Analytics for Enrollment Marketing Angie Ward Co-Founder, Enroll Media Group November 13, 2019 | ABOUT EMG WHO WE ARE

ANGIE WARD JAKE YOUMELL

Prior roles at Carnegie Dartlet, Hearst Prior roles at Emerson College, Carnegie Media, Bose Corporation, and CBS Dartlet, Walnut Hill School for the Arts, Google, and Boston University OUR MISSION IS SIMPLE WE HELP SCHOOLS ACHIEVE GROWTH

We partner with schools and nonprofits to navigate the ambient world of digital marketing, where spending money quickly and ineffectively is all too common in the marketplace.

Our consulting, media buying, planning, campaign execution, and integrated analysis aims to maximize advertising dollars through data-driven insights that steer organizations forward. HOW DOES EMG ACHIEVE ENROLLMENT GROWTH FOR SCHOOLS? ADVERTISING MANAGEMENT AND EXECUTION ● Landing page and creative design ● ○ Pay-per-click, Display, YouTube ● Social advertising ○ Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn

MARKETING CONSULTING & STRATEGIC PLANNING ● Data Optimization: Analytics dashboards ● Search Engine Optimization ● Media buying and planning ● CRM and Email Consulting ● Hands-on Workshops OUR CLIENTS What we’ll cover

1. What can (GA) tell us & why does this data matter for independent schools? 2. 12 tips for analytics integrations and best practices for schools to start right away 3. Must-have reports for marketing & admissions teams to optimize their & marketing efforts 4. Bonus Google My Business Section if time allows! EMG.Tips

EnrollMediaGroup.com What is Google Analytics?

● Google Analytics has been around since 2005 after acquiring corporation

● Google Analytics is a free web analytics service offered by Google that tracks and reports website traffic.

● Google Analytics is now the most widely used web analytics service on the Internet. How does it work?

To track a website, Google Analytics uses a small snippet of JavaScript code. You'll place this code on every page of your website (or Google Tag Manager, or master template of the website) and when a user arrives, the code comes alive and starts to collect data on how the user engages with your site. Who needs access to Google Analytics?

Everyone! • IT/Web Administrators • Marketing & Communications • Admissions • Development

Anyone responsible for the health and well-being of the website, the content that is on there, design and information architect, or the marketing that drives users there should have visibility (if not not access) to Google Analytics

Tip #1 Establish Governance over Google Accounts

Designate a google email account, where at least 2 people have access (Web, IT, Communications, Marketing). I.e.: EMGAcademyMarCom@.com

Use that account as the administrator of all Google Properties (GA, GTM, Search Console, etc).

Ensure at least 2 people know which vendors and employees have access, which permissions are needed so that everyone can do their job effectively.

Assign other admins and users as needed in marketing, admissions, vendors, etc. Tip #2: Implement Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager is a tag management system created by Google to manage JavaScript and HTML tags used for tracking and analytics on . What is Google Tag Manager (GTM)?

Allows you manage and deploy marketing tags (custom HTML) on your website without having to modify the code.

Tags include: • Facebook Pixels • Google Ads Pixels • Google Analytics • • And more GTM Benefits

Developers Marketers

• Improve site speed - • One stop shop for Google Ads, tag is asynchronous Facebook and other 3rd party versus standard pixels placement in GA • Future proof your marketing with • Only need to hardcode trigger short cuts like button once clicks & other events • Integration with Google Analytics for advanced tracking

Both: Established Governance Implementing Google Tag Manager

❏ Create a & Container (unless you already have one!) ❏ Insert your Google Analytics code into Google Container tag ❏ Place the GTM snippet on the template of your website ❏ Set GA trigger in GTM to fire on “all pages” ❏ Verify using Google Tag Assistant ❏ Remove Analytics Tag from website https://tagmanager.google.com/ The Google Analytics Hierarchy

● Account is what you set up at the organization level - You do not need multiple accounts ● The Property is the specific code you will use for each web property/website ● The Views are where you pull your reports based on what users want to see Tip #3: Set up multiple views

Filters, Goals and Events cannot be undone, use 3 views:

○ MARKETING VIEW is a filtered view with goals where you pull your reports

○ RAW VIEW captures everything - unfiltered

○ A TEST VIEW is your playground, where you filter, set up goals and debug What can Google Analytics Tell Me?

