Ten Ways to Show Inbound Marketing ROI with Multi-Channel Funnels

Often, people find you through blogs, social media and other forms of inbound marketing, but don't buy from you that day. When they do come back and do business with you, your inbound marketing channel may not get the credit it deserves for its role in the sale. As a result, inbound marketing ROI often tends to be understated. 

That is, until Google rolled out Multi-Channel Funnels last week. Rejoice all those who love great content, then take a look at these ten ways to show inbound marketing ROI with Multi-Channel Funnels from Google Analytics.

Many Roads Lead to Rome (and Conversion)

Inbound marketing may not always be the channel that converts, but it's often responsible for paving the way to new business. Multi-Channel Funnels provides a new way to see how your visitors interact with your website as they work their way through the buying cycle. Now you can see which channels initiate and assist in getting new business as well as the channels that close the sale.

Here are ten ways to use Google's new Multi-Channel Funnels to illustrate the rich interactions inbound marketing creates and to show inbound marketing ROI.

1. Use Multi-Channel Funnels with Your Current Goals

The new Multi-Channel Funnels work right out-of-the-box with your existing goals from your Google Analytics account. If you've set up a goal on your profile, these new reports apply retro-actively with no further configuration. As a result, reports like the Top Conversion Paths reports can be filtered to only display data for the goals you select.

2. Create Custom Conversion Segments for Insights Galore

What fun would Google Analytics be without the ability to apply segments? The new Multi-Channel Funnel reports allow you to create and apply custom conversion segments to all your reports to hone in on specific channels or sources of traffic. For example, you can create a segment to report all conversions where the first interaction with the visitor ever was through Twitter. Segments like this are awesome for showing the value of social media and other inbound marketing channels and the effect on the bottom line.

3. Identify Where People "Meet" Your Brand

Are you making a good impression when people new to your brand find you online? Use the custom conversion segments to create multiple segments to highlight which channels your visitors see first when dealing with your brand online.

4. Learn the Duration of the Buying Cycle

People don't just suddenly get the urge to buy things on the Internet. Often the customer buying cycle can go on for weeks, months or years before prospects finally show up on your site and convert. Google Analytics shows the duration of the buying cycle with the Time Lag report. Applying conversion segments to this report can show how some channels lead to new business more quickly than others.

5. Discover When You Earn People's Trust

Google Analytics now also reports on the number of interactions with a website that occurred prior to conversion. This is great for content marketers, as inbound marketing builds trust over time to earn the sale. How many times did a person visit your site to read a blog post or watch a video before contacting you to do business? Yeah, Google Multi-Channel Funnel reports help with that too.

 6. Determine Direct and Indirect Effects of Channels

Inbound marketing channels often have both direct and indirect outcomes. Using multiple custom conversion segments, it's easy to show the full picture of channels like organic search. In this example, organic search not only converts directly about 60% of my website conversions, but it's also responsible for introducing my brand to another 7.5% of my converting visitors that went on to convert through channels other than search. As a whole, organic search plays a part in nearly three quarters of all my conversions at some point.

7. Use Custom Channel Groupings to Segment Channels

In addition to custom conversion segments, Google Analytics also allows you to create custom channel groupings to go beyond Google's default channel definitions (e.g., source, medium). For example, I created channel groupings to split out my organic traffic into channel groupings that show regular organic traffic, organic traffic that include "Squarespace" as a keyword and branded organic traffic (e.g., organic traffic containing keywords like "josh braaten" or "big picture web").

8. Summarize Your Helper Channels with Assisted Conversions

Google Analytics offers the Assisted Conversions Report to show which channels help support conversions on your site in addition to those that are directly responsible. Find the unsung heroes of your website or blog by highlighting the top assiting channels with these new reports.

9. Map Out the Well-Traveled Roads

One of my favorite Multi-Channel Funnel reports is the Top Conversion Paths report. Apply your custom channel groupings and your most common paths to conversion magically jump out of the report. People typically find my content within the search results (mostly my Squarespace how-to's), seek me directly, or find me through another site on the web before converting. This doesn't come as a surprise to me, but it's sure nice to see it quantified in the report.

