Amanda Webb
People are worried that they've got low traffic to their website. But I actually think that's that's a good place to start. Your starting point is what you want to achieve beyond that, so maybe you've no traffic to your website now. Great. Let's look at some ways you can get the traffic to your website.
Finola Howard
That's Amanda Webb, digital marketing, ROI and analytics mentor and trainer. We hear her story from small organic hamper business, to digital marketing expert, and ultimately niching in the ROI and analytics space. We also get to demystify analytics a little, and break down the key things you need to look at. So you're focused on the right numbers that grow your business, as opposed to your ego tune in, you'll want to look at the numbers yourself after this one. I'm Finola Howard, intuitive marketer, your host and founder of how great marketing works, I believe that every business has a story to tell, because that's how the market decides whether to buy or not. And your story has to resonate with who you are and with the people you want to serve. And this podcast is about helping you reach the market in a way that feels right to you. So if you're an entrepreneur with a dream you want to make real, then this is the podcast for you. Because great marketing is your truth share.
Speaker 2
I seem to be having flashbacks lately, as I was just having a giggle before. I'm
Finola Howard
going to welcome the lovely Amanda Webb on. And the reason I'm inviting Amanda Webb to speak to us is one because her journey is really interesting to me. But also it's that dreaded discussion about Google Analytics, which we will talk about in a second. Welcome, Amanda.
Unknown Speaker
Hello. Hello. Thanks for having me.
Finola Howard
Oh, delighted to have you. So my flashback as we were just talking about two seconds ago was we're trying to figure out how long it is that we've known each other. And I think it goes back to 2005 when I was running this network called Irish business women.com. Pre Facebook.
Unknown Speaker
Yeah, I know. Imagine that a time before Facebook.
Finola Howard
But it was a really powerful space for business women to come together. And I think what's really interesting and what that is, it's moved on so much. So then now there are lots of places for women to come together. Do you think yourself? Yeah,
Speaker 1
I think back then I think that's that was the beginning of my online marketing journey. I was there because I had a website that wasn't ranking. I was trying to learn how to do that. That's where I started. And I suppose as well, when you first get into business, when you're female, it's a lot easier to go to female only networking businesses, networking sessions, because it's stupid. Sounds stupid to me now. But you're a bit scared men in business. You think they're all like wearing suits and know everything probably wisely. Now we know they don't. They would have been wearing suits. But they didn't know.
Finola Howard
They didn't. But it was it was a nice way to start in business. So that's where I'd like to start with our conversation, which is you started with an organic hamper business. What was it called again?
Speaker 1
It was called feel good organic campus.
Finola Howard
I remember. It was really good. It was really cool. I loved what you were doing. So you take it away. Tell us the story of how you ended up where you are now.
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's really weird because I used to like my entire life. I wanted to work in film and television. And I studied television production in college. And then I decided I wanted to get into the film business and I wanted to direct films. And there was a guy in Ireland because obviously I'm not from Ireland. As you can tell from my accent, there was a guy in Ireland, making a low budget feature film, he was like an a producer and director himself and met him in London, and moved to Ireland to work on that. And then ended up working for money, though, in the film industry for about 10 years, maybe 11 as an assistant director, but I realised after all that time that really I wasn't on the path to become a director, nothing I was doing. In fact, what it was doing was sapping the love of films out of me. So I felt I needed to change career. And I just decided I was going to set up a business and I didn't put any thought into it a toy when I'm going to start up a business and hey, I used to like it at Christmas when my dad's company sent us hampers so it's going to be hamper company. And they were a bit of a hippie. So it's going to be an organic hamper company and that was it. That was about as much thought as the whole thing. I just went ahead and started the
Finola Howard
business. But you ran that business for six years like so. Tell us what that was like.
