98FM Case Study Project Aims & Overview 98fm recently redeveloped their website and prior to doing so, contacted GlowMetrics in order to ensure all available tracking parameters were put in place before the new site went live. In addition, when data began being collected in the account for the new site, they wanted to be able to reap actionable insights, compare and contrast previous site performance and ensure that ongoing intelligent reporting and appraisal of analytics knowledge and actions took place. Following initial discussions about 98FM requirements, we outlined a solution to help ensure that their Google Analytics account was being used to its full potential accordingly. Measurement Valida/on & GTM Support
Analysis & Insight
Op/misa/on
Repor/ng
Training
Review Mee/ngs
Step 1a: Measurement Validation Every company needs to ensure that on-site behaviour is tracked accurately so solid business decisions can be made. Prior to investing time gleaning insights from an analytics account it is important that you can be confident that the technical side of the analytics implementation has been dealt with. The measurement validation part consisted of an audit of the set-up of the analytics account - from ensuring the code had been installed correctly, to ensuring interface settings had been configured correctly to reach insights in a more effective manner. The audited included: o Assisting with correct implementation of Universal Analytics tracking code because they were using the oldest version of the Google Analytics code; o Consulting on account structure because they had 10 accounts, 13 profiles and no control or filtered profiles; o Structuring profiles based on business reporting and analysis requirements; o Verification of filter and profile settings- they weren’t excluding bots, currency was USD (impacts goal values), site search wasn’t setup correctly among other things; o Ensuring important elements of the site are being tracked (outside the regular GA code) e.g. clicks off to other website, interactions with the player, interactions with videos, clicks off to social media, PDF downloads; o Identification and setting up of goals- they only had one goal set up;
o Identification and setting up of funnels- none were set-up in the account; o Online campaign tracking implementation- they hadn’t used campaign tracking parameters since May 2014; o Ensuring accurate tracking of visitor paths through the website- using enhanced link attribution; o Identification and setting-up of nametags for visitors to allow deeper analysis e.g. those who view content on shows versus those who enter competitions versus those who read sport content; o Tracking multi-channel marketing campaigns via analytics e.g. mapping show times over website visits; o Reporting on usability errors e.g. broken links; o Linking Webmaster Tools and AdSense- neither were linked to the analytics account. Step 1b: Google Tag Manager Support As part of the Measurement Validation, we recommended 98fm install Google Tag Manager in order to simplify their tagging and tracking requirements. Google Tag manager works by placing one container tag on the website and controlling what goes into the container via a user-friendly interface. Some recommendations that came from the Measurement Validation document required an update to the code installed on the website. We created a GTM account for 98FM – their developer only had to implement the initial Google Tag Manager code – we did the rest including setting up tags to track the following aspects of the site: - how many people are listening online via the website player – for the live stream, listen back feature and podcasts - all clicks on email addresses - how many people click on outbound links off to third party sites - how many times their Rates Card (.pdf) document was downloaded - how many people interact with the dynamic player menu tabs - how many people click off to visit 98FM’s own social media links from the site - how many people click on the social sharing buttons on each article
Step 2: Deep-dive analysis and reaping of insights
After the initial set-up audit and after the website was live for enough time to collect a substantial amount of data, an analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance of the site based on its users’ interactions. The result of this was a document detailing how visitors are finding the site (acquisition analysis), what users are doing when they get there (user behavior & path analysis) and what happens as a result of their visit (outcome analysis):
Ins
igh t
Outcome Analysis Behaviour Analysis Acquisi/on Analysis
Insights specific to the account included:
Insight
– Analysing how radio show times are influencing and impacting site visitor behaviour and quality; – Understanding how engaged new visitors are with the site compared to returning visitors, understanding how their experience on the site differs; – Understanding how visitors from mobile experience and engage with site content compared to desktop users; – Evaluating the key paths users take through the site and understanding the most popular content areas and navigation elements on the site to inform where content could be culled or expanded upon; – Conducting keyword behaviour analysis in an attempt to understand the user intention behind the keyword better; – Examining the key pages viewed in the lead up to creating a conversion; – Studying visitors who completed desired outcomes and understanding how to maximise on this; – Scrutinising inbound link values;
