You can’t improve what you don’t measure. And since Google Analytics Event Tracking is so powerful, every small business that has a digital presence should utilise it. Simply put, how do you know what your projected return on investment is, if you’re not tracking your key performance indicators? No matter what type of business you own (whether it’s e-commerce or lead generation), take a look at the list below to ensure you’re tracking some of your most important visitor actions.
Before implementing Google Analytics Event Tracking, please make sure to take a look at this article for more technical background or this one for a more general overview.
1. Email Sign Ups
Good For : E-commerce & Lead Generation Websites
Email marketing has been proven to be one of the most profitable marketing techniques available, proven through numerous studies. This means that if you have an email sign up form you should be tracking it. This action could be tracked via a destination goal (if you have a thank you page) but can be measured just as well with an event on the signup button. This is especially interesting if you’re using the call to actions on many different pages, such as a form on the sidebar and another one on the footer.
2. Add To Cart
Good for: E-commerce
This is a must for any e-commerce website. Tracking how often visitors add a product to the cart on your website is an important metric to benchmark your potential conversion rate, but also how enticing your call to actions are. You’ll have greater transparency over which of your products are provoking a response from your users and even what types of buttons might be working.
3. Account Creation
Good For: E-commerce & Membership Websites
If you have a membership website or an e-commerce site which rewards loyalty, a key action for your website will be account signups. This type of tracking will be extremely useful if you have the call to action layered around the website. For example, it may be a case where any sign up buttons that contain a specific colour convert at a higher rate than another color.
4. Social Interaction
Good For: Thought leaders & Content publishers
When it comes to a socially dominated world it will be in your best interests to know which of your content gets shared. Not only will you be able to understand which types of your content is most popular, but you will also be able to see which referrers drive traffic that is socially active. This will help in your marketing efforts as you’ll be able to understand which content you should continually produce, and which websites you should partner with.
5. PDF Downloads
Good for: Thought leaders & Content publishers
Simply put if you’re a thought leader in your industry and you want people to download your white paper, you’ll want to measure how many people download it. Tracking this will enable you to see which pages contribute to the most downloads and which pages might be underperforming.
Closing Thoughts
In summary, if you have a website that is contributing to your business either directly or indirectly, you will probably want to track at least one of these events. Doing so will enable you to make smarter marketing decisions and make a start on a conversion rate optimisation strategy.