Speaker 1
I didn't love it. I have to say like I spent I worked very very, very hard on it, I putting the whole thing together building a website, promoting it online. And I really enjoyed that bit promoting it online. Like the whole social media was exploding Facebook did come along. So I learned how I could use that and Twitter and LinkedIn, blog and the website in order to drive sales. So I enjoyed all that bit. What I didn't like was anything else. Anything from choosing the products, talking to suppliers, getting stuff delivered, talking to couriers deciding what was going to go in them pricing sales. So back then it was like I do sales now. But it's completely different back then I'd get into my car and I drive to Dublin and I go and I'd meet people and chat to them and show them what I got. And then you'd find yourself sitting by the sea, in a car park. And you'd look over your shoulder and there was somebody out another sales man in his suit, thinks knows everything. Very words, eating your sandwiches, knows me my sandwiches and I was like, This is not me, I do not enjoy this at all. And then when it came to Christmas, so as we're recording this, we're coming into that season now. I was like packing things. So actually standing in my cold stock room, which is my marriage with straw all around me straw, my hair straw, my jumper, freezing cold, putting these things together, and then out delivering up until Christmas Eve because of course people putting their orders last minute and you've got stock left, so you want to sell it. So I was going out delivering on Christmas Eve. And yet none of that hated all that. Then the recession came along, and I was kind of a bit relieved.
Finola Howard
Yeah, but are you glad you did it.
Speaker 1
I'm glad I did it. Without that I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now. Because that's where I fell in love with digital marketing. And I saw what it could do, because it was how people were hearing about me to start with. And it was the place where people go and view what I did. It was still new ish to buy online. I did sell some stuff online, a lot of the stuff was done from the sales meetings I had or from people, you know, ringing me and sending out brochures and all those things still, but the digital marketing that I really loved. And if I hadn't done that, I wouldn't have found that and I wouldn't been found, I found that I enjoyed doing that so that I could change my business and become the person who would show other businesses who sold hampers, or their hampers rather than me having to do it. But
Finola Howard
it's possible, though, isn't it possible, though, that it would have made you more empathetic to your future clients? Because you've walked that path? Oh,
Speaker 1
absolutely. I know what that's what's involved. And also, you know, a lot of people wouldn't know what goes on in the back of a business like that, or the back of anyone's business. They just think anyone that doesn't have a business thinks people who have businesses are rich just instantly, and they don't realise how much work and all the different aspects of their business. So understanding all the various things people have to do other than the marketing to make it happen, rather than me expecting them to be able to do things that just wouldn't fit into their working day. I think that was important.
Finola Howard
So the recession hit, and you decided to go in a different direction. You were relieved as what you said, What happened then?
Speaker 1
Yeah, I think I would, I got to stop doing all the things I hated. I just looked around and I was like, Well, what can I do? Because obviously, the big clients, the banks, insurance companies, they couldn't buy because it would look crass to be spending money like that, during a recession. So I started looking around, like, what can I do that would work instead. And just knowing that I liked that marketing piece, I put together a new business based on social media really, that I was focused on at the time. So I put together some packages on how I could help people with social media. I had 20 it was euros, 20 euros. Yeah, I think it was that then 20 euros, trying to remember if we'd converted from pounds to Euro. I bought a web domain. I built my own website. This time, I bought a Skype in phone number. And that was it. And instantly I was able to sell because people knew it had been working for me online. They'd seen it working for me online, so it was easy for me to sell it to someone else. And
Finola Howard
then you decided to ramp up when do you did you decide to so you entered that business in 2009? And then when did you decide to ramp When did you see kind of taking off? It
Speaker 1
kind of took off itself? So I got a corporate client quite quickly, just randomly who'd seen me online and thought this is somebody that could help us with a particular project they were on. So that paid well I had quite a few smaller clients but they were always interested in learning. So I was always on going off and going to conferences about like, stuff that I didn't need even understand when I was there, you know, I was like, I think I went to a measurement conference. And it was all for the corporates that were using, like really technical tools to do things. But I found that really exciting even though I didn't understand half of it, it gave me a taster of the stuff that I needed to learn. So then I went off and learnt that, and I expanded then, just from all the learning, I was doing all the different things I was trying and testing over the years. Initially, I'd been a Facebook person, that's, that's what everyone thought of me as like, was the Facebook person, because I use spent a lot of time on Facebook. But soon I just kind of like burst out of that bubble and tried other things. But that's been a problem as well, because I like going, it's not like chasing the new shiny thing that I think people talk about. But I'd get into something big time. And just really focus on that not knowing whether there was a demand for it or not just kind of going I'm really into this. So then there was blogging because I'd always been blogging, and I ran a blog as network. And then we ran the blog awards for a few years. So focusing on that. And then there was live streaming came along and videos always been my thing, obviously, because of my background in film and television. So I got really into live streaming, so I kind of was bouncing from one thing to another, just exploring how it works. So I could show other people that. But that also meant that there was no real niche. Now people didn't really know what it was that I did do or what they could hire me for. It was just I was like a good, all rounder, really.
