October 2016 - Leverage Marketing

Prep Your Website for Black Friday: A Marketing Checklist [UPDATED]

October 21, 2016/2 Comments/in Content Marketing, Email Marketing, PPC, SEO, Web Design /by Leverage Marketing

This post was originally published on October 8th, 2015. We’ve updated it with several new checklist items for 2016.

With Black Friday coming up on November 25^th and Cyber Monday following right on its heels, your holiday marketing is no doubt well underway. In all the chaos, it’s easy to overlook some of the small but impactful online marketing tactics you can use to boost sales on two of the biggest shopping days of the year. With that in mind, we’ve put together a marketing checklist of things to do in the weeks leading up to Black Friday.

Download a PDF of our Black Friday Checklist

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Web Design

o Update homepage for Black Friday.

Make sure anyone who lands on your homepage in the days leading up to Black Friday/Cyber Monday knows about the deals you’re going to offer. Add relevant banners and calls-to-action, change your home page header/hero image to highlight your Black Friday offers, and consider adding a countdown clock to build excitement. You may also want to create a banner that you can place at the top of all pages to remind shoppers about your deals.

o Simplify forms and checkout process.

Take some time before the holidays to go through your checkout process and identify steps where shoppers are likely to drop out. Eliminate unnecessary form fields and try to minimize the clicks it takes to complete a transaction.

o Compress and resize any images that are weighing down your pages.

Unnecessarily large images can slow down page load times, and online shoppers aren’t going to wait patiently for your site to load. Take some time before Black Friday to check images on your home page and most popular product pages, and either resize or compress high-resolution images.

o Test site to ensure all pages are mobile-friendly.

By now you likely know how important it is to have a website that looks good on mobile devices. Even if you think your site is fully responsive or adaptive to mobile, it’s worth testing individual pages—especially new ones you’re adding ahead of Black Friday. Enter page URLs into Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test bar to determine if all pages meet Google’s criteria for mobile-friendly design.

o Set up live chat.

There are dozens of live chat systems available online, and you can easily set one up by adding a piece of HTML code to all the pages where you want the chat window to appear. If you don’t have a system in place yet, install one before your big holiday sales days so that potential customers can quickly get help from one of your team members.

Email Marketing

o Craft emails to build anticipation for your sales.

Schedule your emails so that subscribers receive an initial announcement about your holiday sale, followed by several messages designed to build anticipation and keep you top of mind. Consider revealing some of the upcoming Black Friday sales prices on top-selling items, or send out a sales offer that is exclusive to email subscribers.

o A/B test subject lines.

Remember: before you can get readers to click on email links leading to great Black Friday deals, you have to convince them that opening your email is worth their time. Businesses flood their subscribers’ inboxes with promotional messages around the holidays (MailChimp delivered 1.2 billion emails last Black Friday), so you need to make sure your messages stand out. Be clear about the deals you’re offering in your subject line, and A/B test different subject line variations to see what gets the most engagement.

o Write copy for transactional emails.

Tailor order confirmations, abandoned cart notices, and other automated email messages to your Black Friday/Cyber Monday sales. Consider adding copy about upcoming holiday sales to encourage visitors to shop with you again before the end of December.

o Write emails to remind shoppers that your sale is about to end.

Create a segmented list of email subscribers who haven’t purchased anything on Black Friday or Cyber Monday and send an email several hours before the end of sale, reminding them that there is limited time to take advantage of your discounts.

o Test email links.

Before running any of your holiday email campaigns, take a few minutes to make sure none of your email links are broken and that all links go to the appropriate landing page.

o Create landing pages that align with email CTAs.

It can be jarring for email subscribers to click on a call-to-action that takes them to a landing page with a completely different offer—and shoppers aren’t as likely to convert if the initial CTA and landing page don’t match. Check the copy in your email message and on the landing page to ensure it’s coherent.

SEO

o Make sure you’ve enabled ecommerce tracking.

If you sell products through your site, you should absolutely set up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics (if you haven’t already). Ecommerce Tracking will give you more insights in your customers’ behavior patterns so that you can better tailor future sales to your audience. If you’re not sure how to set up Ecommerce Tracking, check out our step-by-step guide.

o Check page load times.