● How many people are coming to your website? ● What are their demographics & Interests? ● What pages/content are the viewing? ● How long are they staying? ● What channel drove them there? ● What devices are they using? ● What do they do before they leave? ● Are they taking desired actions/converting? Out of the box

Google will automatically tell you: • What countries or cities they are coming from • What devices they use • What channels drove them there • Basic metrics like how long they spent, what pages and more Not Automatic - you gotta work for this

Google will not automatically tell you: • What’s their age range? • What’s their gender? • What are their interests? • What keywords did they use to arrive on your site? • Did users complete desired actions or ‘convert’? Tip #4: Enable Demographics and Interests

❏ Go to Your Google Analytics Account, once it’s deployed, and under Audience - Select Demographics - Enable Demographics

Age, gender, geography Use this information to help understand who your current audience is & who you market to Interests

• This will tell you what your user engages with online - categories, affinities and segments - OUTSIDE of your website • Use this information to help improve your content & future targeting Curious what you like? How did my audience find me?

• Search Engines • Website referrals • Ad Campaigns • E-mail • Direct • Social Why do sources and channels matter?

• Establish a baseline of where your audience comes from now

• Benchmark and measure success of your marketing

• Steer future marketing Tip #5: Use UTMs to source your marketing

Some marketing source data is stored automatically, but some is not, leaving you guessing.

Tell GA where traffic is coming from by using UTM codes on marketing ads What is a UTM?

• Urchin Tracking Module • It’s a parameter that is appended to the destination landing page on your marketing • Can be used for blogs and organic social marketing, but most commonly used for advertising & emails Why bother with UTMs?

• Without UTM on your ads, ad traffic will be auto-generated, or lumped into referral, direct or ‘not set’ traffic buckets

• UTMs are used to source campaign traffic for nice, clean, easy to read reports

• Use this data to understand what campaigns are most effective - (baseline and benchmark) The 5 UTM parameters

• Source* • Medium* • Campaign* • Content • Term Creating UTMs

❏ Use Google’s URL builder https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/campai gn-url-builder/ ❏ Fill out 5 fields - source, medium, campaign, content and term ❏ Be consistent! all-lower-case-and-dashes-for-spaces ❏ Append this new URL to your destination landing pages Steps to viewing UTMs in Google Analytics

● Acquisition - Campaigns or Source/Medium

● Add a secondary dimension for other parameters like ‘term’ or ‘content’

● Drill down on specific campaigns and ad metrics Tip #6: Set up Events & Goals

An Event refers to a type of user interaction on your website not automatically recorded - watch a video, download a brochure, etc. These are not automatically captured like page views and basic metrics, you need to set them up.

35 people played my video all the way through! What is a Goal?

A Goal refer to when a conversion takes place, or the ‘ultimate’ desired action occurs. They can be a string of desired events or something like an inquiry form, a donation, an open house sign up, or download of an 16 Summer application. Apps! Clearly define your goals!

Work with your school’s leadership to determine what is the goal of…. ❏ The Institution? ❏ The Website? ❏ The content and CTA of a page? ❏ The marketing? ❏ Can these goals/events be tracked? Ask Yourself: How much is this goal worth?

• Assign a monetary value to goals to quickly and easily report on ROI • Example: An Inquiry is worth $200. Spent $5,000 on Google Ads and get 30 inquiries, that’s $6,000 in monetary goal value you can quickly see in a report, re-affirming you have gotten a positive net return on the ad investment. Setting up goals

❏ Clearly define them - is it open house, inquiries, or apps we want to measure? ❏ Go to your test view ❏ Under Admin, set up goals or events ❏ Assign a value if appropriate ❏ Test in real time ❏ Move goals over to Marketing View once verified Events & Goals cannot be seen prior to set up

● Since GA is a reporting tool, once the data has been sampled and collected, you cannot undo it. ● You cannot retroactively look at completed goals prior to them being set up ● You remove a goal once it has been set up. ● Use your test view! Analytics for offline tracking

● GA is not just for online tracking

● Understand how much traffic coming from offline channels like print, radio, television and billboards.

