How to analyse and report the true value of your SEO Campaign
For any organic search campaign you would be interested in knowing three aspects of the campaign:
- How the campaign has performed?
- How organic visitors have consumed your contents?
- How the organic campaign has helped other marketing campaigns (PPC, Email, Social, Affiliate etc) in completing conversions?
I am going to outline the process I follow to determine the true value of SEO campaigns:
Step-1: Create a custom report in Universal Analytics which includes only organic search data and contains following dimensions and metrics:
Dimensions: Source/Medium
Metrics: Sessions, Goal Completions, Goal Value, Revenue, Goal Conversion Rate, Ecommerce Conversion Rate, Pageviews, Avg. Session Duration, Bounce Rate and Pages/session.
However, this custom report does not provide complete insight as the conversions (goal conversions & ecommerce transactions) reported are all last non-direct click conversions i.e. these are the conversions that occurred when organic search was the last non-direct marketing channel a person was exposed to before he/she converted.
- So the goal completions you see in this custom report are the last non-direct click goal completions.
- The goal conversion rate you see in this report is the last non-direct click goal conversion rate
- The ecommerce conversion rate you see in the report is the last non-direct click e-commerce conversion rate.
- The revenue you see in the report is the last non-direct click revenue.
This custom report doesn’t show assisted conversions generated by your organic search campaign.
Get the FREE E-Book (52 Pages)
Any conversion other than the last click conversion is an assisted conversion.
We can never truly determine the true value of our SEO campaigns unless we don’t start analysing and reporting the role, organic search campaign is playing in initiating and assisting conversions.
“ SEO not only helps in completing a conversion but also help in initiating and assisting the conversions which are completed by other marketing channels (like PPC, Email, Display, Direct, Referral etc). “
Step-2: Navigate to Conversions > Multi Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths Report and then create a new conversion segment called ‘The True value of SEO‘:
In this conversion segment, I am selecting all those ‘conversion paths’ in which ‘organic search’ was not the last interaction.
I use this conversion segment to determine the assisted conversions of my SEO campaign.
Universal Analytics by default follows the last click attribution model in multi-channel funnel reports. So in multi channel funnel reports you see conversion volumes and conversion values for conversion paths in which ‘organic search’ was the last click/interaction.
That is why in my conversion segment I have excluded all those ‘conversion paths’ in which ‘organic search’ was the last interaction. In this way I can avoid reporting double counts of last click conversion volumes and conversion values.
I have already reported last click conversion volumes and last click conversion values through the custom report I developed above.
Once you have applied this conversion segment to your ‘Top Conversions Path’ report, you will get an insight similar to the one below:
Here we can conclude that the SEO campaign assisted in additional 20k+ conversions (which are later completed by other marketing channels) whose value is more than $100k. You can’t get this type of insight through non-multi channel funnel reports like the custom report I created above.
Step-3: Since in multi channel funnel reports, conversions include both Goal conversions and E-commerce transactions, you should segment the conversion data further into ecommerce transactions and goal conversions:
Now we can see that out of 20k+ conversions, 467 are ecommerce transactions. These are the e-commerce transactions in which organic search didn’t directly complete, but assisted in completing.
Without the assistance of organic search these transactions would have never completed in the first place.
Now we want to determine the value of these e-commerce transactions. So I will unselect all of the goals and then click on the ‘Apply’ button:
Fig.1
Once you clicked on the apply button you can then see the economic value of the ecommerce transactions which were assisted by organic search:
Now we can conclude that Organic search helped in generating a revenue of $40,885 on top of the revenue $260k (as reported by the custom report above).
Similarly, you can determine true value of your PPC campaigns, Display campaigns, Email campaigns etc.
Get my best selling books on Attribution Modelling
- Learn to implement attribution modelling in your organisation
- Understand the customer purchase journey across devices
- Determine the most effective marketing channels for investment
Click book covers to find out more.
Other articles on Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics
- Touch Point Analysis in Google Analytics Attribution Modelling
- 8 Google Analytics Conversions Segments You Must Use
- Default and Custom Attribution Models in Google Analytics
- Attribution Model Comparison Tool in Google Analytics
- Which Attribution Model to use in Google Analytics?