Finola Howard
And that came to so one of the things that was interesting to me when we had our chat was during the pandemic digital marketing just exploded, anybody who was in the digital marketing space, whether it was social media, or anything to do with digital marketing, just business exploded. And the other key thing, which I thought was interesting is because you were doing a lot of training at the time, you were no longer on the road. And then the pandemic SwiftKey pandemic kind of ended its way away. And we came back to a more of a semblance of normality. And I think you started asking questions, then
Speaker 1
I think, you know, I had been like an analytics. I've really been into my analytics before that. So I was for a long time I was measuring the wrong things. So when I was blogging, I was really focusing on like, the number the amount of traffic I was getting to my website without paying any regard to what that traffic was doing. And I, you know, back then, that's when it's, there was a moment that I realised I spending all my time, like, all my time doing all the things like or the blogging, or the, or the social media or the live streaming, and I was really like pushing myself to be consistent with all that stuff. And that there was a moment that I realised maybe that that wasn't my time. My time wasn't spent best that way. So I'd already had that in my head before the pandemic. And I've really started for a few years focusing in on building strategies. So I was working with clients building strategies, but um, that's kind of what I did through the pandemic, I was working, you know, there were a lot of government grants. And yeah, during the pandemic, I thought I'd totally nailed it. I totally winning it business. I know, I'm a great business person. Now look at my bank balance. That was kind of great. But any digital marketer, kind of the opposite to what happened to a lot of people. So we often feel guilt about that. But you know, so I came at the end of that going, yeah, look how brilliant I am at business. And then yes, like you said, it ebbed away, the money started. Now I needed to start focusing on something I could sell. And I think having that period of time where I was busy, where I was earning good money was kind of good, because it did give me a bit of breathing space. Yeah, so the first thing I did when the pandemic finished was I invested in some coaching a coaching programme with Andrew and Pete, who some of you may be aware of, just I needed somebody, here, look, this is what you need to focus on. Because if you focus on this, that's gonna work for you. So and that's when it all changed with
Finola Howard
Andrew and Pete, did you do it as a group coaching programme or one to one coaching? What did that look like?
Speaker 1
It's one to one coach, they have a programme called rebels. So you have a call with them every week, a short call with them every week, and then our group sessions as well. So that really gives you no room to Slack, because you're talking to them every Monday, you know, to make sure that you're staying on track. And it was really about at the beginning and my kickoff call, which was a longer call, but it was like this, I just, that's what I wanted. I wanted them to say, do this, you know, you could either do this or you could do this I just needed someone point me in the direction because I felt at this stage I had all the skills. Now I've been helping other businesses market themselves really well. For years. I just hadn't been doing an amazing job at niching myself, I'd be marketing me as a personality but not really what I offered to people. So once they kind of told me I was able to kind of start putting together like pack Do some programmes related to analytics and building return on investment on your marketing activities? And that,
Finola Howard
did you? So what's interesting is, I know you're long time, right? And and I know all of I remember all the stories of where you've gone into all each of those areas. And the thing that struck me most was on one question first. Did they tell you that? Sure, it makes sense that you Why are you not looking at analytics? Or did you know, they said,
Speaker 1
You should look at analytics, because from conversations, I would know them for years now. So it wasn't just me randomly investing in them. I'd have known them for maybe six or seven years. So we've had lots of conversations. And they knew that, that excited me. But it's very easy to excite me, as you can tell. Like, I got excited about live streaming. So I think when they said analytics, I went yep, this, this is something I can totally run with. This is something I can totally throw myself into. It's complicated enough, that I'll find it interesting. And it's also that I really like de complicating stuff. So if you've ever read any Google documentation, you'll know that it's an absolute nightmare. So I like to be able to take that and interpret it so other people can understand it, and understand the value of looking at analytics, because I think that's another thing. I think a lot of people just go, Oh, look at that. That's, that's, that's, that's horrible. Or look at all those numbers. Well, that's how many people are visiting their site. And I think because that used to be me, I'd look at how many people are visiting my site, rather than why we're doing I think, the idea that I could help people with that, and help them decode what they're doing more was was exciting to me. But