Go to the Site Speed tab in Google Analytics to check the load times of your web pages. On average, people will give a page three seconds to load before abandoning the site, so if you have pages with slower load times, you’ll need to fix them. If you’re not sure what’s causing the slow load time, have your marketing team perform an audit.

o Create landing pages for sales categories.

Include ‘Black Friday’ or other holiday-related keywords in your title tags, header tags, and content so that the landing page has a better chance of being served to web users who enter relevant search queries.

o Research long-tail keywords.

Long-tail keywords will have a lower search volume than more general Black Friday-related keywords, but they will also have less competition and are more likely to attract shoppers who are looking for your specific products or services.

o Pitch products to influencers who curate gift guides.

Backlinks from high-quality third-party sites are a ranking factor for SEO, so it’s always a good idea to make connections with bloggers and journalists in your industry who may be interested in sharing your content. Lots of sites begin publishing holiday gift guides in November and December, so try pitching some of your best gift products to relevant sites. In addition to the SEO-value of backlinks, having your products featured in gift guides can also help drive traffic to your site.

o Local brick-and-mortars: check your online listings.

If you own a brick-and-mortar as well as an online store, go through all the major online directories to make sure your address, phone number, and other important information are up-to-date. If you have not yet claimed your business on Google, do so now using Google My Business.

PPC

o Set up meeting with your PPC team.

Keyword bids will be high around Black Friday because this is one of the busiest shopping times of the year, so you need to get the most out of your budget by choosing the keywords that are most likely to lead to conversions for your business. Unless you are a PPC professional, you should meet with your PPC team to discuss strategies.

o Create PPC campaigns tailored to consumers who are researching before Black Friday.

Most Black Friday/Cyber Monday shoppers will be researching deals in advance so that they can get the products they want before they are out of stock. In the weeks leading up to Black Friday, tailor the copy in your PPC ads to your customers’ research phase.

o Prepare ads for several top sellers if you think you may run out of inventory.

Have you been promoting a particular product heavily? Is it possible that this product will be out of stock before the end of Black Friday? If so, write ad copy for several other top sellers so that you will have ads ready to go if you have to pull the ads for an out-of-stock item.

o Retarget web users who have already visited your site.

If you have a retargeting pixel set up on your site, start remarketing to customers who have previously browsed your site. This is a good way to stay top of mind and announce deals to people who may not be on your mailing list but who have shown interest in your products.

o Use day parting and bid scheduling to maximize your paid search budget.

Look at your historical data to see which times of day you’re likely to see the highest levels of traffic and conversions. Allocate more of your paid search budget to the top-converting hours of the day to maximize your ROI.

Social Media Marketing

o Use Facebook and Twitter remarketing.

Retargeting pixels on your website aren’t just for PPC ads—you can also use them to create ads for custom audiences on Facebook and Twitter. Facebook even lets you serve ads to Lookalike Audiences—that is, people who are similar to your existing customers and therefore likely to be interested in your products. If you’ve never done this before, talk to your online marketing team about creating targeted social media ads before Black Friday.

o Create exclusive offers for followers on social media.

Offering exclusive discounts is a great way to reward your followers on social media—and to encourage those followers to recommend your social profiles to their friends and family.

o Put together holiday gift guides and share on social sites.

Use a design template site like Canva or Piktochart to create visually-appealing gift guides in different categories (e.g. ‘Stocking Stuffers’, ‘Gifts for Grillmasters’, etc.), and share those guides on your social channels. If you have a following on Pinterest, keep in mind that you can now create buyable pins that integrate with Magento, Bigcommerce, and IBM Websphere.

o Use relevant holiday hashtags.

Do some research into hashtags that are being used around Black Friday and think about how they pertain to your sale. You can, of course, use tags like #blackfriday and #cybermonday, but keep in mind that everyone else will be doing this as well. To stand out and get customers excited for your sale, consider using additional hashtags related to your store name and location. Let social media users know they can get updates on your sale (or maybe even get entered into a contest) by using your business-specific hashtag.

o Make sure at least one team member can monitor Twitter on Black Friday/Cyber Monday.

If you have an active presence on Twitter, you should assign at least one team member to monitor this social site for mentions. If customers are tweeting at you because they have a question or complaint related to your sales, you’ll want to be able to respond quickly.

Having trouble with any of the action items above? We’d be happy to help you check all the boxes on your holiday marketing to-do list. Contact us to get started.

