sources were benefiting them the most, we discovered the following:
- Organic traffic had the best on-site performance metrics of all sources but was the lowest in volume.
- Social media produced the highest amount of traffic of all sources but had very poor on-site performance metrics.
- The website received no traffic from email marketing or paid advertising.
Second, what should I add to my online marketing mix to gain more quality website traffic?
After learning the client’s social media traffic performed poorly on the site we suggested the following:
- Invest a portion of the money that was being spent on social media and allocate it towards Google and Facebook Ads. The data from these ad campaigns could then be used to create website copy, website navigation changes, and new offers on the website.
- Invest in ongoing Search Engine Optimization to improve website traffic in the long term. This would allow them to grow their website traffic over time and help them achieve their long-term business goal of being a top 5 home services company in their city within the next 3 years.
- Send a monthly email marketing campaign to their client base. The best-performing offers from Google and Facebook ads could be used in the emails.
Third, are digital ads a good investment for my company?
If you’re struggling to produce organic, social, or email traffic to your site, you may want to consider digital ads on Google, Facebook, Instagram, etc. In fact, recent statistics predict that mobile ad spend in the United States will hit $156.38 billion by 2023. Paid ads can be a great way to attract high-quality and high-intent traffic to your site.
Additionally, even if you are generating impactful traffic from other channels, digital ads could generate a significant increase in your overall traffic and incoming lead volume.
If you do choose to use digital ads, we recommend you review Google Analytics Behavior report best practices to ensure you know what products and services to feature in your ads and what pages you should direct paid ad traffic to.
For this particular client, we recommended they implement digital ads to capture more leads and increase their brand recognition. They were able to do this without increasing their overall marketing budget by reallocating the money they were spending on social media towards their ad spend.
Results
By implementing the various changes to the digital marketing strategy mentioned above, our home services client experienced these results:
- 120% increase in website traffic from Google search results
- 220% increase in leads from their website
- 10% increase in repeat customers in 12 months
Next Steps
If your business is struggling to find success with your online marketing efforts, schedule a time to speak with one of your specialists.
We will review your analytics and overall business goals and craft an impactful strategy that will increase your website traffic, incoming lead volume, and improve your overall marketing spend ROI.
