If you’re using GA4, Google’s latest analytics platform, you know how valuable it is for understanding your audience’s behavior.
Although this successor to Google's Universal Analytics is more customizable and includes a ton of new features, it can also be tough to navigate. After all, greater power often comes with a greater learning curve.
Today, we’re breaking down one of GA4's most valuable features: its Conversion Report. Although this tool does require a bit of setup to incorporate it into your workflow, the insights you gain about your audience are unmatched. Here are three ways to use it to improve your marketing:
1. To Track Your Goals & Progress
Before diving into data analysis through GA4, you’ll want to start with the basics: tracking your progress.
Understanding your brand’s digital performance at this basic level will help you 1) create realistic KPIs, and 2) measure progress toward your current goals.
To get started, identify which user actions your business cares about, whether that's contact form submissions, product purchases, newsletter sign-ups, or even blogs read. The nice thing about GA4 is that you aren’t confined to your website, either. The platform also allows you to track the performance of your other Google initiatives, like Google Search or Display campaigns.
Even if certain actions don’t seem as important to your marketing goals, we recommend setting them up in GA4 anyway—you can always choose not to show them in the report you end up building. Your conversions won’t start tracking data until they’re created, so it’s better to create the tracking before you need it. Note that before you identify a “conversion,” you’ll have to ensure actions are configured as “events.”
Need help tracking conversions through GA4? We know it can get technical, and our Data Analytics team can help.
2. To View Audience Trends
Once your conversion tracking is set up and pulling in data into your GA4 account, you can use it to learn more about your audience and how they interact with your brand.
Conversion data can show you which platforms your audience engages with, when they’re more likely to purchase, where they’re located, what sources they’re coming from, and other insights that can help you fine-tune your overall marketing strategy.
While seeing customer data roll in is always exciting, remember that it takes time to consider something a “trend.” In other words, don’t change your campaign strategy based on a month’s worth of data. Behavior can be influenced by plenty of outside factors (economic conditions, seasonality, social movements, etc.), so you’ll want to capture data over a good chunk of time (at least a quarter) before drawing any definite conclusions. Here at Informatics, our team regularly monitors and alerts you of any external factors that might skew your GA4 visitor data.
3. To Identify “Holes” in Your Marketing Funnel
In our recent blog on marketing strategy for 2023, we advised fixing your leaky sales funnel. Did you know Google’s Conversion Report can help you identify the specific holes that need patching?
If you’re familiar with the marketing funnel concept, you know that each user interaction with your brand should fall into one of the following categories: Awareness, Interest, Consideration, Purchase, or Loyalty. So, to get a better picture of which part of the funnel is faltering, set up each of these interactions as “conversions” within GA4.
You’ll eventually be able to see where users drop off, whether that’s on your landing page or when “adding to cart.” The platform even lets you build out these actions as “stages” in its new Path Exploration Report. Here, you can better visualize your audience’s journey through the sales funnel, and tailor your marketing approach to match.
If you’re looking for help with your analytics strategy or setting up conversion tracking, reach out to the experts at Informatics—our data-driven experts would be happy to dive in!