Finola Howard
was it Aha, when they said it? Was it Aha, because and the reason I'm poking around here is because so many people have this experience of being able to do many different things of being able to apply themselves to many different areas. And then getting confused about the whole niche question of how do I niche, what's my niche, I can do so many things. And, and it seems like I'm sorry, this is the thing that I want to share with everybody. I know you for this period of time. And when you really get on this call as a prep for this recording today. The change in your face, you're always very excitable and friendly, and all the rest of it. But I saw something different in your face, as you talked about what your business looks like now. And it's this light came out of you that you were totally in, as they say, your zone of genius, it could see it off you. And did that click when? When it when it came up in this coaching? Yeah,
Speaker 1
I mean, as soon as they said it, I knew that it was the thing I wanted to do. You know, it was kind of like, there were a few things I could have gone into. But this was the one that I think, you know, I'd done Facebook ads before, because obviously, I've been the Facebook person. So that was an easy sell for me. But I find that really difficult to do for smaller businesses, because they're investing a lot of money, and you feel this pain and this guilt, whereas I know Analytics can help everyone. So it gave me that excitement that it wasn't, you know, there wasn't going to be that. That pain. I'm doing it. I was getting me that as well. As you know, I knew it was something I could run with and really help people, like achieve something. I
Finola Howard
like that I liked that quote from you. I know that analytics can help everyone. And that's a really strong message that we could get out to people today to really, these can help you don't be scared. I think that's the big message that I got from our conversation, which was that you are trying to demystify it, you are trying to get rid of the tech speak so that you can make it real for other people and usable for other people. So let's do that. A little bit of that now. And so here's my questions for you. Why should someone pay attention to Google Analytics? What are Google Analytics? Why should someone pay attention? So Google
Speaker 1
Analytics, just for anyone that doesn't even know what it is, is just a little thing that you put on your website that tracks when people visit your website? Where they from? Which pages they visit where their web visit came from? So did they click a link on social media? Or did they come through Google organic search and whether they turn into customers as a result of that? So that's, that's essentially what it does. There is a little bit of setting up and you don't have to log into your website to see it. It's an independent website. You go to that go go out and you just go in there and it We'll show you your stats, it will show you what's going on, on your website. So that's the basics of it. And there aren't like, it's not just Google Analytics, I look up, like all your analytics, you know, that's, that's what we look at across the board. But Google Analytics is your website, your essential part that you need, because I think, you know, a lot of people can turn a pandemic, a lot of people got websites built, and then they just sit there, really, they're not working for them. So that's where analytics comes on, it can show you what what is working on your website, what you can do to improve the results that you get from your website. So it's, it's exciting from that point of view. But it can also tell you which marketing channels are working. So if you're using Instagram, for example, a lot of people feel a guilt, about using Instagram, you know, because it's fun. I think we always think things are things that are fun, we shouldn't be doing. So a lot of people will come to me worried that you know, is this time I'm spending on Instagram worth it. So that's the sort of thing you can find out, you know, Instagram, it's hard enough to drive traffic to your website. But the important thing is when it gets there are people actually buying from you or, or getting in touch with you, or even spending time looking at what you do. So that that's the sort of thing it can tell you can give you a full picture of all your marketing.
Finola Howard
So if someone comes to you, right, they've relatively new website, and maybe they don't have a relatively new website. And and they say to you, is there really any point in me paying attention here? Because I probably don't get enough traffic anyways, there's nothing really to measure. So why would I do it?
