GOOGLE ANALYTICS FOR HIGHER ED

By. Gus Kroustalis

AUDIENCE SEGMENTATION Higher education websites face a difficult challenge that

websites in many other industries do not have to endure. The Challenge: Catering to a handful of audiences with one

website.

TYPICAL LIST OF TARGET AUDIENCES

Prospective Students● The most critical audience for higher

education websites, especially considering the impact of digital marketing for admissions

Current Students● Current students access the website to

research new courses and look for upcoming events

Faculty/Staff● Marketers do not want to isolate this

group. Identifying Faculty/Staff can help with future content navigation and design projects.

Alumni● When donations are sought, it is

important to know the website interactions by this audience

Parents● Some higher education websites have a

section of content tailored to parents of prospective students, incoming students or both

Community● This is individuals involved with the

college who do not fit any of the previous audiences. This would include visitors seeking more information.

GOOGLE ANALYTICS REPORTING

GOOGLE ANALYTICS REPORTING Imagine how much more impactful Google Analytics would be

if the data can be segmented based on these audiences. Analysis of audience activity could lead to improvements in

content display, website navigation and call to action optimization

Which all this can lead to increased overall website engagement for the end user

IDENTIFYING YOUR AUDIENCE

IDENTIFYING YOUR AUDIENCE The best way to define each

audience is by noting what actions can be associated with each audience

Example:● A prospective student: any

user who downloads an admissions application form.

● A prospective student: any user who schedules a tour on campus.

● An alum: any user who submits a donation via the form in the alumni section.

NOTICE ……. There should be more than one action used to identify any

give audience. Avoid actions that can be performed often by multiple

audiences. Example:

● Logging into the school’s email provider – this action can be performed by students, faculty and staff.

CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS

Under the property settings in the Account Admin for Google’s Universal Analytics is a link for Custom Definitions.

When you click Custom Definitions, you will then need to click Custom Dimensions.

CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS

Add a new custom dimension for each audience that you are building. Name the custom dimension as you plan to name the audience, and set the scope as User.

That configuration will apply the audience identification for a user across multiple sessions.

CONFIGURE AUDIENCES AS CUSTOM DIMENSIONS

Once you save the new dimension, Google Analytics will provide you with a snippet of JavaScript.

The dimension value should be replaced with the name of the audience, and the snippet should be added to all user actions in the website’s HTML.

WHAT IF OUR WEBSITE USES GOOGLE TAG MANAGER?

GOOGLE TAG MANAGER? Rather than hard-coding snippets of custom dimension JavaScript,

some digital marketers prefer Google Tag Manager. Google has some content that points Tag Manager users in the right

direction, such as this: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6164990?hl=en.

TEST AND VALIDATE Make sure the website loads properly in a test environment after the

custom dimension code has been added. Also, use a test reporting view in Google Analytics to make sure that

the custom dimensions are loading in the reports.● All you need to do is add a secondary dimension, typing an audience

name to find the custom dimension in the list. ● You can also create custom reports, adding these custom dimensions as a

primary dimension.

TEST AND VALIDATE

TEST AND VALIDATE Once the custom dimension

tracking goes live, decide on an amount of time to allow new data to populate in the reporting view.

Upon analyzing your new data, you will be able to determine if the actions you have tagged on the website are representative of that audience.

You may see audience totals much higher or lower than expected, compared to overall traffic or to other audiences.

Take that opportunity to adjust the actions tagged for those audiences in question.