How to Target Mobile Shoppers for Black Friday

October 20, 2016/0 Comments/in Email Marketing, PPC /by Bob Kehoe

In 2015, marketers noticed an unexpected change among Black Friday shoppers: it seemed that most shoppers were growing tired of bleary, cold, early mornings and the frantic dash to grab doorbuster deals at their favorite Black Friday shopping spots. Instead, the mobile Black Friday shopping experience, which shoppers can enjoy in small stretches of free time in the comfort of one’s home, started to replace some of the groggy storefront shopping messes that traditionally dominate during the holidays.

Mobile Black Friday shopping set a record in 2015 – it captured 22% of online sales, up by an incredible 70% from 2014 figures. Black Friday mobile sales alone accounted for $583 million in revenue. Thanksgiving Day saw an additional $639 million in mobile sales. Of the total $4.45 billion in sales (including in-store, online, and mobile purchases), one-third of total shoppers used their smartphone or mobile phone to make a purchase.

The trend toward mobile shopping is real, and when combined with the online-focused sales power of Cyber Monday, it could eventually evolve into an entirely new Black Friday shopping experience. Your business can get a piece of those online shopping sales and prepare for a wave of up-and-coming ecommerce strength by learning to target mobile shoppers for Black Friday this year, then perfecting your approach in the coming years.

Rework Your Mobile App and Shopping Interface to Be More Mobile-Capable

The onslaught of Black Friday and Cyber Monday is the perfect excuse to refine your entire mobile shopping experience on your mobile site or mobile app. Because of the huge sales figures of which your company will be a part, you’ll get a fabulous return on your time and resource investment if you tighten up your mobile shopping interface before the big day hits.

Etsy’s mobile home page is a prime example of effective mobile shopping.

Risks of a Poor Mobile Shopping Experience

A Dip in Customer Loyalty – Even your most enthusiastic customers won’t put up with a bad mobile app or ecommerce site. In 2013, 30% of consumers never made a second visit to a retailer’s mobile website on which they had a negative shopping experience. 43% said they would immediately move on to a competitor website if something went awry while shopping on a mobile app or site.
Low Recurring Sales – Consumers waited about a year before returning to a mobile site on which they had a poor experience. The good news is that you’ll have another chance next Black Friday. The bad news is that you won’t get any sales from those customers during the long year in between.
Faltering Brand Recognition – Having a few unhappy customers is a phenomenon of retail that can’t be helped. But droves of unhappy mobile shoppers, especially on such a big holiday like Black Friday, will tarnish your brand instantly.

Mobile Shopping Challenges to Consider

Competitive Buying Experiences – It’s punishing trying to out-price your competitors on Black Friday. There’s a threshold at which the returns on your sales will no longer justify the discounts you offer. The best way to compete is with seamless shopping experiences for the developing mobile crowd.
Diversity and Evolution of Mobile Devices – Your consumers use Android phones, Nexus tablets, iPhones, iPads, and all manner of mobile devices to do their shopping. Each device has different capabilities, a different interface, and different compatibilities, and you’ll need to cater to each device’s individuality to capture major Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales.
Shifting Payment Methods – It’s not just about credit cards anymore. Debit transactions are in charge, there are quick and easy digital wallet payment methods such as Apple & Google Wallet, and some goods and high-priced services allow direct transfers from checking accounts. Make sure you know what your customers like to use to pay and make it easy for them to use that method or service.

Ways to Improve Mobile Sites and Apps

Eliminate Frustrations – Don’t be afraid to survey and get feedback from customers to find your system’s weak points. Look at comments about your mobile ecommerce, find out what bothers your customers, then address those concerns directly with your developers.

Common ecommerce mistakes for mobile include small product images, poor navigation, security concerns, and tedious checkout.

Respect the Buyer’s Journey – Shopping for bicycle parts is different than shopping for a PlayStation, and Black Friday shoppers will be looking for both. The path your buyer follows to finish a sale will be different depending on your product. Know what your customers are looking for and how they can find it easily with a touch-screen.
Avoid the Unexpected – When a customer aims to buy something, he or she wants to find that item, hit Check Out, and wait for delivery. Keep your mobile shopping experience as close to that simplicity as possible. Don’t assault your customers with sign up gateways and full-screen ploys to join an email list. Give them an option at checkout to join your list and emphasize that checkout is easier when you sign up, but don’t force your customers to go out of their way before they buy.