- How to create Custom Attribution Model in Google Analytics
- How to do ROI Analysis in Google Analytics
- Google Analytics Attribution Modelling – Complete Guide
- Guide to Data Driven Attribution Model in Google Analytics
- Conversion Credit distribution for Attribution Models in Google Analytics
- You are doing Google Analytics all wrong. Here is why
- Marketing Mix Modelling or Attribution Modelling. Which one is for you?
- Introduction to Nonline Analytics – True Multi Channel Analytics
- How to set up Data driven attribution model in Google Analytics
- How to valuate Display Advertising through Attribution Modelling
- Understanding Shopping Carts for Analytics and Conversion Optimization
- View-through conversion tracking in Google Analytics
- Understanding Missing Touch Points in Attribution Modelling
- Guide to Offline Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics
- How to explain attribution modelling to your clients
- 6 Keys to Digital Success in Attribution Modelling
- How to use ZMOT to increase Conversions and Sales exponentially
- How to Measure and Improve the Quality of SEO Traffic through Google Analytics
- How to analyse and report the true value of your SEO Campaign
- How to allocate Budgets in Multi Channel Marketing
- What You Should Know about Historical Data in Web Analytics
- Google Analytics Not Provided Keywords and how to unlock and analyze them
- Selecting the Best Attribution Model for Inbound Marketing
- Introduction to TV attribution in Google Analytics Attribution 360
- Cross Device Reports in Google Analytics via Google Signals
- Data-Driven Attribution Model Explorer in Google Analytics
Do you know the difference between Web Analytics and Google Analytics?
99.99% of course creators themselves don’t know the difference between Web analytics, Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM).
So they are teaching GA and GTM in the name of teaching Web analytics.
They just copy each other. Monkey see, monkey do.
But Web analytics is not about GA, GTM.
It is about analyzing and interpreting data, setting up goals, strategies and KPIs.
It’s about creating strategic roadmap for your business.
Web Analytics is the core skill. Google Analytics is just a tool used to implement ‘Web Analytics’.
You can also implement ‘Web analytics’ via other tools like ‘adobe analytics’, ‘kissmetrics’ etc.
Using Google Analytics without the good understanding of ‘Web analytics’ is like driving around in a car, in a big city without understanding the traffic rules and road signs.
You are either likely to end up somewhere other than your destination or you get involved in an accident.
You learn data analysis and interpretation from Web analytics and not from Google Analytics.
The direction in which your analysis will move, will determine the direction in which your marketing campaigns and eventually your company will move to get the highest possible return on investment.
You get that direction from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
You learn to set up KPIs, strategies and measurement framework for your business from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
So if you are taking a course only on 'Google Analytics’, you are learning to use one of the tools of ‘Web analytics’. You are not learning the ‘Web analytics’ itself.
Since any person can learn to use Google Analytics in couple of weeks, you do no get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing GA.
You need to know lot more than GA in order to work in Web analytics and marketing field.
So what I have done, if you are interested, is I have put together a completely free training that will teach you exactly how I have been able to leverage web/digital analytics to generate floods of news sales and customers and how you can literally copy what I have done to get similar results.
Here what You'll Learn On This FREE Web Class!
1) Why digital analytics is the key to online business success
2) The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.
3) Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.
4) Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.
5) The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.
6) How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.
7) How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.
My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization
Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.
Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.
Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.
Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.
Himanshu Sharma
Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com
For any organic search campaign you would be interested in knowing three aspects of the campaign:
- How the campaign has performed?
- How organic visitors have consumed your contents?
- How the organic campaign has helped other marketing campaigns (PPC, Email, Social, Affiliate etc) in completing conversions?
I am going to outline the process I follow to determine the true value of SEO campaigns:
Step-1: Create a custom report in Universal Analytics which includes only organic search data and contains following dimensions and metrics:
Dimensions: Source/Medium
Metrics: Sessions, Goal Completions, Goal Value, Revenue, Goal Conversion Rate, Ecommerce Conversion Rate, Pageviews, Avg. Session Duration, Bounce Rate and Pages/session.