● Learn what are they doing once they arrive.

● Determine - Is it worth the spend? Tip #7: Track print with vanity URLs

Aside from connecting the dots between offline efforts and online website behaviors, benefits include:

1. They are easy to remember 2. Easier to share 3. Can boost your brand

Example EMG.Tips versus https://www.enrollmediagroup.com/analytics-workshop How to create vanity URLs

❏ Create an easy to remember/type vanity URL for offline promotions (w/ domain name provider) ❏ Setup a final destination page people will be directed to when they type in your vanity URL ❏ Add UTM parameters to your final URL so that Google Analytics can track online traffic ❏ Create a 301 redirect that sends people using your vanity URL to your final destination page ❏ Check your tracking in your Google Analytics Real Time reports ❏ Report and Analyze! Use referral report, or by drilling down on UTMs Other offline tracking reports

● Take note on general spikes in direct & organic traffic ○ Use Real-time Dashboard to track when a radio or TV spot is airing ○ Use weekly comparision reports to see increased when print drops were in place ● Pull keyword reports your offline channel promoted ● Drill down on content to see which pages people were drawn too, if they converted, and more Tip #8: Use Annotations

Annotations offer a simple way to track notes in the Google Analytics

● Track events like new website, when ads went live, or a big open house day ● Improve the value of reports ● Account for data variances ● Get everyone on same page with what’s happening Steps for creating Annotations

❏ Open Google Analytics. Press the tab under monthly traffic chart. ❏ Press create new annotation in the lower right corner. ❏ Enter the date and write the description of the item. ❏ Select your visibility preference. Press save. Your annotation and your username will now be visible next time this page is viewed. Tip #9: Set up Console Why Search Console is a Must

Contains a ton of SEO value for developers and marketers. For starters: ○ Upload a sitemap and have google index pages sooner ○ Get rankings data to see where you stack up competitively ○ Page Speed insights ○ Find out who is linking to your site ○ Mine Keyword data to help inform content ○ ….. and lots of other tools to optimize how google (and people) find and experience your website Keywords Keywords Keywords!

Not a lot of keyword data is stored in Google Analytics alone - you need search console to report on it. Integrate Analytics for Access to queries

Easily view this data right from GA! ● See what specific terms you are ranking for organically, what page of the SERP (Search Engine Results Page) you’re on and how many people click! ● Use this data to steer content to rank for relevant and high-impact keywords ● Use it to drive paid marketing (PPC) campaigns How to set up Search Console

Add your website here to enable search console ❏ Go to Website https://search.google.com/search- console/about ❏ And set up your account! ❏ Go thru the verification process ❏ Go to GA, under Search Console click Enable the integration. Now the fun part… Reporting! Analytics intelligence

Ask Questions or read daily updates

• On the far right of your account view, you can you can ask questions like, “What was my website traffic yesterday?” • It will also tell you noteworthy trends and milestones without needing to know what to ask • No setup required! Website traffic - Real-time

● How many users are on my site right now? ● What pages are they on? ● Where did they come from? ● Are goals being completed right now? Top Sources

Which referrals or marketing channels are driving the most qualified traffic? - Tip: Pay attention to how long they stay and how many pages they visit or goals completed - not just number of New Users or Sessions! Website traffic - Compare by date range

● How does traffic compare month over month, or year over year? ● How do specific channels compare? Website traffic - Compare by device

● How does traffic from mobile and tablet compare with computers? ● Who is converting more? Behavioral flow

● What are people doing once they get to my website? ● How Can I optimize their experience? Reverse goal path

What are people viewing before they convert? Exit Pages Report

Where are people leaving the site? Glean Insights on Site Search

What are people looking for on my site, and what is that experience? Glean Insights on Site Search

Optimize accordingly or your audience might leave! Multi-Channel Attribution

Because it's not a linear path to conversion in education, it takes multiple touch points.