Make Your Calls-to-Action Mobile-Friendly

Add language to some of your special Black Friday and Cyber Monday copy that includes direct references to smartphones, tablets, and mobile apps.

Make sure your customized mobile shopper copy makes it to CTAs that appear on your site as well. If you do, you’ll be able to grab online shoppers who may be browsing on their desktop and laptop computers but are too busy to run through the purchase process just yet.

Avoid driving away foot traffic. Storefront sales may be on the decline, but they still represent the majority of Black Friday and Cyber Monday sales. Your copy should encourage people to feel comfortable with your mobile app and website shopping experience without excluding any other available shopping options.

Clean Up Mobile Ads and Product Feeds

This section comes from the astounding mind of one of our paid search wizards, Michael Holeman, author of 4 Ways to Track Conversions When Your URL Does Not Change.

Make sure your product feeds are cleaned up well in advance of Black Friday and Cyber Monday so you can focus your efforts on your promotions. That means as soon as your summer sales die down, get your pay-per-click advertising in Google AdWords and any other paid search services you use optimized for conversions.

Spend some time making sure that all of your products are accessible by Google Merchant Center. Update your titles and descriptions for maximum user-friendliness. Remember, the way your data is set up in the Merchant Center is the way your product ads will appear. Also, be as detailed as possible when categorizing your products, so that your products will appear for the most relevant searches. If you do, you’ll grab more of those last-minute shoppers shopping on their mobile devices.

If you’re running fall mobile ads as well, clean them up before the close of November. You’ll be able to run your Black Friday and Cyber Monday mobile ads and then immediately switch to any winter promotions you have lined up once the sales are over.

Also, create a Merchant Promotions Feed in addition to your Shopping Feed so that your product ads will have the most relevant promotions served alongside your products in Google Search results.

The Merchant Promotions Feed will make it easier for you to serve the appropriate ads at times when they make sense to consumers. Pause any summer-specific deals you have to make room for Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts.

Bottom Line: Make Mobile Shopping Easy

TL;DR – Forecasters predict another jump in the percentage of sales overtaken by mobile shopping this Black Friday, and the faster your customers can check out, the larger chunk of those sales you’ll grab. Before Black Friday and Cyber Monday roll around, check these items off your list:

Streamline your mobile shopping experience on your mobile app or website from the home page forward
Design ads that promote shopping from home and shopping on your phone
Clean up your product feeds for paid search so they appear easy-to-use on mobile search

Remember, don’t discourage business at your storefront, just encourage business on the homefront for a successful and increasingly mobile Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

The marketing team at Leverage Marketing has been through countless Black Fridays and Cyber Mondays together with our loyal clients and have raised the bar for holiday shopping success on mobile and desktop alike. If you have questions about your marketing approach to Black Friday, ask our team for advice. Don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter today for non-stop insider tips about marketing, business, SEO, and a whole bunch more.

5 Creative Cyber Monday Marketing Ideas

October 19, 2016/0 Comments/in Content Marketing, Email Marketing, Social Media /by Leverage Marketing

While brick-and-mortar retailers are planning sales to attract droves of shoppers on Black Friday, any business that sells products or services online should be thinking ahead to Cyber Monday. Cyber Monday, which takes place the week after Thanksgiving, has become the largest online shopping day of the year. Last year shoppers spent an estimated $3 billion on Monday, November 30th, setting a new record for the holiday.

Cyber Monday means lots of potential customers for your business, but there are also plenty of competitors trying to win the same customers over with their holiday deals. To convince customers to shop with you, you’ll need more than just a standard discount—you’ll need to get creative with your digital marketing. Here are five out-of-the-box Cyber Monday marketing ideas to help you get started.

Offer More Than Just Free Shipping

Sure, free shipping is a nice incentive, but it’s an incentive that everyone and their mother offers around the holidays. Most customers have come to expect free shipping on their Cyber Monday purchases, and all those marketing emails promising free deliveries aren’t going to make them bat an eye.