Speaker 1
And that comes up, a lot of people are worried that they've got low traffic to their website. But I actually think that's, that's a good place to start. I think people worry about, you know, what this person over there is getting loads of traffic to their website. So if you're not getting much, that's our starting point. And actually, that's really good because it's easier to measure. What when you start partaking in activities when you start doing something to drive traffic to your website, if it's actually working, you know, because you're instantly able to see the difference. So that's your starting point, everyone has a starting point, your starting point could be I mean, for me, I was getting 50,000 Plus to my website a month when I was blogging, and doing all that work blogging. So that was my starting point. But I wasn't actually looking at going up from that I was looking at things like people visiting the pages that told people I did people go into my sales pages, people go into my services pages, and that traffic was really low. So I took the blog traffic out of it, or at least I was able to see what was happening with the blog traffic and what was happening with the non blog traffic to give myself benchmarks be much easier, right? If you were starting with a very low amount of traffic, rather than trying to get rid now I have nothing like that. Now I have more like 2000 people visit my website a month now. But way more of that is relevant traffic looking at the right stuff. So I think that's it's your starting point is what you want to achieve beyond that, so maybe you've no traffic to your website now. Great. Let's look at some ways you can get the traffic to your website.
Finola Howard
I think that's really empowering what you've just said to people now, Amanda, because it's like, I think that we're we're too enamoured with. And we know this about ourselves with the likes the engagement and the traffic and the numbers, and then don't actually connect the dots between okay, but I'm not making any money. And but even that thing of going, like you said, I wasn't looking at the right numbers in my business. But you've already shared with us going. Okay, but if you want your website to work for you pay attention to who's going to the Services page who's going to a place where they can buy something from me. Yeah, really cool. Keep going, keep going. And
Speaker 1
yeah, I mean, the stuff you can do about that as well, because I still the problem with my blog was it was driving a lot of traffic for people who wanted to know how to do things on Facebook, or Instagram or Twitter or whatever. And not people who had the specific problems that I would solve use, they didn't really know what to do next. So one thing I did was I created two different audiences. So actually, this is a recent thing, because this is I don't remember if you could do this in old analytics. So this was a Google Analytics for thing I did buy traffic was already way down. By the time I did this, but I've got an audience of people who visit the blog pages on my website, and an audience of the people that don't visit the blog pages on my website. And I can see how many conversions so that's the number of people that have taken a business action, which could be like downloading a lead magnet or joining my email list or filling in a contact form, or, or actually purchasing something from me because I do have a little course you can buy. And it was really easy. Quick to see that my blog was driving absolutely zero conversions when I first looked at it. So then I started to implement a few things. So even though a lot of the content there is still out of date or about the wrong thing by putting some by tests. Doing some lead magnets, some things that I thought would interest the right people into my site, I've been able to up the conversions so and get more of those people to join my email list now. And because the thing they're downloading is like a Google Analytics cheat sheet, essentially, that they're only going to download that if they're interested in learning about analytics. So am I able to qualify the people that come into the blog that do convert as being the people who are interested in my business, so then I can sell to them via email, which is, according to Google Analytics, where I do actually so.
Finola Howard
So you had, just to recap, you had blogs that weren't working, you didn't frantically run off and go, I've got to create loads of new blogs, because I've got to get the right people, you've actually used your existing blogs, which has used for some people in your audience. But you've been able to attract conversions from that inactive blog before from that non converting blog before with a lead magnet that gave that was designed for a conversion that actually says selected? You're great. Exactly,
Speaker 1
exactly. So as tempting as it is to get rid of all that old content, it is still driving a lot of traffic to my site. So if I can just get a few of those people and know that they're interested in learning about analytics, that's, it's still valuable to me. I mean, I have put out other blog content since but nothing like the rate I used on might be doing one every two or three months, rather than three a week, you know.
Finola Howard
But now you're you're writing different content. Now, I bet.