10. Find the Common Paths for Each Goal

Identifying the most commonly traveled inroads to your site is a good first step, but you'll want to look at your Top Conversion Paths report filtered by each goal as well. I was stunned to see the different paths people took to fill out my contact form, download my Squarespace eBook, or leave a comment on one of my blog posts. This type of information could become invaluable in fine-tuning a content creation and sharing strategy.

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These are just some of the first few uses I could think of to show inbound marketing ROI with the new Google Analytics Multi-Channel Funnels, but I'm sure there are countless more. Inbound marketers, now is the time to embrace the power of web analytics and to jump in to Google Analytics if you haven't already. 

If you're already a Google Analytics geek like me, what will you do with Multi-Channel Funnels?

How to Add Google Webmaster Tools to Squarespace

Your strategy for adding new content to your blog or website should constantly be evolving. The web is measurable, so why continue to blindly do things the same way? Why not see how people react to the content you create using web measurement tools and then leverage those insights to drive future content creation projects? Google Webmaster Tools is one such measurement tool. Let's take a look at the benefits of Webmaster Tools and how to install them on Squarespace.

What is Google Webmaster Tools?

When you think of online measurement tools, you probably think of web analytics tools such as Google Analytics that measure the traffic you get to your website. These tools are important, but can only do so much. Google Webmaster Tools shows how Google sees your site on the web and provides a handful of reporting and administrative tools that provide many benefits to webmasters that use the free service.

Installing Google Webmaster Tools on Squarespace

If you use Squarespace to manage your blog or website, follow these simple steps to claim your website on Google Webmaster Tools. If you use something else, the steps are similar but slightly different for most web publishing tools, so it can't hurt to follow along.

Start by heading over to Google Webmaster Tools (you'll need to log in or create a Google account). Find the link to Add a site and enter the website you wish to claim (e.g., www.shellysremodeling.com). Select Continue.

If you're using the same Google account for both Google Analytics and Google Webmaster Tools, you can simply select the Verify option within the Recommended method tab. If not, click on the Alternate methods tab.

Select the option to Add a meta tag to your site's home page and copy the verification code within the block of text that appears in the instructions.

Now log in to your Squarespace website and select Website Settings from the Website Management menu.

Click on the Code Injection tab and paste your Google Webmaster Tools verification code in the code injection text box for your website header code. Hit Update Information to save the changes.

Go back to your Google Webmaster Tools window and press the Verify button. You should see a screen like this.

Select the Continue link to visit your Google Webmaster Tools menu and begin supplementing your web analytics data with the extra insights GWT provides.

Google Webmaster Tools can show you which search terms drive traffic to your site, which sites on the web are linking to you, and many, many more insightful nuggets for improving the content of your website or blog. Spend a few minute installing Google Webmaster Tools on your Squarespace site, then come back and share your thoughts on Google tool for website owners in the comments.

How to Use Google Docs to Automate Nearly Anything

You've probably heard of Google Docs. Chances are, you even use them. But how well do you really know Google's cloud-based suite of Office-like software? I recently discovered a powerful feature of Google Docs that will allow me to automate many of my monthly tasks and, as a result, save me scores of hours each year. Read on to learn how you can use Google Docs to automate nearly anything on the web.

The Secret to Saving Time Through Automation

The secret to saving time with Google Docs is through automation with APIs (application program interface). An API is a way to use simple programming building blocks to pull information or perform commands with an application.

For example, each month you may like to know how many Likes your blog posts have received. You could manually tally the Likes for each post at the beginning and end of each month and subtract the difference, but this would take time. Or you could use the Facebook API and a Google Docs spreadsheet to create a list of your blog posts and pull in the corresponding number of Likes in a matter of minutes. 

Track your competitors' social media campaigns with APIs. Combine data from Google Analytics and SEOmoz with APIs. Track prices of Amazon.com products with APIs. Build prototype web tools with APIs. Basically, a life of automated information glory awaits those who master the API.

Why spend hours each month with boring, repetitive tasks when you can set it up once through an API and spend all that time on more productive tasks? Thankfully, it's now a lot easier to break through the API learning curve with Google Docs. And Google Docs Unleashed is the perfect way to get started.

From Zero to API with Google Docs Unleashed

Up until a few days ago, I knew about APIs but had no idea how to use them. Then I found Google Docs Unleashed through a recent AppSumo deal. (If you didn't know, AppSumo is a popular daily deal site for software. Just provide your email address and you'll get access to ridiculous deals on cool products such as Google Docs Unleashed.)

