Information is the most valuable currency in the digital marketing realm. Even more important than followers and audience. Sometimes, the difference between a successful and fruitful strategy and a failed one narrows to simple data.
Data quality and its context mean the world is making an informed decision. Consequently, businesses and large corporations spend millions to gather user information for better strategizing.
But what about the smaller fish in the pound, entrepreneurs and startups? Google Analytics is the answer to your worries. Google Analytics is a powerful analytical tool from the Internet giant Google. Businesses can use GA for free. Some robust social media management tools like Adublisher come equipped with Google Analytics.
The dream team: Social media and Google Analytics.
You might be wondering what’s all the fuss about the fusion of an information-providing tool and a platform for fun and sharing memes and, occasionally, business promotions. Just take a look at some of the GA statistics for better understanding.
- Google Analytics is the number 1 data insight tool being utilized by small businesses.
- 89% of the top 1 million websites use Google Analytics.
- 55.49% of all websites use Google Analytics for insightful decision-making.
- Marketing is the leading industry using GA for information.
- More than 4 million websites in the US use GA.
Let’s combine these stats with social media and see what comes out.
- There are 4.98 billion social media users in the world.
- Facebook is responsible for 74.64% of all website traffic referrals from social media.
- Instagram is the go-to forum for 62.3% of people to research brands.
- Pinterest is where 85% of the pinners run to start a new project.
- 85% of businesses use social insights to make new decisions.
It doesn’t take rocket science to connect the dots here and see why marketers consider the social media and GA marriage to be a match made in heaven for their businesses.
What can you achieve with Google Analytics in your social media efforts?
Marketers are utilizing Google Analytics to get a holistic view of what their consumers want from you. It helps businesses to bridge the gap between brand and end-user. Let’s dive into what you can achieve with GA and see what questions can be answered.
- What is the total traffic on my website?
- What is the individual traffic on a landing page?
- How many leads are generated?
- Where are these leads coming from?
- How many of the leads were converted?
- How is the user’s experience, his path across the website?
These answers help marketers better understand the results of their marketing efforts and see what needs to be done to improve them. Connecting social media with Google Analytics, what can it do?
- Which social media platform is most beneficial to my goals?
- How much return on investment (ROI) is being generated?
- What type of content is resonating with the audience?
Once you have answered all of these questions, you will get a comprehensive review of the social media strategy you put in motion. Based on the following indicators, this information summary can lay a path for a new and even better game plan.
Consumer funnel.
The consumer funnel can be divided into three basic categories: the top funnel, the mid-funnel, and the bottom funnel of the audience. The top funnel of the audience means the organic reach, website traffic, engagements, and time spent on the website.
Note: Time spent on a website is a significant contributor to the ranking of websites. The mid-funnel is for the next step. This is where the reach gets more valuable and converts to leads. These leads give quantifiable potential conversions or ROIs. The final and the bottom funnel is the most valuable one. The bottom funnel shows how many leads ACTUALLY convert into sales and conversion.
The combination of these three funnels in the report helps marketers audit the social media progress broadly. These reports are then presented to the higher management to assess what they spent and earned in return.
Get a better discernment of the target audience.
Based on these factors and what converts, marketers can better understand their audience and its preferences. GA reports mention age demographics, regions, behavior, shopping patterns, and other unique attributes to assist marketers.
Businesses and marketers use these indicators to create an ideal persona and curate content strategy. The content created in this manner resonates with the audience and fosters a lasting relationship.
A broad spectrum view.
Suppose you are seeing a lot of engagements on your social media pages but a very minimal conversion. This scenario will play completely opposite for a new brand and a well-known company. How? If you are a new brand, getting a lot of views and engagements is encouraging.
It puts you on the right track, leading to better conversions— a positive indicator.
Whereas, if you are a well-known brand, it is alarming that you are only getting engagements and views— a negative indicator— immediate changes must be implemented. With contextual reports from Google Analytics, marketers can get a broader view of their efforts and realize what needs to be done early.
What does a Google Analytics report consist of?
Google Analytics offers a detailed overview of your social media strategy performance in the form of different reports that can be generated from the dashboard. The process is easy if you use a social media management tool like Adublisher, equipped with GA.
Following are the types of reports you can generate from Google Analytics,
Overview.
This is an overall report of the social media conversions from your campaign. It contains the number of conversions, interactions, and referrals from social media.
Referrals.
The referrals report provides a detailed overview of which social media platforms are responsible for how much traffic. How much traffic came from Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest to help you understand the top-performing channel for you.
Landing pages.
This is a report of the traffic to a specific landing page, where the consumer came from, what he did, where he exited the pages, etc.
Conversions.
Conversions report is what interests marketers and businesses alike. There are several types of conversion,
- Conversions: The overall number of conversions from social media.
- Assisted social conversions: Assisted conversions show the consumers that converted by using the link posted on the social media platforms.
- Last interaction social conversions: These conversions are the most lucrative ones. They show the social media conversions that brought revenue ROI.
Plugins.
You see the bright highlighted social media buttons on a website. The plugin report shows how many people clicked on those buttons. Users use these buttons to either navigate to the business’s social account or share the content on that landing page.
You can see what content works better and which social media account it’s being shared on.
User path.
User path is the report on where the user came from, how he navigated on your website, how much time he spent on the website, where he exited, and whether he converted. The user path or the consumer journey is critical to assessing the quality of content and CTAs on a landing page.
Depending on these insights, marketers focus on the UI/UX of the website and create a clear path for their visitors to follow in order to increase conversions and minimize bounce rates.
How to add Google Analytics to your website?
You can add Google Analytics to your website for free by inserting a snippet of code into the header and body of every landing page or the CMS theme of your overall website if you’re using one.
Go to analytics.google.com and click the “Start measuring” button to start the process.
- Enter your account name and give data-sharing preferences.
- Click Next.
- Enter the business website under “Property name.”
- Give your time zone and select the currency.
- Click Next.
You can use Google Analytics 4 or return to Universal Statistics by clicking the Show Advanced Options. This guide will stay with the latest version, GA 4.
- After clicking Next, move on to the Business details.
- Select category and number of employees.
- Click “Next” and select your business objectives.
- A popup will appear. Agree with the terms and conditions to move on to the next step.
- Choose the platform to select data from— Web.
- Enter your website and stream name in the data stream popup.
- Select your preferences and click “Create Stream”.
- You will get a GA 4 ID and the instructions to add the tag to your website.
You can add a tag from Google Tag Manager to your website if you don’t have coding knowledge. Go to the Tag Manager from the right-corner option button. Create an account, give the necessary details, and you will get a tag code.
To add your Social Media accounts with GA 4. Head to “Admin” in the bottom left corner of the dashboard. From here, you can add your social media to Google Analytics.
Google Analytics With Adublisher.
Adublisher is a reliable social media management tool that can help you avoid this lengthy and tedious process. Just create a free account to access Google Analytics from your dashboard.
