Google Analytics is free and that’s a wonderful thing. But it does mean people can often undervalue the reports and the benefits that a truly structured approach to analytics brings to a business.

Sadly, more often than not, a developer or webmaster adds the default GA tracking code to a website and leaves it at that. Trawling through the reports to find any kind of insight is left up to an analyst or marketing executive – who, later, attempts to find some kind of meaning in this sea of data – without any understanding of the overall business strategy.

Having worked with companies of all sizes, I’ve consistently seen this lack of planning as a major roadblock to the success of an analytics implementation – which, in turn, affects the visibility you have around your digital strategy. Without an understanding of business goals and distilling these into KPIs that can be used to measure them, you have no targets – and you have no clarity on the way forward. To put it simply – analytics planning is at the heart of a truly measurable digital strategy.

At Playlab we follow a tried and tested process that places a Measurement Framework at the centre of your Website Optimisation and digital strategies. This Measurement Framework is based on work from Stéphane Hamel’s research paper titled The Web Analytics Maturity Model, where we ask the following questions:

1) Overall business strategy

What is the business trying to accomplish?

2) Goals and objectives

What are the short and long term objectives to achieve the strategy?

3) Key business drivers

What are the important execution steps to meet the goals & objectives

4) Key performance indicators

What measures of success are tied to the drivers?

5) Supporting metrics

What are the detailed measures that feed and augment the KPIs?

Working through these questions with you, we are able to develop a Measurement Framework for your digital strategy – consisting of Goals, KPIs, and Targets, among other things. With web analytics providing the basis for our insights and recommendations, we are then able to continually enhance your site based on these measurable objectives. This ongoing process should apply not only to the traditionally more marketing-led area of conversion optimisation but to your entire business strategy.

It is important to identify goals, with attributable value, throughout the site that reflect the business objectives. Typically these are “conversions” – like a lead acquisition or a sale – but can also be attributed to softer objectives, such as an improved user experience or increased perception of the brand. We call these Macro and Micro Conversions – where Macro Conversions often reflect revenue and Micro Conversions reflect more nebulous factors like “engagement”. By identifying measurable goals for all our business objectives, we can be sure to distilling the essence of your ongoing digital strategies into a Measurement Framework that is a point of continued reference for the evolution of your website.

So – get in touch today to talk about how we can help bring some structure to your analytics planning and start to see measurable success in your digital strategy and ongoing website enhancement.