To make your business stand out, try offering something unique—like a bonus gift that customers can only get from your online store. For example, you might tell customers that if they spend $x, they can get a pre-selected gift or choose a gift from several options. Make sure you’re offering a gift that will appeal to a wide swath of your target audience; for instance, if you sell at-home beer-brewing supplies, you might offer a free bottle opener with every purchase of $40 or more.

Create Special Interest Gift Guides

Picking out gifts for friends and family can be challenging, so make it easier on your customers by creating a series of gift guides aimed at different segments of your target audience. Let’s say you run an online store that sells pop culture-inspired apparel and novelty items. You might create guides like “Gifts for the Classic Sci-Fi Fan” or “Gifts for the Netflix Binge-Watcher.” Perform keyword research to come up with copy that will drive organic traffic to these guides (for example, there may not be much search volume around “Gifts for the Netflix Binge-Watcher,” but there will likely be more search volume around relevant phrases like “gifts under $25”).

Once you’ve finalized your copy and images, run the gift guides on your blog and promote them on social media leading up to Cyber Monday. You could also send specific gift guides to email subscribers using lists segmented by demographic.

Ask Customers to Shop for a Cause

In 2012, a coalition of more than 1400 charities launched Giving Tuesday as a follow-up to Black Friday and Cyber Monday. On this day, consumers are encouraged to get involved in volunteer projects or donate to charities as a way to give back during the holiday season. As an online retailer, consider kicking off your charitable giving early by tying it in with your Cyber Monday sales. Choose a charity you care about and let shoppers know–through promotional emails, a slider on your website, a notification at the top of a user’s shopping cart, etc.– that you’ll be donating a percentage of your Cyber Monday profits to that charity.

The skin care and beauty company L’Occitane is a good example of a business that did this successfully last year. They ran a promotion from Black Friday through Christmas, telling shoppers that for every gift set purchased, their company would donate $10 to Dress for Success, a nonprofit that provides professional attire and career development resources to women in need. This kind of charitable act makes shoppers feel positive about their purchases and helps build goodwill towards your brand.

Get Humorous

A lot of holiday sales copy sounds the same (e.g. “One Day Only Doorbuster Deals,” “Only 8 Hours Left on Our Sale”), so try standing out by taking a humorous approach to your Cyber Monday email marketing and social media promotions. Rather than just telling customers to visit your site for great deals, you might frame your discounts in the context of a Holiday Shopping Survival Guide or email subscribers a list of the reasons why this is going to be the year they don’t procrastinate on their gift buying.

For inspiration, take a look at Dollar Shave Club’s “The Perfect Gift for Any Guy with a Face” graphic, which they used on social media last year.

The graphic is bold, simple, and looks a lot different than holiday sales promotions that just show product images or the words “50% Off” in a huge font.

At a time when people face an onslaught of promotional messages, humor provides a nice change of pace and can make your brand more memorable.

Surprise Customers with an Extended Sale

Who says that Cyber Monday deals can only be available on Cyber Monday? As the day winds down, send out an email to subscribers letting them know that you’ve extended your sale for x amount of time. This email will serve as a reminder for people who may not have shopped with you yet while also creating a sense of urgency—essentially, you’re giving shoppers a second chance to save but setting a deadline for your deals.

Takeaways

Shoppers will have plenty of choices this holiday season, and you need to give them a reason to choose you. By exceeding customer expectations and offering unique incentives, your business can cut through the noise and get increased visibility this Black Friday and Cyber Monday.

Need help planning creative holiday marketing campaigns this year? Get in touch with our team of digital marketing experts– we can take an in-depth look at your brand and your competitors to come up with a strategy that drives sales.

How to Use Facebook in Your Content Marketing Strategy

October 12, 2016/0 Comments/in Content Marketing, Social Media /by Bob Kehoe

There’s no doubt that Facebook is a useful tool in any company’s marketing arsenal. With the largest amount of monthly active users at 1.7 billion users, Facebook can provide an incredibly powerful way for your company to reach customers and personalize a message to them. But how can Facebook fit into your content marketing strategy? Your business may be generating content on a weekly or monthly basis to increase SEO rankings or just provide information to your clients, but how is it getting disseminated? Who is reading it? Facebook can be a valuable tool not only in improving your content marketing results but in helping you learn more about your audience.