Google Docs Unleashed is a series of brief web videos that explains the basics of using APIs with Google Docs, produced by AppSumo and Tom Critchlow, Vice President of Operations at SEO consulting firm, Distilled. The beauty of these videos is that you can use Google Docs to do your API dirty work instead of requiring a complicated architecture of web servers and code.

The screenshot above from Google Docs Unleashed may seem intimidating, but each step is easy to understand with the helpful visual format of the video.

Tom walks viewers through each step in the process, highlighting and explaining the actual code and what it means. Everything from his screen is captured in the video, so you can pause, replay and analyze any part of the process in full detail.

You don't have to be a developer (not by a long shot) to use the tips presented in Google Docs Unleashed. APIs require combining simple building blocks of code, and Tom breaks this process down step-by-step. I can't imagine learning more about APIs in such a short amount of time.

A Stitch in Time...

Inefficiency is like nails on a chalkboard to me. If I can spend an hour or two today to save me dozens of hours in the future, I'm there in a heartbeat. That's why Google Docs Unleashed appealed to me so much. I spent an hour learning some API basics and gained an hour back each month for the foreseeable future. Efficiency like this helps me scale my efforts and be more successful overall.

What tasks would you like to automate using APIs and Google Docs and how much time would it save you? Let's chat about it in the comments below.

(Disclaimer: There were affiliate links for AppSumo and Google Docs Unleashed in this article. I only use affiliate links with products I recommend personally).

Google Analytics for Bloggers

Last Friday I had the opportunity to speak on Google Analytics for bloggers, a topic near and dear to my heart. Thanks to organizers Missy Berggren and Arik Hanson, I presented along with Becky Flansburg at the first Minnesota Blogger Conference Mini Event, held at CoCo in downtown St. Paul. As promised, today I've posted a brief recap along with the slides from my presentation: The Blogger's Google Analytics Clinic.

What Kind of Google Analytics Help do Bloggers Need?

A few months back, I asked people what the perfect Google Analytics workshop catered to bloggers would look like. The responses surprised me. Virtually no one needed help with the straight-forward Google Analytics setup. And while there was some interest in advanced topics such as goals and events, the vast majority of bloggers voiced the need for help just getting their bearings. Where should bloggers start off with Google Analytics?

(Bloggers typically don't need help installing GA. They're wondering what to look at.)

Google Analytics for Bloggers: Getting Your Bearings

It's easy to get overwhelmed by Google Analytics' dozens of reports and countless metrics. To avoid getting caught up in web analytics minutia, don't just look at Google Analytics as a source for data and reports. Look to GA to provide insights on how to improve the content of your blog through answering several important questions:

• Who are your readers?
• Where are they coming from?
• What are they reading?
• What are they sharing?

With any web analytics tool, start off with a business goal or question and then look to a report or metrics for the answer.  Otherwise you'll be likely to end up spinning your tires with nothing to show for your web analytics efforts. Read on to see this approach to web analytics for bloggers in action.

Who Are Your Readers?

Finding out some basic information about your readers can help you create content they'll like. The Visitors report section of Google Analytics answers questions about who is visiting (and reading) your blog. The Visitors section gives you a sense for the overall popularity of your blog.

• Visits and Visitors - Understanding visits and visitors is one of several important metrics when measuring the popularity of your blog. Think of this as the raw number of people and eyeballs that laid eyes on your blog for the time period selected. We all want these numbers to grow over time, right?(Visits and visitors are one good benchmark for blog popularity)
• Avg Time on Site - Do people stick around when visiting your blog or do they leave right away? Avg time on Site, along with Average Pageviews and Bounce Rate show you how long people typically hang out when visiting your blog.
• Loyalty - Getting a lot of visitors is one thing, but getting them to come back over and over again is the key to building a community around your blog. Access your Loyalty report in GA. Consider those that visit 1 time only as once-and-done readers, 2-4 times as "flirts" or "casual fans," and those that visit 5 or more times as your hardcore fans. Create content that appeals to your fans.(Improving your visitor loyalty means building your community.)
• Subscribers - If you have a Feedburner account, you have the extra added bonus of having their metrics as well. Subscribers show you how many people have subscribed to your RSS feed while Reach shows on average how many people access your RSS entries on a given day.(Feedburner gives you numbers on subscriptions and the reach of your blog.)