– Identifying groups of content that work well together for particular types of users; – Understanding visitors who choose to engage further with the site via social networks: understanding where do they do this and after how long; – Drilling down to see how different customer groups navigate through the website; – Evaluating site search and speed intelligence to seek areas of product expansion, inform website design and increase website speed; – Analysing the comparison in city-specific traffic behaviour; The insights were assembled into a PowerPoint presentation and presented back on completion. Step 3: Optimisation Strategy A natural follow-on from gleaning the actionable insights, is the development of a plan-ofaction based on the insights. This allows all previous efforts up to this point to be realised. The Optimisation strategy was dependent on the results of Analysis & Insight phase and facilitated the development of a strategy to support: – Website navigation – Content writing efforts – Search (SEO and PPC) – Social Activity – Multi-channel funnels – Offline accountability – Online campaign efforts – Landing page use – Customer profiling – Referral or partner site collaboration Along with the recommended approach and strategy, there was continuous consultation on how to progressively analyse the performance of strategies executed. Step 4: Reporting Initially a set of performance dashboards were built (informed by the Analysis & Insights and Optimisation Strategy) along with a number of breakout dashboards for different areas of the business. This included the set-up of:
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Advanced Segments
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Custom Reports (breaking down listenership in a variety of ways e.g. days of the week / hours of the day / location)
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Intelligence alerts
Reports were then delivered on a monthly basis for the following 3 months split by: -
Site Performance Overview
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Visitor and Distribution
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Marketing
Step 5: Training We developed a customised training course for the key people in each department based on: - Their current use and knowledge of digital analytics - The employee role - The key insights that came out of the audit - The skills and knowledge required. The training was also fed out to the IT department to push understanding of the importance of digital tracking and the impact it can have on business results. Step 6: Review Meetings In addition to delivering reporting (Step 4), we also held regular review meetings at each step of the project to evaluate and discuss learnings. We also held monthly review meetings alongside the delivery of the monthly reports to detail the main factors behind any changes in performance, explain what was learnt during the month in question and leave 10 actionable insights to work on.
Reporting / New Learning Our analytics project for 98FM has given them the ability to use data to proactively plan future content online, offline and on-air - giving them solid numbers to make solid strategic decisions. Since the new website went live, June 18th, we've tracked over 1.5M sessions on the site. From those sessions, we've tracked over 650k player interactions, 8k outbound link clicks, 6k social media link clicks, 2k social shares and 1k email links clicked - none of these actions were being tracked previously.
98FM have been able to use this information in a number of ways. As part of the reporting aspect of the project, we set up a number of Custom Reports within Google Analytics so they can now see the busiest hours of the day and days of the week for online listeners - so they now have granular streaming metrics. We also created a set of bespoke dashboards within Google Analytics so the key metrics for each section of the site can be found easily and at a glance. Some key decisions that 98FM have made to date as a result of our Analytics project: - Made the "Listen Live" function more prominent on-site (as a result of the site search tracking implementation - visitors regularly searched for the live stream even though the search box was beside the 'play' button). - Introduced a URL where the player auto-plays which is shareable on social media etc (again to make it easier for users who simply want to stream and to increase listener figures – a primary goal). - Changed the 'on air' section to 'shows' (based on the navigation summary for this page most visitors were clicking directly back to the homepage again, suggesting the content didn't meet their expectations) - Redesigned the Player (due to the limited use of the interactive menu tabs which we tracked) - Changed the 'pause' button to a 'stop' button (limited clicks on the 'pause' button suggested users were unfamiliar with the 'pause' logo') Overall, our project with 98FM has given them the tools to transform themselves further into a data-driven organisation who use numbers to inform strategic decision-making, data-led marketing campaigns and ultimately increase user engagement across the website for both written content and online listeners.