Turn media insight into action

  • Home
  • Expertise
  • About
  • Pricing
  • Blog
  • Contact

Apr 01 2015

Using Google Analytics to measure outcomes against your PR objectives

Is this relevant to you:
·      
Are you interested in knowing more about what people
do when they see your proactive PR outreach?
·      
Do you have a specific goal in mind when you plan an
outreach campaign?
·      
Does that goal involve some sort of interaction on
your web properties?
If the answer is ‘yes’ to even one of these questions
you probably use or have someone using Google Analytics to track your users.
Alternatively you might be using Adobe Analytics to track responses, which is
good as it is more challenging to use than Google Analytics (GA), and so you
probably a very competent PR web data analyst.
Regrettably that does not mean GA is easy. At first
glance it yields some results but feels like there lots of duplication and unnecessary
complication. Please persevere. If you are the right organisation asking the
right questions it will help you, a lot.
I am not going to tell you how to open an account,
configure settings and all that kind of thing. Get over to GA tutorial area (https://analyticsacademy.withgoogle.com/course01). Though to go from
a standing start to competent will involve quite a few hours.
My intention is to offer some ideas of what GA can do
to help a PR person. In particular around objective setting, and goal and
conversion measurement.
A PR manager might be wondering if a single person can
handle both Twitter and Facebook. And if one gets better results, should it be
allocated more resources. To do that you will need data, likely from GA.
Let’s presume there is a PR plan, campaign objectives
and a selection of measurable goals. These might be White Paper downloads,
contact form leads, additions to a mailing list at the micro end or e-commerce
sales at the macro level.
GA will allow you to set up each of these as goals and
track the results. GA is quite keen on the concept of ‘valuing’ intangible
actions on your site. For some this might be where things get a bit
controversial. Now I am no fan of AVE’s, and the like. Setting a value on
something like a White Paper download could be like trying to value of Twitter
follower. And that was an argument which did not end well!
It would not be correct to value these interactions in
the first instance. After a number of campaigns you might be able to make some
fairly objective assumptions. Over time you may able to estimate how many of a
certain type of interaction results for particular organisations in a sale if
there is a tangible linkage.
For example, if you are a B2B provider you will
probably have an idea that for every 20 service demonstrations you get a sale.
You will know the average sale value and so can estimate the value of a
demonstration, hence the value of that type of goal. But it does not work for
everything so you must discriminate.
There are a selection of other facets you can check
alongside you goal conversions including relative new to returning visitors, if
they came by search what term did they search under and what it the general
level of satisfaction with your site (bounce rate). There are a selection of
attribution models you might consider to understand the progression successful
buyers take and where others drop out.
My advice is to become familiar with Google Analytics.
PR can benefit from access to web analytics if success is getting people onto a
web property.  You really need to hold
the keys to this stuff and not rely on other departments.

Thank you for viewing the article and I very much hope you found it interesting. Please don’t hesitate to offer a comment, particularly if I get things wrong!  It would also be great if you wanted to subscribe to future blog updates.

Written by Michael Blowers · Categorized: Google Analytics · Tagged: Google Analytics, PR analysis, PR goals, PR insight, PR measurement

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Thanks, please prove you are not a robot * Time limit is exhausted. Please reload the CAPTCHA.

Updates by Email

Please complete this form to sign-up to receive my blog posts by email. You can unsubscribe at any time and your email address will not be used for any other purpose.

About

Media analyst with a half an eye on what's coming down the road. Often caught out but always fascinated by the possibilities. Read More…

  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Google+
  • LinkedIn
  • Twitter
  • YouTube

Recent Tweets

Tweets by @michaelblowers

Tweets by @MediaEvaluatio1

Categories

  • #PRstack
  • AMEC
  • CIPR
  • Events
  • Future PR/Comms
  • Google Analytics
  • Google Cloud Natural Language
  • Influencer metrics
  • Integrated Evaluation Framework
  • Lead generation
  • Media Analysis
  • Media Evaluation
  • Media Research
  • PESO model
  • PR Awards
  • PR Evaluation
  • PR Measurement
  • PR Tools
  • Public Relations
  • Sentiment measurement
  • SMART Objectives
  • Social media listening
  • Uncategorized

Archives

  • Home
  • Blog
  • Expertise
  • About
  • Pricing
  • Awards
  • In-house
  • PR Agencies
  • Contact
  • Cookies, etc

Copyright © 2023 · Altitude Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.Accept Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy
Necessary
Always Enabled