Where are Your Readers Coming From?

Now that you know how many people are visiting your blog, it's time to figure out where they're coming from. Use the Traffic Sources reports in Google Analytics to identify where your readers are coming from on the web. In general, it's good to identify these traffic sources and to ensure your blogging efforts support them.

• Direct Traffic - These are the people that type in your URL to their Internet browser to get to you. In general, they've heard about you in the past and are seeking your content directly. Your direct traffic grows as your blog grows in recognition.
• Referring Sites - Sites that send traffic to you via a link are considered referring sites, which includes other blogs, websites and social networks. As you network with other bloggers, speak at events and create guest posts for other blogs, pay attention to substantials trickles of traffic that appear when your content resonates with a new audience on the web.
• Search Engines - If you're weaving search-friendly keyword phrases into your content, you probably have search engine traffic coming to your blog. Get a feel for the keywords sending the most traffic to your site, as well as an endless supply of ideas for future blog posts.(Understanding your blog's traffic sources help you focus on the best sources of new readers.)

What Are Your Readers Reading?

Next, get a sense for the popularity of your blog posts by exploring the Google Analytics Content reports. Your Top Content report in Google Analytics organizes your blog posts by pageviews. Which of your blog posts are getting the most eyeballs? What did you do differently that made those blog posts so popular?(Which of your blog posts have the most pageviews? How did that happen?)

What Are Your Readers Sharing?

Pageviews give you a rough feel for the popularity of your blog, but is anyone engaging with your blog via comments or sharing it on social networks? The pinnacle of blog success is to have content that is both popular and compelling. But Google Analytics falls down when it comes to measuring social engagement.

Web analytics isn't about finding one tool to rule them all. It's about using a combination of tools that are all right for the job at hand. Enter PostRank Analytics, the social media measurement tool.  In a nutshell, PostRank measures when people share your blog content on the social web and gives you neat reports to track it all. Use Post Rank together with Google Analytics to identify blog posts that are both popular and compelling.(PostRank Analytics is your blog's new best friend for determining the social media engagement of your blog.)

More Google Analytics for Bloggers

The MN Blogger Conference Mini Event was a great way to quickly explore some of the main questions bloggers should be asking themselves when exploring Google Analytics. If you didn't get a chance to ask your question at the event or if you weren't able to make it, please do leave your questions about Google Analytics and blogging in the comments below. Thanks to all those who attended and especially to Arik and Missy for organizing everything.

Finally, here's the presentation from Friday's event. Feel free to share the presentation or this blog post with any blogger you know that is interested in using Google Analytics to improve their blog.

The Blogger's Google Analytics Clinic

Answering Bloggers' Web Analytics Questions

I run into people all the time that don't use web analytics tools like Google Analytics to measure their blogging efforts. To me, the idea seems absurd. If there was a way to let your audience tell you how to create a more engaging, richer experience for them, why wouldn't you? If there was a way to put you on a straighter path towards your version of success, why wouldn't you explore it?

Ask Anything About Blogging and Web Analytics

I strongly believe that most bloggers don't employ web analytics tools because they have too many questions about where to begin:

How do I install web analytics? Is there one tool that's better than the rest? Should I pay for web analytics? What should I be looking at? How do I make sense of it all? How do I translate what I see in these reports to the goals I set for my business?

Have you ever had these or other questions about web analytics for your blog? Well, you're in luck. On January 14th I'll be presenting about using Google Analytics for blogging at the Minnesota Blogger Conference's first Mini Conference at CoCo in St. Paul. I hope you can make it, but could also use your help to finalize the content for the presentation.

Right below this paragraph is a text box from FormSpring, the web-based conversation Q&A tool. Ask me a question, any question about web analytics and how to use it on your blog. If you didn't get a chance to nab one of the tickets before they evaporated, all the more reason to ask via FormSpring.

More Web Analytics for Bloggers

It's win-win. You get an answer to a burning web analytics question. I get fantastic insights on how to make my presentation rock. Help me create the best resource possible by submitting your question via the FormSpring form above or by leaving your question in the comments below.