However, this custom report does not provide complete insight as the conversions (goal conversions & ecommerce transactions) reported are all last non-direct click conversions i.e. these are the conversions that occurred when organic search was the last non-direct marketing channel a person was exposed to before he/she converted.
- So the goal completions you see in this custom report are the last non-direct click goal completions.
- The goal conversion rate you see in this report is the last non-direct click goal conversion rate
- The ecommerce conversion rate you see in the report is the last non-direct click e-commerce conversion rate.
- The revenue you see in the report is the last non-direct click revenue.
This custom report doesn’t show assisted conversions generated by your organic search campaign.
Get the FREE E-Book (52 Pages)
Any conversion other than the last click conversion is an assisted conversion.
We can never truly determine the true value of our SEO campaigns unless we don’t start analysing and reporting the role, organic search campaign is playing in initiating and assisting conversions.
“ SEO not only helps in completing a conversion but also help in initiating and assisting the conversions which are completed by other marketing channels (like PPC, Email, Display, Direct, Referral etc). “
Step-2: Navigate to Conversions > Multi Channel Funnels > Top Conversion Paths Report and then create a new conversion segment called ‘The True value of SEO‘:
In this conversion segment, I am selecting all those ‘conversion paths’ in which ‘organic search’ was not the last interaction.
I use this conversion segment to determine the assisted conversions of my SEO campaign.
Universal Analytics by default follows the last click attribution model in multi-channel funnel reports. So in multi channel funnel reports you see conversion volumes and conversion values for conversion paths in which ‘organic search’ was the last click/interaction.
That is why in my conversion segment I have excluded all those ‘conversion paths’ in which ‘organic search’ was the last interaction. In this way I can avoid reporting double counts of last click conversion volumes and conversion values.
I have already reported last click conversion volumes and last click conversion values through the custom report I developed above.
Once you have applied this conversion segment to your ‘Top Conversions Path’ report, you will get an insight similar to the one below:
Here we can conclude that the SEO campaign assisted in additional 20k+ conversions (which are later completed by other marketing channels) whose value is more than $100k. You can’t get this type of insight through non-multi channel funnel reports like the custom report I created above.
Step-3: Since in multi channel funnel reports, conversions include both Goal conversions and E-commerce transactions, you should segment the conversion data further into ecommerce transactions and goal conversions:
Now we can see that out of 20k+ conversions, 467 are ecommerce transactions. These are the e-commerce transactions in which organic search didn’t directly complete, but assisted in completing.
Without the assistance of organic search these transactions would have never completed in the first place.
Now we want to determine the value of these e-commerce transactions. So I will unselect all of the goals and then click on the ‘Apply’ button:
Fig.1
Once you clicked on the apply button you can then see the economic value of the ecommerce transactions which were assisted by organic search:
Now we can conclude that Organic search helped in generating a revenue of $40,885 on top of the revenue $260k (as reported by the custom report above).
Similarly, you can determine true value of your PPC campaigns, Display campaigns, Email campaigns etc.
Get my best selling books on Attribution Modelling
- Learn to implement attribution modelling in your organisation
- Understand the customer purchase journey across devices
- Determine the most effective marketing channels for investment
Click book covers to find out more.
Other articles on Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics
- Touch Point Analysis in Google Analytics Attribution Modelling
- 8 Google Analytics Conversions Segments You Must Use
- Default and Custom Attribution Models in Google Analytics
- Attribution Model Comparison Tool in Google Analytics
- Which Attribution Model to use in Google Analytics?
- How to create Custom Attribution Model in Google Analytics
- How to do ROI Analysis in Google Analytics
- Google Analytics Attribution Modelling – Complete Guide
- Guide to Data Driven Attribution Model in Google Analytics
- Conversion Credit distribution for Attribution Models in Google Analytics
- You are doing Google Analytics all wrong. Here is why
- Marketing Mix Modelling or Attribution Modelling. Which one is for you?
