Attracting consumers to a website can be
a daunting task and can result in a serious lesson in time management and
attention to detail. In order to be successful, marketers need to be aware of
where their best customers are coming from and not spreading their budgets thin
on platforms that aren’t useful. Google Analytics can provide marketers with a
way to track website activity through referral reports. Referral
traffic can be defined as “Google's method of reporting visits that came to
your site from sources outside of its search engine,” (Bashara, 2014). When a
consumer clicks on a link to go to a different site, Analytics tracks the click
as a referral visit to the second site and marks the original site as a
“referrer” because it referred the traffic from one place to the next. Marketers
can easily review the website’s referral traffic by using the graph formed by
Google. The graph displays traffic for a one-month period and statistics on how
visitors react to what they find on the site. (Bashara, 2014).
In
order for marketers to make the most out of their marketing strategy and ad
dollars, it’s important to analyze and optimize referral traffic. Below are
four tips by marketers that have mastered referral optimization to boost the
bottom line. (Wallace, 2013).
1. Understand the Different Kinds of
Referrers
When looking at a referral report, you
will see two types of referrals — referring domains and individual referrals —
which are both important to analyze to gain a better understanding of the
referral sources as a whole. "Referring domains focus on which websites in
aggregate are sending you visitors, and is useful for informing things like
paid advertising efforts," says Christopher Penn, vice president of
marketing technology at SHIFT Communications. "If you see, for example,
Mashable.com sending lots of traffic to you already, you may want to take out a
campaign to advertise on Mashable to take advantage of an audience that is
already interested in you," (Wallace, 2013). On the other hand, individual
referrers provide insight into what specific pages are driving traffic. For
example, it can be useful in measuring PR efforts and determining if an article
that references the brand is actually attracting a new audience.
(Wallace, 2013).
When experiencing a spike in traffic, the
referral report is a great place to start understanding why because it allows
marketers to quickly determine the source and content of the spike. This
knowledge provides marketers with the opportunity to optimize traffic and continue
to grow a particular audience. "If you are serious about your online
marketing, you have to know your referring traffic sources so you can identify
where your audience is hanging out," says Maciej Fita, SEO director at
Brandignity.com (Wallace, 2013).
2. Track Everything
“Measuring your referrals isn't just
about setting up campaigns, watching the numbers roll in, then deciding where
to spend money to gain a bigger audience. You need to do some grunt work, or
else your data might be vague and you won't know where to invest for your next
campaign,” (Wallace, 2013). In order to avoid vague data, marketers must not
lack when it comes to measurement planning or making sure tracking codes are in
place. Without these steps, it will be difficult to identify which executions
are working and which are not. (Wallace, 2013).
3. Optimize for Social
While social media may not be the top
driver of sales, it still offers great value for brands through referrers
because it provides insights into which channels are the most effective and
what content is acting as a traffic source.
PureWow, women’s lifestyle publishers,
was able to use its referral report to increase its activity on Pinterest. "We
pay close attention to referring domains. Like many women’s lifestyle publishers,
Pinterest has vaulted in the last two years from a top-20 traffic source to a
top-5 traffic source. But, unlike some other lifestyle publishers, PureWow sees
incredible visitor quality from Pinterest, in terms of depth of visit,
engagement and consistently low bounce rates," says Alexis Anderson,
PureWow's director of marketing and partnerships (Wallace, 2013). After taking
the information provide from its referral report, PureWow redesigned image
specs to be more Pinterest-friendly ("balanced, squarish images over very
tall and narrow") and placed "Pin It" buttons on every image or
idea that might be shared. (Wallace, 2013).
4. Discover Partner Opportunities
In addition to providing insight into a
brand’s core audience and effective channels, tracking referrals can help
marketers uncover potential partners that uphold a similar mission and overall
goals. "Cross-checking site referrals can be a worthwhile exercise,
especially during campaign periods. You may be surprised by not only the type
of sites that are referring traffic, but also the page context in which your
site is referenced," says Tony Clement, strategy director and head of data
and analytics at Big Spaceship. "This data can be useful to management,
especially if you are looking for prospects for potential partnerships for
media placements, sponsorships, events or even SEO authority," (Wallace,
2013).
All in all, keeping up with referrals,
both big and small, will allow marketers to make strategic business decisions
when it comes to efficient ad spend and time management as they “cultivate an
engaged digital audience and convert them into customers,” (Wallace, 2013).
Bryan from KISSmetrics created an
excellent video that helps marketers make the most out of their Google
Analytics account including defining referral paths and how marketers can use
it. (Harris, 2013).
Bashara,
R. (2014). What Is Referral Traffic in Google Analytics? Retrieved from: http://smallbusiness.chron.com/referral-traffic-google-analytics-53168.html
Harris,
B. (2013, November 21). How To Extract Value From Google Analytics Referral
Paths (The Video). Retrieved from: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/referral-paths-the-video/
Wallace, T. (2013, November 27). 4 Ways to
Optimize Your Referral Traffic. Retrieved from: http://mashable.com/category/metrics-that-matter/
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