Affiliate Tips: Using Google Analytics to Your Advantage

As an Affiliate Network, we’re extremely fond of Google Analytics for allowing so many online marketers track their progress in impressive detail at absolutely no cost. If you are an Affiliate, we highly recommend that you utilize this platform to track your performance. There are few free tools available online that are as granular and thorough as Google Analytics. For that reason, we will help you make the most out of this free online resource by working through some of their most useful features and reports. Google Analytics might look intimidating at first because of how detailed each report can be, but once you get the hang of it, this tool should become second nature.

Pay Attention to Site Searches

If your website doesn’t incorporate a search bar, it should. The search bar allows visitors to get to their intended destination much faster, which ultimately contributes to their overall user experience and time value. The only times when you don’t need a search bar would be when you’re simply trying to create a minimalistic landing page or when the goal is to keep your visitors on that same page. Having a search bar might distract them from the sales funnel and call-to-action on that page. Otherwise, incorporate a search bar so that you can track on Google Analytics what their search queries are and how you can better provide for those visitors in the future. Search queries show you what your visitors look for most on your website. Depending on the topic of these searches, you can determine how to draft your upcoming content for that week. HubSpot revealed that blogs with 16 new published posts per month received 3.5 times more traffic than those with four or less posts. With this many articles to write, your site queries will definitely come in handy when you need relevant ideas.

Audience Targeting

One of the best ways to use Google Analytics is to view your audiences in unbelievable detail. Under the Audience tab, you should find reports that display the Active Users, Lifetime Value, Cohort Analysis, Demographics, Interests, Geo, Behavior, and so forth. These reports all show you the different aspects of your visitors so that you can truly know them inside out, which eventually makes for more effective campaigns and higher conversion rates overall. We suggest that you explore each tab in detail so that you can have a firmer grasp on your actual website audience. Oftentimes, the people that you do attract to your content might not reflect the people you intended to attract, which would call for specific optimizations to be made in your content and campaigns. By analyzing your audience behavior, you will also have a better idea of how to deliver your promotional content in a more engaging and relevant way.

Optimize Mobile

Although Google Analytics might be geared towards desktop users, it definitely has a few detailed reports on mobile users as well. Mobile is becoming an even bigger search method than desktop, with more than half of all Google searches originating from mobile phones rather than computers. Knowing that mobile has already become such a prominent way to search, Google has since implemented a change in its algorithm that penalizes non-mobile-friendly websites. That’s right – not only will your website fall behind for not being mobile-friendly, its SEO will also suffer due to penalization. If your mobile site is good to go, however, there is nothing to worry about. Google Analytics exists to help you take this to the next level as well. Under the Mobile tab, you can view the type of devices used, their average session durations, the amount of pages they visited per session, and much more. You can also compare all of these insights with your set goals, which of course can be created with Google Analytics.

Conclusion

These are only a few of Google Analytics’ most useful features for you to check out. There are (quite literally) a hundred other reports for you to view to give you insight on anything from customer acquisition to conversion reports. If you can’t find a report that you really want, for any reason, you can customize your own using the Customization tool. For more ideas on how you can effectively use Google Analytics to boost your online lead generation efforts, contact your dedicated Account Manager today.