In February, we’re focusing a lot of time and attention on Google Analytics.
That means we’ll have blog posts, #FACs, a webinar, a workshop and a white paper (coming soon) on the whys and hows of using Google Analytics in Higher Education.
What is Google Analytics?
Google Analytics (GA) is wonderful. I truly believe that! It is an amazing – and free – tool that you can easily place on your website to provide you with five major types of data:
- Audience data: who is on your site
- Acquisition data: where did they come from
- Behavior data: what are they doing
- Conversion data: are they doing what you want them to?
- Real-Time data: what’s going on right now
Why is it so important?
- Google Analytics gives you data to support decisions. I could probably stop here; this bullet point is so critical. Stop making decisions based on internal assumptions, feedback from the loudest angry user, or the well-intended (yet ill-advised) opinions of the higher ups.
- Google Analytics, used correctly, mirrors your institutional goals and gives you real trend data to judge success.
- Google Analytics gives you insights into potential technical and user experience problems. Believe it or not, most of your frustrated users just leave the site. Only the really pissed off ones will actually spend more of their time emailing you about it.
- The web is kind of a big deal. In a 2012 Noel-Levitz’s study, nearly ALL (98%) of college-bound high school seniors say that the web plays a role in their evaluation of an institution, with over half (53%) saying the web plays a significant or extremely important role. Google Analytics can tell you if you’re providing a compelling experience.
In Higher Education?
It is clear that websites are very important to higher education recruitment, yet few institutions are fully utilizing website analytics data to make better marketing decisions. I say this not to put down the industry, but to call out an opportunity. If you’re reading this you’re already on your way to seize this advantage over your competition. Now is the time to move on getting solid, accurate data and using it to inform the best possible communications with prospective students.
And don’t even get me started on all of the cool new tools Universal Analytics is promising…
Interested in learning more about Google Analytics?
Attend our free webinar, Google Analytics: The Top 5 Things To Know tomorrow (February 6).
Attend our two-day workshop in San Diego. Plus, California. In February.
Follow our Friday After Class (#FAC) series and blog posts. We’ll be featuring Google Analytics all month and have some great guest posts lined up!
Stay tuned for our white paper focused on Google Analytics.
Sign up for our newsletter (at the bottom of every page of our website) to stay up-to-date on all of these things!
