If you could walk in their shoes...

Earlier this month, Google Analytics made multi-channel funnels available in the new version of analytics. This, in laymen’s terms, allows you to trace a user’s path beyond the last click he or she makes to complete a goal or sale.

Before last week, if someone came to the Livelink website, for example, through Google, clicked on our natural listing in the SERPs and then completed a desired action such as filling in an enquiry form or making a sale, we would have no knowledge of what they did before this which helped to generate the sale or enquiry.

A week later and all of that’s a distant memory. Thanks to the ‘multi-channel funnels report’ we can now see the whole path users have taken to complete the goal or sale. Even better, Google has back-dated this data to 1st January this year so you can see how affective all your channels have been at generating revenue for the past nine months.

These reports are invaluable as they show the most popular paths visitors took before making the decision to complete the goal / sale. Valuable insights which can be found include how beneficial paid advertising can be in raising awareness and how organic search may result in visitors bookmarking your site to return again.

You may find you have a surprise when you discover how the people who do complete the goals on your site actually come to do so. Remember that these reports only track goals / sales that have been set up and were running as goals at the time that you are looking. It also only tracks users who allow their cookies to remain on their device. At the moment, this doesn’t include mobile however it’s is in the pipeline - when we have cross device data, this will become even more powerful !

If you need any help or further advice about these reports, email me and I’ll be more than happy to take you through some interesting insights about how people convert on your website.

Happy stalking !