Optimizing online forms using Google Analytics Goal Funnels

So your site has a contact/signup/purchase form and the conversion rate for completions of your forms are low. What's a webmaster / web marketer to do?

Recently I ran across this issue and I realized other sites may very well have this same problem. Luckily with Google Analytics there's a great feature called Goal Funnels which can track users through a flow process and put it in a easily readable funnel diagram. To take advantage of Goal Funnels we'll need to take a few steps in order for GA to start tracking your forms.

There's a second feature of GA that we'll be using to put all this together and it's called Virtual Pageviews (VP). VP's allow you to trigger a page view generation on a page so that you can see that event or action in your Content reports inside GA. For form elements on a page, what you'll want to do is add a javascript "onclick" function to trigger the virtual pageview generation.

Here's an example of a standard field you'll find in a form:

<input name="mail" size="25" type="text" />

To trigger virtual pageviews for this field, you'll modify your code like this:

<input onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/signup_form/email');" name="mail" size="25" type="text" />

You'll notice the "/signup_form/email" part of that code. That part of the code is what you'll name the virtual page. I chose something that describes the event I'm tracking. You can name yours whatever you prefer. I could've named it "signupform_email" also but I used the slash instead to separate out the category and label. You'll also want to do this for your submit button.

<input onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/signup_form/submission');" name="submit" type="submit" value="submit my info" />

After you've modified your form with the all the virtual pageview tracking code, you'll need to go back to the reporting interface and define your goal. Choose URL destination as the goal type, select "Head Match" for Match Type and in the Goal URL field enter your virtual pageview path. So if you created something such as:

You'll want to put "/signup_form/submission" in the URL field in your goal definition. Next you'll want to add a Goal Funnel.

Make sure your first step in your funnel has the "required" checked so that users are required to at least complete the first step of the funnel in order to count as a conversion. For each field, you'll enter your virtual pageview URLs into them.

After you're done, what you'll be able to see is how many users make it through EACH step of the form, where they drop off, where they go after and how many complete the form.

This article was originally published at Web Analytics Traffic .com

Active Autobody in Sunnyvale - A review ... AVOID at all cost

A while back I was recommended by the s2000 community for body repair work so I brought my car there and this was the result of my experience there. Below is pasted from my post on that community forum.

Last month I brought my car there to get scratches removed off the rear passenger quarter panel and bumper. They said both would have to be completely repainted. I was quoted ~$1k for the job. I left my car there for the work. Took them about 3 days. When I picked it up, it was parked out in front in their parking lot out in the sun. This was my first time having body work done on a car I've owned. He comes up to me and says, "looks great huh?" It looked fine from a scan I did there on the lot. I was recommended by him too and so I just thought, "hey I'm sure it's perfect". Later that day I went to pump gas and under the gas station lights in the early evening I saw what looks like stretch lines in the bumper on the passenger side near the corner. There were tons of them. So then I decided to check the quarter panel more thoroughly and found a big speck of dust stuck under the paint too. You could even feel the protrusion. Later that night I examined my car again and felt this matte film that was stuck on the ENTIRE driver side of my car along with a little on the hood and trunk. I tried washing the car that night to get it out. Soap & water alone didn't take it out. I ended up using a claybar to get the stuff off. I call him up the next day and he agrees to let me take it back in so he can see what's wrong. During the time I got it back and before I brought it back to him I had washed and waxed it thoroughly and told him NOT to have his guys wash & detail the car. I also noticed I had a new rattle somewhere in the back of the car.

Next day I'm there and he's checking it out with some of his guys. Agrees to redo the whole thing again. He said he should have it by Thursday. This was on a Monday. I decided to stop by on Wednesday to check it out. When I arrived it was parked on the side lot in the dirt that's fenced off. He saw me and came over and asked, "how's it look"? This time I made sure to examine it thoroughly. The lines and dust speck were gone from a visual inspection. I then noticed indentions in the paint on an edge of the bumper that looks to have been made during the handling of it to hang it. I pointed it out and he replies, "you sure that wasn't there before?" and I'm thinking, "wtf? you repainted the entire bumper. even if it WAS there before it shouldn't be there now". So I just reply, "uh yeah. I'm super anal with my car. I hardly drive it. I know of every visible scratch on my car". He pretty much disregards what I said. He then walks around my car and tries to find other scratches to prove his point. Keep in mind the car is now in the DIRT lot and is completely covered in a layer of dirt. He then proceeds to use his hands to wipe dirt off my car! I'm thinking to myself, "WTF. you're an autobody shop and you don't realize you're putting fine scratches in my clear coat?" I was about to tell him that when he finally stopped. I asked him, "so when can my car be ready?" He replies, "well probably friday now since I have to repaint your bumper again due to those marks you pointed out." I said, "alright. I rather you take the time to get it right. Can you also NOT wash the car when you're done?" I didn't want his goons to smear the dirt all around.