Audience and Followers

The first step for using Facebook as part of an effective content marketing strategy is realizing that just having lots of likes on your page isn’t good enough. You need a strong audience that interacts with your page on a regular basis. People not only need to see the content but like the blog posts, comment, and share, instead of just scrolling right past. Even if you have fantastic content, if no one reads or posts on it, it might as well not exist. Focus on building a solid audience that is interested in your product or service, and not just buying likes from bots. You’ll find that it gets easier over time, likes will just come organically, and people will share more articles as you reach a critical mass. Just keep trucking!

Share, Share, Share

It’s important to use Facebook to link to off-Facebook content that helps to promote your site. If you have excellent content on your site, but no one reads it, it doesn’t serve any purpose. Facebook can help enhance and expand your audience. Don’t just share a link to a blog post without any description: make sure to use images, an exciting description, and share at a popular time for your followers. Blog posts on your site can help promote your product and increase SEO and traffic, but only when people actually read them. Facebook is a great way to accomplish this.

If you have a significant post, feel free to post it again on Facebook several days or a week later. With Facebook’s new algorithms, it’s likely people won’t see the post twice and you’ll get more hits on your site.

Pictures and videos are vital for increasing engagement. If pictures are worth a thousand words, videos may be worth even more. An exciting image or YouTube link can surge users commenting and sharing on a post. Facebook algorithms (much like Google’s own) change often, and keeping up with them can increase your reach.

Make use of blog posts, videos, and pictures to engage your followers on Facebook, post frequently but don’t inundate your users– and you’ll likely be successful integrating Facebook into your content marketing strategy.

Facebook Insights

Facebook Insights is possibly one of the most valuable parts of using Facebook in your content marketing strategy. Audience Insights give you information on just exactly who your audience is, basics like age, gender, and location, as well as more in-depth information like estimated income, interests, and more. You can then use this information to attempt to target the audience you have on Facebook or to fill in gaps you’re missing. Audience Insights is a mirror into who cares about your product or service and what areas you need to improve in demographically.

Page Insights are equally valuable in other ways. They allow you to see how the content you’ve been posting on your page has been performing, including reach and engagement. This information is useful for determining how well your content is performing on Facebook, but you can also use it in conjunction with Google Analytics to decide how to move forward with your content marketing strategy. You can directly ‘Boost Posts’ from within Page Insights, essentially creating ads and boosting engagement with your audience and their friends.

Facebook Ads

Though not always directly related to content, Facebook Ads can have a large impact on how your Page on Facebook performs. It’s a great way for followers to find your page and start reading your content. Facebook Ads can promote your blog posts that your Audience has shared. Remember that you always want to split test for ads to maximize your ad dollars. Use Facebook Ads wisely to increase your impact and reach.

If making Facebook part of your content marketing strategy sounds great, but you aren’t sure where to begin, contact the Leverage Marketing team today. We’re experts in social media and content marketing and help craft an integrated approach that will maximize your content offerings with Facebook’s social media potential. We can answer any questions you have and get you a path to more followers, enhanced content, and success.

How to Set Up Ecommerce Tracking in Google Analytics

October 5, 2016/1 Comment/in SEO /by Bob Kehoe

You probably already know that Google Analytics is a great tool for tracking consumer behavior patterns and traffic to your site. If you’re already using Google Analytics to track activity on your site, great job – but that’s only half the battle! If you sell products online, one of Google Analytics’ most powerful tools is its ability to analyze not only how people use your site, but what they’re buying and how they’re purchasing your products. That’s where Google Analytics’ ecommerce tracking comes in.

As a newbie or even as a seasoned user of Google Analytics, implementing and understanding ecommerce tracking may seem a little intimidating. Not to fear – follow our quick-start guide to get moving with ecommerce analytics tracking.

PART 1: SET IT UP

First off, you’ll need to decide what kind of ecommerce tracking will fit your site’s needs. There are two kinds of ecommerce tracking available within Google Analytics:

Standard Ecommerce Tracking: Includes most of the major info you’ll need to analyze customer purchase activity, such as transaction information and average order value.
Enhanced Ecommerce Tracking: Includes all the functionality of Standard Ecommerce Tracking, but also allows you to analyze consumers’ paths to purchases and inspect other factors such as shopping cart abandonment. Enhanced ecommerce tracking is only available if your site uses Universal Analytics (recognizable by the “analytics.js” snippet in your analytics tracking code).