Speaker 1
Yes. All about, you know, analytics and stuff that's designed really to convert those people for what they want, what I want,
Finola Howard
even. So this is, this is the whole thing about strategy. So you found the space that you wanted to become known for you new Analytics was your thing, it lit you up. So I'm wanting to get that message across. This is a piece of work or a space that lit you up that you loved, then you came back. So you niched and you connect the dots between what you loved with the marketing that you were doing with the content that you were putting out there, with the products that you were selling with a customer who wants to buy it, that it just all went through. Because the new I'm sure this is what you see, because this is what we're communicating. The biggest problem is not connecting the dots, and I see that you have a new initiative called Connecting the Dots. I mean, that's that's part of the message that I try to get to people all the time. When you line everything up, make sure it's locked into place, then you have a business that works. Yeah,
Speaker 1
absolutely. Absolutely. And I think there is that moment where I suddenly do feel like not that I've got like a million pounds sitting in the bank, which is what we always think it's like winning at business. But I do think I've got it a lot more sorted now. So it wasn't it's not just the case of like during the pandemic, that I got it sorted because there was a brief uptake. I really feel like, since I focus in on this, I am understanding a lot more on how to run my business. However, what 14 years into this business and more is we feel good hampers is taking me to get there. But I feel like I'm actually running a proper business now like a proper business person. Who does I don't have to be a man wearing a suit to know everything now that's
Finola Howard
Yeah, but I also think that everything that you've done has led to this point, look, you have that expertise and all these spaces, which can completely contribute to what you're doing now. Nothing is lost, like it's, and I and I say this as well, to a lot of clients that nothing is lost. This makes you more now, more more saleable now, because of everything you've done before, it all contributes
Speaker 1
that absolute. I've just kind of like, yeah, it's all that. And also, yeah, there's no point just looking at analytics unless you know, enough about your digital marketing to know what's driving that. So it has like I always think every moment I spent in business has helped towards this phase and hopefully a phase in the future when I do have millions in the bank. Yeah,
Finola Howard
but then I think everything was a success, then Amanda, because it successfully brought you to hear, you know, and I don't say that lightly, or dismissively or just kindly. I mean, it's actually strategically brought you to hear Oh, yeah.
Speaker 1
And also, I think the main problem before was it wasn't that I wasn't making money, it was more that I was spending way too much time making money. So I didn't have a life outside my business. This is something that so many business people fall into, because we feel like we have to work all the time because that's it. So that's where I am now. It's like I got time out. I've got time off. I've got a life outside my business, and I'm still able to run a successful business. Yeah, I
Finola Howard
love that. That's a big thing that I always wanted to get across to people that it's not, you know, we we came too long. There was a time when we talked about hustle, hustle, hustle and you have to work and all of that all the time all the time, but it's just not sustainable and we need And I loved what you said, when we chatted first, which was nice to be able to sleep. I needed to take care of my personal relationship, I need to take care of my relationship. My friends, I wanted to have some fun. Yeah, to have a life.
Speaker 1
Yeah. And business can be addictive, like anything else, you know, you can totally like, just feel like you have to work all the time. And because you actually enjoy it as well, there is that it? Is it. There's definitely an addictive kind of side to running your own business. But yeah, it can't last forever. Not if you're going to have any sort of quality of life.
Finola Howard
Yeah. I have not heard that before. That's very true. It is a bit addictive. Because we get such a kick out of it. Of course, it's addictive. Must look at that. So So my other thing for you is when somebody opens up Google Analytics, right, so now it all makes sense, everybody's going God, that makes sense. I can really, and I don't have to start from scratch. And it's not so scary to look at it that. So now that people are not so scared to look at it, let's kind of open the door of the dashboard in Google Analytics, where what are the top five places they should look at, and quite and just give them a little pointer.