Friday comes around and I arrive to pick up my car. It's now parked in the lot in front of the shop. He approaches with a big smile on his face and says, "Looks great huh? " I don't reply and just start looking at the car. I also noticed the car's been washed (I told him not to). From a visual inspection the marks are gone, no lines, paint matches. I start to glide my hands over the bumper. There were dozens of bumps on the surface! I point it out and then he replies, "ohhh..bring it back on Monday and we'll wetsand and buff it out. We didn't get a chance to do that yet". WTF! So basically if I hadn't thoroughly checked it out he was just gonna let me drive off the lot and not bother with the fact that it's not even completely done. So I said, "fine, I'm bringing it back on Monday". As I drove off I realized I'm out of town the next week so I call him up and say I need this done tomorrow or something. He replies, "Oh ok hmm..bring it tomorrow but make sure to call to see if anyone's here". I replied, "you're not going to be there?" He replies, "I have something with my son. Someone should be there". So I reply, "alright. I'll call first thing in the morning when your shop opens".

I call 8am sharp next day (Saturday). No answer. I try a couple more times and then give up and go back to sleep. I get a call from him at 11am. Says, "Hey. Where are ya? We've been waiting here for you?" I told him I called him earlier and no one was around. So I just bust my ass there and watched them do the work. He shoots the wind with me while his guys are wetsanding and buffing it out. He mentioned, "Hey do you ever notice the soft top rattling?" I replied, "yea. There seems to be a new rattle in the back too". He replies, "hmm did you check the spare tire nut the holds it down?" I reply, "no..I'll do that when I get home". So his guys finally finish and everything is satisfactory I shake his hands and leave. I get home and decided to check out the spare tire. Lo and behold the nut is loose AND the spare tire was used (all dirty).

So instead of just saying, "Hey jarod, if you noticed any rattling in the back it might be the spare tire nut since we had to take out the spare tire and use it" he decides to hide it. And after I had picked up the 2nd time, instead of just saying, "hey you can pick your car up today, but it's not really ready", I ended up picking up a car that wasn't even done and he didn't bother to mention it in hopes of me just driving off without coming back.

To summarize, Active Autobody performed subpar work on my car and was dishonest about the quality of their work throughout the process.

Monitor & Track users with Custom Alerts using Google Analytics

Running a successful website involves being able to monitor your users interactions and the traffic your site generates. This can be a very time consuming task and many people simply don't have the time to monitor their website every hour of the day.

Let Google Analytics do the work for you using Custom Alerts, which is a feature that's part of the new Intelligence section in Analytics. Some of the preset alerts available include such data as:

Total visits decreases by more than 50% Unique visitors decreases by more than 50% Total page views decreases by 50% Average bounce rate increases by more than 50% and so on..

You can use these or create your very own. Log into your account and the appropriate profile and click on Intelligence in the left hand menu. You'll then be taken to the Daily Alerts dashboard. From there find the link that says "Create Custom Alerts". You'll then see this:



Give your alert a name. Choose something that's descriptive such as "Traffic decrease by more than 50%". Select the period when the alert would be performed (once a day, once a week, or once a month). Next is the important part of choosing what dimensions and metrics you want to monitor.

The first dropdown allows you to choose the following

If you choose anything but "All traffic" you'll be presented with additional conditions such as...


The next is the metric you want to measure by and offers the following:


In this example I'm interested in finding out whenever there is a traffic spike from visitors coming to my site from San Francisco.



So why would this be useful in this scenario? Suppose you have campaign that's targeting your San Francisco userbase and you've spent advertising money via Doubleclick or Google AdWords. You're a mediaplanner or the advertising agency and need to know the effectiveness of the campaign. Unfortunately you have many campaigns to juggle and keeping watch over every one of them is just not possible. With Alerts, Google Analytics does the work for you. So you can set Alerts to measure a threshold point in which you can then check or dive further at the data after the notification.

Learn more about Google Analytics to improve ROI for your advertising dollars at www.webanalyticstraffic.com