- Introduction to Nonline Analytics – True Multi Channel Analytics
- How to set up Data driven attribution model in Google Analytics
- How to valuate Display Advertising through Attribution Modelling
- Understanding Shopping Carts for Analytics and Conversion Optimization
- View-through conversion tracking in Google Analytics
- Understanding Missing Touch Points in Attribution Modelling
- Guide to Offline Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics
- How to explain attribution modelling to your clients
- 6 Keys to Digital Success in Attribution Modelling
- How to use ZMOT to increase Conversions and Sales exponentially
- How to Measure and Improve the Quality of SEO Traffic through Google Analytics
- How to analyse and report the true value of your SEO Campaign
- How to allocate Budgets in Multi Channel Marketing
- What You Should Know about Historical Data in Web Analytics
- Google Analytics Not Provided Keywords and how to unlock and analyze them
- Selecting the Best Attribution Model for Inbound Marketing
- Introduction to TV attribution in Google Analytics Attribution 360
- Cross Device Reports in Google Analytics via Google Signals
- Data-Driven Attribution Model Explorer in Google Analytics
Do you know the difference between Web Analytics and Google Analytics?
99.99% of course creators themselves don’t know the difference between Web analytics, Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM).So they are teaching GA and GTM in the name of teaching Web analytics.
They just copy each other. Monkey see, monkey do.
But Web analytics is not about GA, GTM.
It is about analyzing and interpreting data, setting up goals, strategies and KPIs.
It’s about creating strategic roadmap for your business.
Web Analytics is the core skill. Google Analytics is just a tool used to implement ‘Web Analytics’.You can also implement ‘Web analytics’ via other tools like ‘adobe analytics’, ‘kissmetrics’ etc.
Using Google Analytics without the good understanding of ‘Web analytics’ is like driving around in a car, in a big city without understanding the traffic rules and road signs.
You are either likely to end up somewhere other than your destination or you get involved in an accident.
You learn data analysis and interpretation from Web analytics and not from Google Analytics.The direction in which your analysis will move, will determine the direction in which your marketing campaigns and eventually your company will move to get the highest possible return on investment.
You get that direction from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.
You learn to set up KPIs, strategies and measurement framework for your business from ‘Web analytics’ and not from ‘Google Analytics’.So if you are taking a course only on 'Google Analytics’, you are learning to use one of the tools of ‘Web analytics’. You are not learning the ‘Web analytics’ itself.
Since any person can learn to use Google Analytics in couple of weeks, you do no get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing GA.
You need to know lot more than GA in order to work in Web analytics and marketing field.
So what I have done, if you are interested, is I have put together a completely free training that will teach you exactly how I have been able to leverage web/digital analytics to generate floods of news sales and customers and how you can literally copy what I have done to get similar results.
Here what You'll Learn On This FREE Web Class!
1) Why digital analytics is the key to online business success
2) The number 1 reason why most marketers are not able to scale their advertising and maximize sales.
3) Why Google and Facebook ads don’t work for most businesses & how to make them work.
4) Why you won’t get any competitive advantage in the marketplace just by knowing Google Analytics.
5) The number 1 reason why conversion optimization is not working for your business.
6) How to advertise on any marketing platform for FREE with an unlimited budget.
7) How to learn and master digital analytics and conversion optimization in record time.
My best selling books on Digital Analytics and Conversion Optimization
Maths and Stats for Web Analytics and Conversion Optimization
This expert guide will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of maths and statistics in order to accurately interpret data and take actions, which can quickly improve the bottom-line of your online business.
Master the Essentials of Email Marketing Analytics
This book focuses solely on the ‘analytics’ that power your email marketing optimization program and will help you dramatically reduce your cost per acquisition and increase marketing ROI by tracking the performance of the various KPIs and metrics used for email marketing.
Attribution Modelling in Google Analytics and Beyond
Attribution modelling is the process of determining the most effective marketing channels for investment. This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling. It will teach you how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to allocate marketing budget and understand buying behaviour.
Attribution Modelling in Google Ads and Facebook
This book has been written to help you implement attribution modelling in Google Ads (Google AdWords) and Facebook. It will teach you, how to leverage the knowledge of attribution modelling in order to understand the customer purchasing journey and determine the most effective marketing channels for investment.
Himanshu Sharma
Digital Marketing Consultant and Founder of Optimizesmart.com