Why do you need Google Analytics?Data has surpassed oil as the world’s most valuable resource. Why? Because understanding your customers is the key to driving sales. Take a traditional car salesman as an example, the more he knows about you, the easier it will be for him to make the sale. As he chats with you, he’ll better understand which car you’ll need, what kind of add-on services you’d like and the kind of messaging or phrasing that’ll resonate with you. Google Analytics will provide you with all that data about your customer. It’ll tell you how old they are, where they’re from, how they got to your site, which tours or activities they spent the most time browsing on, etc. With this information, you’ll be able to promote and improve the right tours and activities, improve your website to optimize for sales and build the right messaging for your tours and activities that’ll turn ‘lookers into bookers’. And most importantly, it is free. What is Google Analytics?Google Analytics is a data tracking tool for your business. Think of it as a security camera you install in your store. However, this security camera not only tracks who has been in your store but also where they came from, their interest, their demographics, etc. It’s also free, just saying. How does it work?Every person using the internet has a bunch of information attached to their web browser, the information is stored in what is called a cookie. Google Analytics provides you with a snippet of code you can place on your website. When a user visits your website, the code is triggered, which fires the cookie to your account, sending the users information to your Google Analytics account. Google Analytics will then break all this information down into digestible, useful reports for… free. Google Analytics ReportsThere are four Google Analytics reports which you be able to access: Audience: Who are they? Acquisition: How did they get to your site?Behavior: What did they do on your site?Conversion: What led to the conversion? AudienceAlso known as the Stalker Book, this report allows you to understand your customer’s:Demographics (age and gender)Interests Geography (where they’re from and languages they speak)Technology (What devices or web-browsers they use)The audience report allows you to better tailor your product and messaging to your customers. For example, you may find that the majority of the users browsing through your website are from France, you should then consider offering your tours or activities in French. Knowing your audience’s age and gender will also help you identify which products to offer and the messaging you should use to promote them. For example, if most of your audience is from Gen X, you should offer more packages, rather than individual experiences. You should also ensure you’re using images of older people enjoying your activities rather than for example, teenagers jumping off a boat. You can learn more about marketing to different generations here. Knowing their interests will also allow you to offer add-on services or products they might enjoy. For example, if they’re interested in food and dining, offer exotic food tasting as an add-on to your tour.AcquisitionThis report allows you to understand how your customers came to your site. Whether it’d be from Facebook Ads, Google Search, emails, etc. Once you’ve set up your Google Search Console, you’ll also be able to see what words they were searching for when they found your site. Knowing how your audience got to your site is critical to optimizing or creating your marketing campaign. By knowing which channels are most effective for you, you’ll be able to better prioritize where you should be spending your marketing budget. For example, you may find that the users from Google Search purchase at a higher rate compared to other channels. If that’s the case, you may want to increase your spending there. Alternatively, you may find that emails are your most useful channel, in which case, you may want to spend your budget on a designer to improve your emails instead. The keywords your customers search for are also a great indicator of the kind of tours and activities that are currently popular in the market. You may use this information to adjust your offerings.BehaviorThink of this as your security camera. With this report, you’ll be able to monitor what your customers are doing on your site. Where they enter, which pages they visit, how long they spent on each page, which page led to a conversion and which page made them leave. This allows you to understand the best parts of your website and the parts that need work. Optimizing your website for the best conversion rates.ConversionsThink of this as your manager telling you how well you’re doing. This report allows you to measure how well you’re doing with regard to your goals. For most organizations, your main goal will be a sale. However, you could also have multiple smaller goals that you consider small wins, before a customer purchases. For example, did they watch your tour video or did they share one of your tours with a friend. There are four types of goal you can set up:Destination: This is when a user reaches a specific page. This is often used for thank you pages or order confirmation pages to track sales. Event: This is when a user triggers a specific event. For example, playing a video, signing up for a mailing list or sharing something on their social media. Duration: This is when a user spends more than a specific amount of time on your site.Pages/ Screens Per Session: This is when a user visits more than a specific number of pages.The first two are extremely helpful for measuring your performance. And the other two? Well… they’re about as useful as drinking soup with a fork. This report also allows you to track who are your best customers. You’ll be able to figure out who are the ones who are converting on your site. For example, users from Japan may purchase your tours at a higher rate during the months from March to June while users from France may be your best customers in August. You’ll also be able to find little insights like whether or not desktop visits convert at a higher rate as compared to mobile or tablet visits. Other useful tools in this report include goal flows which allow you to visualize the pages your user goes through from the landing page to conversion. It’s Free.Google Analytics is a free tool to help you improve your business and maximize sales. This may not be the best time for the tourism industry, but it’s a great time for you to get set up with tools like Google Analytics so your business will be able to skyrocket during the recovery. Head to Google Analytics to get started.Back to the Masterclass.