Speaker 1
So the first thing I would look at is, when you go in on the sidebar, you've got a few different menus, they're all like icons, and to click into them, which can be kind of annoying, because you're like, I don't know what this means. So you've got like a home button on. And then you've got a Reports button, which is like some sort of graph or chart that is the icon. If you click into that, you'll see that is stuff about the users, the people who visit your website. So that's where I would start because we all know, you know, roughly some things about our ideal customer, even if you haven't done a complex persona, you know, like where they live, for example, are they in Ireland like us? Are they in the UK? Are they in America? So Google can't tell you, you know, have they got a dog or do they have kids or how much they earn, but it can tell you that basic demographic information. So that that would be my first stop would be to go in there and look at the demographics report and see where the people who are visiting your website live are coming from. And you can break that down by country, or you can break that down by region, or you can break that down by city. In Ireland, I would take city you definitely with a pinch of salt, because our IP addresses float all around like half the time. It's my seem to be in Dublin Half the time I seem to be in the west of Ireland. I am in fact in Kildare. So it doesn't always get that right. But it does give you an idea, you know, if you are only targeting people in Ireland, and most of your traffic is coming from the United States, you know, well, maybe I need to adjust my strategy to reach more people in Ireland, you don't necessarily have to get rid of the people in the United States. But you can set yourself a goal for growing the amount of Irish traffic that you're getting. So that's one thing. And that's the thing about websites as well, whether you like it or not, they're there. They're on the internet for people to reach and wherever in the world they are. So you are going to get people visiting who are irrelevant. It's just really focusing in on the people that are relevant. So that's the first thing I'd look at, see where you are. And that was like that when I was getting my 50,000 a month, I was reaching mostly men in their 50s. And then United States, which are not my target market, you know, and this was no, this is when I was initially discovering I was reaching the wrong people. So maybe this was six or seven years ago. So they would be like in their 60s now. So they weren't that tech savvy. They weren't the right customer. For me, they were just looking for something to do. So straight away, I went well, let's look at the Irish audience. Let's look at the UK audience because that's where most of my customers come from. So that's the first thing. The second thing I would look in that same reports menu, you'll either have something called Life Cycle in the sidebar, or you'll have something called business objectives. And that's where they, they sort your reports under different topics. And just depending on when you set up your analytics and what you said, what you told good Google, you do what you want, you want to get out of your website, it will set up either one or other of those. What you'll be looking for in either them is a report called traffic acquisition. And this tells you which marketing channels are driving people to your website. So initially, these all fall under something they call default channel grouping. And this is how they try and guess what sort of traffic this is. So is it social traffic organic social. So if it's coming from the likes of Facebook or Instagram or Twitter stroke X, I never know what to call that anymore, is going to gather it under organic social. If it's coming from Google search, it'll be from organic search. If it's coming from Google ads, it will be paid Search. Depending on how you label it, when you set up your ads on social, it, it can come in through paid social as well. But that, that requires a little bit of tech to make sure that happens, a lot of your paid social were actually coming in as organic social sites, just be careful of that one. So it will try and gather those together. And that gives you a really good baseline to see, you know, still most of my traffic comes from organic search, but the stuff that converts tends to come from email. And that's because I do a lot of email marketing, I can see that a lot of the stuff does. And actually weirdly, for me, I've just discovered this. So it's worth looking at this in detail, because you can change that default channel grouping to traffic source. So there's a little drop down menu. Yeah. And that will actually tell you which website drove the traffic. And I just discovered that Instagram is driving lots of conversions. Which is so weird, because I don't really use Instagram 2024, I'm going to dabble with Instagram a little bit more. I'm really a LinkedIn and email marketing has been my focus for about the last two years. So it's really interesting to see that Instagram is doing so well. That just tells me I need to do more work that I've really, so it's worth looking at that idea
Finola Howard
are you who know, yeah, you will know about the traffic, you will know about all the social, it's really interesting. We really learn when we look at our stats. Absolutely.
