Google Analytics - Part 4: Creating A Measurement Plan

03/08/2016

Articles in this series:

• Part 1: The Fundamentals
• Part 2: Core Analysis Techniques
• Part 3: Conversion & Conversion Attribution
• Part 4: Creating A Measurement Plan
• Part 5: How Google Analytics Works
• Part 6: Key Metrics Dimensions Defined
• Part 7: Understanding Your Account Structure
• Part 8: Setting up filters
• Part 9: Using Goals
• Part 10: Reporting

Following on from our previous posts in this series, this month we look at how to take all the digital analysis principles we've identified so far and create an ongoing measurement plan. Knowing how to use a tool like Google Analytics is great, but if you don't have a suitable plan for putting these skills into practise, it won't have any significant impact on your business. The whole point of using analytics is to determine whether you're making good business decisions or bad business decisions, which is why a structured plan to regularly review this is very important.

Regardless of the size of your business, you will need someone (or multiple people) to implement your plan on a regular basis. If your business is small, this person could be you or someone you've delegated the task to. Regardless of who it is however, they will need to understand your business objectives and strategies, the principles of digital analytics we've discussed in previous posts, and ideally have competency using computers and software systems.

Google recommends using the five step model for measurement planning developed by the Indian entrepreneur, Avinash Kaushik. Let's look at the five steps in detail.

Step 1 - Document your business objectives

The most important place to start is with your primary business objectives. You should ask yourself “why does this business exist and what is its purpose”?

Let's use an example of a new Italian restaurant and take-away business. The restaurant's business objectives are:

• To create an exciting and truly authentic Italian dining experience.
• To offer a fast, good quality take-away service.
• Grow the business financially to allow for further investment in the premises, more marketing endeavours and higher salaries for the employees.

Step 2 - Identify strategies and tactics

Once you have clear written business objectives, the next step is to formulate the strategies and tactics you will use to achieve them. 

Following on from our restaurant example above, the strategies and tactics they are planning to use to achieve their objectives are:

Strategies	Tactics Used
To attract diners to eat in the restaurant	Special offers for dining will be advertised on social media to try and gain new followers and attract first-time customers
To break into the local takeaway market	A new website will be built with the primary objective of competing in the local search engine results for 'restaurant' and 'takeaway'

 

Step 3 - Choose your Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)

The next step is to identify the specific metrics you will use to measure the success of your tactics. These metrics are called Key Performance Indicators (KPIs). Let's continue with our example and add the KPI's for our restaurant to the table.

Strategies	Tactics Used	KPIs
To attract diners to eat in the restaurant	Special offers for dining will be advertised on social media to try and gain new followers and attract first-time customers	Revenue generated from the restaurant
		Average value of a diner's bill
		Number of followers on social media
		Number of voucher downloads
To break into the local takeaway market	A new website will be built with the primary objective of competing in the local search engine results for 'restaurant' and 'takeaway'	Revenue generated from takeaways
		Number of visits to the website from searches for ‘takeaway'

 

Step 4 - Choose data segments

Using the skills we covered in our previous article on Core Analysis Techniques, here we decide on the data segments that are going to provide the most useful information in understanding how well our tactics are working.

Let's add these segments to the table for our restaurant example:

Strategies	Tactics Used	KPIs	Data Segments of Interest
To attract diners to eat in the restaurant	Special offers for dining will be advertised on social media to try and gain new followers and attract first-time customers	Revenue generated from the restaurant	Marketing channel (e.g. search engine, email, referring websites etc.)	New vs. returning customers	Geography (where is our business coming from in the local area?)
		Average value of a diner's bill
		Number of followers on social media
		Number of voucher downloads
To break into the local takeaway market	A new website will be built with the primary objective of competing in the local search engine results for 'restaurant' and 'takeaway'	Revenue generated from takeaways
		Number of visits to the website from searches for ‘takeaway'

 

Step 5 - Choose targets

The final step is to assign targets to each of your KPI's so you know what you're aiming for and can regularly assess if you're on track or not.

Once your plan is complete you should review it to ensure you are able to implement it fully. This might means delegating specific tasks to your staff, purchasing new hardware, or liaising with whoever is responsible for managing your website and marketing channels. For example, you may realise you don't have access to your Google Analytics data regarding your website, or you may not understand how to use the tool yourself. 360 can provide additional training services to train you how to use Google Analytics yourself. Alternatively, if you don't feel like you have the time or inclination to do this, we can setup automatic reports to provide the relevant information you need on a regular basis. Why not get in touch to discuss this further?