Using Google Analytics to Develop Effective SEM Campaigns and Prove Value

As anyone working in the SEM field can attest, our industry is one that is held to an unusually high standard of accountability. While other means of traditional advertising and marketing have been considered necessary or automatic for so long that they are rarely evaluated based on the ROI they produce, but simply considered a form of brand awareness or public relations, online activities are often heavily scrutinized. Perhaps it is our own fault for developing so many tracking and analytics programs. After all, online results are only analyzed (sometimes over-analyzed) because they can be.

Because it seems that accountability for SEM activities is not likely to go away any time soon, it’s time to embrace it and view analysis as an opportunity to prove the value of online activities (and ultimately the value of you and your company) to your clients. This can be an overwhelming task considering that many clients have never used an analytics program or even taken the time to fully calculate ROI for various marketing activities. In many ways, it is like being handed a box of thousands of puzzle pieces and told to figure out how they fit together to make one large picture.

Fortunately, Google offers a solution for tracking online activity that is not only comprehensive, it’s free. Anyone who has ever shopped around for analytics programs knows that it is rare to find one that is both comprehensive and inexpensive (It is not uncommon to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars per month for a quality program.). While Google Analytics is by no means perfect and it has frequently been criticized for understating results, I believe it is one of the most under-rated programs out there. Once your account is set up, you are able to track how visitors found a site, how they navigated through it, calculate CPA and ROI, and ultimately determine which marketing campaigns are most effective….and did I mention it’s free?

Setting up your account to track various marketing campaigns is relatively quick and easy, with Google even providing a handy URL Builder tool. After tagging all or your campaigns and setting up goals and funnels, you can begin to answer some of your client’s most fundamental questions: Where is site traffic coming from? Where are visitors abandoning the sales process? How much is the average online sale? Which programs are producing the best ROI?

As we all know, sometimes seeing is believing. Google Analytics allows you to grant account and report access to various users. This allows you to share data with clients as you see fit and give them a visual representation of the status of their campaigns. You can tell them that X% of their conversions came from a specific campaign, but seeing that data neatly organized in easy to read charts and graphs can help drive your point home and prove the value of your efforts.

As always, there are numerous opportunities for customizing your Google Analytics program to account for different variables. However, it has been said that marketing is “half art, half science.” That means that gathering data is only half the battle. While it is a vital part of determining which campaigns are producing the most traffic, conversions, etc., it is up to you to draw conclusions from that data and optimize campaigns accordingly. That is where the greatest opportunity lies to set yourself apart from the competition and prove your value to clients.
[tags] Google Analytics, Web Analytics, SEM Campaigns [/tags]