Multi channel attribution drill down shows you which channels worked together towards a specific goals. Tip #10: Remember to share the knowledge!

● Data is only as good as the insights and actions you can take on it. Actions require a team efforts. ● All levels of management, web/IT, Communications, content curators need to have access to reporting to improve their area of focus ● Share, collaborate, set & improve on goals as a team. Collaborate as a team

❏ Get everyone together ❏ Define the school’s goals & who is responsible for what ❏ Create a marketing/PR calendar in support of those goals ❏ Determine what KPIs can be measured ❏ Appoint someone to get tracking in place (Goals, UTMs, Annotations, etc.) ❏ Pull data in GA that can address if the organizational goals are being met. ❏ If so, what is accomplishing them? ❏ What is the marketing ROI? ❏ What opportunities exist based on this data to improve? Google optimize, SEO, paid marketing, etc. Tip #11: Save time with Analytics Dashboards

❏ Sign in to Google Analytics. ❏ Navigate to your view. ❏ Open Reports. ❏ Click CUSTOMIZATION > Dashboards. ❏ Click +New Dashboard. ❏ In the Create Dashboard dialog, select either Blank Canvas (no widgets) or Starter Dashboard (default set of widgets). ❏ Set automated dashboard reporting to the right people, or manually export monthly, quarterly, etc. Google’s Data Studio

● Data Studio is Google’s Dashboard platform

● It’s Free!

● Real-time link

● Captures data from multiple sources - like google ads, facebook, , google my business, and dozens of more! (some 3rd party integrations cost money) Google’s Data Studio

● One Stop Shop for Marketers to reports on the metrics that matter

● No need to log into multiple platforms to gather data

● Branded and customizable based on your needs, metrics and recipients Tip #12 Leverage the Google Analytics Academy

Appoint someone on your team to stay informed and up to date on all-thing-google analytics & search console! https://analytics.google.com/analytics/academy/

Beginner & Advanced Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager & Data Studio available Summary items for maximizing GA for enrollment marketing

❏ Establish Governance ❏ Create a GTM Account & Insert GA ❏ Set up Multiple Views ❏ Enable Demographics and Insights ❏ Create UTMs for online ads ❏ Set up Events & Goals ❏ Consider Vanity URLs for offline marketing ❏ Create Annotations for events ❏ Enable & Use Search Console ❏ Set goals and share insights as a team! ❏ Save time with Dashboards & DataStudio ❏ Educate yourself via Academy & resources QUESTIONS? ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

The top Local SEO Directory: Google My Business

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organizations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps.

By verifying and editing your business information, you can both help customers find you and tell them the story of your business. ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Why Google My Business?

According to Net Marketshare, approximately 80% of all searches happen on Google – and most don’t leave the first page of search results.

With GMB, you can: 1. Control key business information … all on the 2. Engage with prospective families first page 3. Curate photos, videos, and other media created by you and of search your community results!!! 4. Glean insights regarding how customers find you ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Claim your Google My Business

Verify you are the owner of this business ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Optimize your G to-do:

Google My Business ✓ Add categories ✓ Update photos & videos ✓ Set up tracking on the website click button ✓ Ensure hours and phone number are correct ✓ Link up with social accounts ✓ Feed events from other locations like facebook and website! ✓ Manage Reviews! ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Glean insights Non-brand Brand on Keywords

Are they finding you from brand searches —OR— Non branded searches? ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Glean insights on Actions & Locations

Where are people coming from when they:

● Visit ● Call ● Click on Directions ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Run Google Posts

Use this free exposure in order to promote:

● Open Houses This is ● Tours ● Enrollment a post! deadlines ● Fundraisers ● Blogs ● Other Announcements ENROLLMEDIAGROUP.COM

Track in Google Analytics

EMG.Tips

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