Speaker 1
And so that's important. But also to make all that stuff work to see which audiences which countries are driving the most traffic, it's not just about traffic are the most other marketing channels that are driving the most traffic. The most important thing you can do in your analytics is set up conversions. And if you're used to the old analytics, because it was a big change, just in case anyone missed this on the first of July 2023, Google didn't just update analytics, they launched a whole new analytic system called Google Analytics for. So it's just that is completely different. It's not an upgrade. So in the old Analytics, which was Universal Analytics, you set up something called goals, which was when somebody does this on my website, that's a business goal. That's what I want them to do. They're now called conversions in Google Analytics for so you want to go and check to see if you've got an E commerce site, there's a really good chance that that E commerce is already sending things like add to carts and check out and purchase Are those your site that you want to check that they're already set up? And if not, or even if they are, there might be some smaller ones that you want to put in place, like if somebody downloads a lead magnet, or if somebody joins your email list. So once you've got that, you can actually see which marketing channels are driving the most conversions. And which demographics that are driving the most conversions. And that's the real picture, then it's not just the amount of traffic, it's actually are they doing something concrete at the end of that journey? So you ask the five, I'm into three. And I think if I go to five, we'll be here for a very long time. But I can keep going if you like,
Finola Howard
No, I think that's enough to get really curious. But what I want to share with people is that you have this great baseline starter course, if you want to get your head around Google Analytics, do you want to and you've got a great offer for everybody. It's already in a really good price. But if you put in the cold truth, Tru th you get 20% off, please tell them about this course, because it's a highly recommend,
Speaker 1
yeah, it's just for people who want to get started with analytics, or haven't really, you know, they haven't really looked at it since Google Analytics for was launched. So it's, it's called analytic space. And it's just the basics of what you need to know about your analytics. It's broken into a number of lessons. But if you were to watch it all in one go, it will be less than an hour. Obviously, you're going to need to plan some time to actually implement the stuff as well. But it takes you through exactly what you need to know, to set up your analytics to look at those reports to set up some basic conversions. And actually to customise reports so that they could show you exactly the information that you want to see is a really good starting point. Once you've done that, you can start exploring some of the more complex things that you can do. But it should give you the stuff that I was talking about, like knowing which channel is driving the most traffic to your site. That's exactly what you'll be able to find out during that call. I
Finola Howard
think that it might actually make them curious. So yeah, it's 59 euro
Unknown Speaker
and it's 20% off.
Finola Howard
It is like 47 Euro, yeah, 47 euro to do the course. And what I think it might do for you is make you curious to know what works and what doesn't work and empower you to actually go further to connect the dots in your marketing. What would you like to leave them with today, Amanda, apart from that lovely, course and discount.
Speaker 1
So I suppose the first thing is if you haven't looked to analytics for a while, it's worth going and having a look at analytics, and you are the first time you look at it, particularly the new one, particularly if you are familiar with the old one. If you weren't, it's not going to be quite as intimidating. But you're just going to look and you're going to go, ah, what do I look at here, but just go and look, and look at those two reports that I mentioned, look and see what country in the world at the very least, are people visiting your website from? And which default channel group? So is it social media? is organic search? Or are you running ads? Or maybe it's a referral, like if you're advertising on something like dandiel? You know, that will be referral traffic, all that stuff that can actually tell you where people are coming to. So I would go and look at those two reports. To start with, and go, Yeah, Amanda told me to look at this. And then you can either take the course, or there's lots of online resources that you can get for free, like Google have a course. But you get that Google probably, it's all in like Google language, which isn't useful to do. But there is a lot of online resources. So if you want to just kind of work it out for yourself, that would be the best thing. But really, just knowing that whether you're reaching the right people is can be massive for you and make a note, just make a note how many people are coming from the countries that you are targeting? So if it's Ireland, have you got 20 People now? Have you got 2000? Great, okay, so what can you do to get more of those people to your website, and just measure that over time to see if the tactics that you're using to get more of those people is actually working? This
Finola Howard
is the other thing that I would recommend is that when you go in for the first time, and you've basically got a benchmark, so that anything you do, you can so if you have your benchmark, and then you go off and you do some Instagram stuff, or you you know, launch that new lead magnet or something like that, you have, you have a direct feedback of did that work, because if there's no change, then it didn't work. But usually something happens, and it'll empower you to go again, and grow again. And that's what we want for all of our listeners. Thank you so much, Amanda, lovely to spend time with you as always. I hope you enjoyed that episode. And if you'd like to find out more about Amanda, connect with her on LinkedIn and check out spider working.com. Amanda has also gifted us with a 20% discount on her introduction to analytics for online course. Just type in the discount code truth and click on the show notes for more. If you'd like to support the show, follow or subscribe on your chosen platform. It really does make a difference and reach out and let me know your takeaways from this episode. What would you like to know more about? Send me a message
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