It’s up to you to decide what kind of ecommerce tracking will be best for your business. If you’re looking to get a better understanding of the way consumers make purchases on your site, Standard Ecommerce may be all you need, and the relative simplicity can be helpful. If you have more specific questions (for instance, if you’re noticing that your customers seem to be viewing a lot of pages but are struggling to complete the buying process), Enhanced Ecommerce might be a good way to zoom in on the deeper processes behind customer decisions.

So now that you’ve decided what kind of ecommerce journey you want to set off on, it’s time to implement tracking. We’ve broken the process down for you:

Enable Ecommerce on Google Analytics: The first thing you’re going to need to do is enable your analytics account to record this kind of data. Simply…

Sign into your Google Analytics account
Click on “Admin” at the top of your page
In the “View” column, select the view you’re ready to track
In the “View” column, select “Ecommerce Settings”
Set the “Enable Ecommerce” button to “On”
If you’re setting up Enhanced Ecommerce, switch it on as well
Click “Next Step” and then “Submit”

Set Up Tracking on Your Website: This next step can be a little tricky, so tread carefully! To collect ecommerce data, you’ll need to add JavaScript to your website (or Analytics SDKs for mobile apps) to track the data. If you’re comfortable with writing and editing code, this shouldn’t be too difficult, and Google offers a general guide to implementing it here. If you’re less well-versed in coding, reaching out to a web developer or Google Analytics expert for assistance is a better plan to prevent any mistakes that could incorrectly record data and negatively affect your decision-making process.

PART 2: WHAT IT ALL MEANS

The home of your ecommerce data

Now that you’ve implemented ecommerce tracking, what’s next? Luckily, once you’ve added your tracking code and set Google Analytics to detect it, your ecommerce reports will start populating with data and you’ll be able to start analyzing your customers’ shopping habits like a pro. Here’s a quick crash course in understanding your Google Analytics Ecommerce reports:

Finding Your Ecommerce Reports in Google Analytics:

-In Google Analytics, navigate to the view in which you implemented ecommerce tracking.

-Select “Reporting” from the main menu.

-On the left-hand side menu, select “Conversions”.

-Select “Ecommerce”.

Another cool feature that comes along with implementing Ecommerce Tracking is that you can now see ecommerce info directly in many of the reports in Google Analytics.

Select your favorite report and check out the ecommerce info that you can now find by selecting “Ecommerce” in the menu of the “Conversions” section at the right-hand edge of your reports. This is very convenient when you want to quickly segment your ecommerce data in relation to dimensions such as demographics, geography, or channels.

Looking at ecommerce info in a source/medium report

Understanding Ecommerce Lingo:

You probably already understand several of the metrics within Google Analytics’ ecommerce report, such as Revenue and Quantity, but there are some new metrics within this report that you may not be as familiar with. Here are a few important terms to keep an eye on:

–Ecommerce Conversion Rate: This is the percentage of sessions that culminated in an ecommerce transaction. Your ecommerce conversion rate gives you a quick way to determine if your shoppers are buying or if they’re just browsing.

–Unique Purchases: This refers to the number of times that a specified product (or set of products) was part of an order. In other words, if one person purchases two or more of the same item, that will only count as one “unique purchase”. This can be useful to determine how customers purchase your products and could help you identify if offering promotions such as bulk discounts could be a beneficial action for certain products.

–Transactions: Are a few customers buying a ton of stuff, or do you have a ton of customers buying one item each? The Transactions metric tells you how many times a customer made any kind of purchase on your site. When you compare your number of transactions to your total revenue, you can calculate “Average Order Value”, which is another useful Google Analytics ecommerce metric for understanding how valuable, on average, each customer’s transaction is to your business. Knowing the average value of transactions is key to efficiently planning your digital marketing efforts going forward.

Obviously, there is a lot more you can look at within ecommerce reports, especially if you have decided to implement Enhanced Ecommerce. If you ensure that your ecommerce tracking is installed correctly, the data collected in these reports can help you understand your customers’ behavior on a much deeper level.

If you’re ready to dive in but are still unsure where to start, contact the Leverage Marketing team today. We’re seasoned Google Analytics experts who are pros at setting up and analyzing ecommerce data, and we’re ready to answer your toughest ecommerce questions.