client Report Template

GA – Client Project Part 1 – TO DO LIST 1 (Week 2) Mgmt5074

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The purpose of the individual client project is to give you a chance to do a deep dive into a company's

web analytics data and try to draw some implications about what it might mean for their

business. The project should push you to make some recommendations based on the data you

analyze and the tests you will run.

I believe that Web Analytics data can uncover important findings in 4 key areas:

UX = The way a user interacts with a website.

For example, GA data can show us where users are clicking, the paths they are following on our

website and whether they appear to be finding what they're looking for.

Later in November, in the 2nd part of the project, you will be conducting live UX tests with

UserTesting.com credits.

Traffic Acquisition = Where a website user comes from.

For example, GA data can tell us how our most profitable customers find our website and can help us

determine ways to get more of that sort of traffic.

Tech SEO = Website coding, design and content elements that can help/impede organic search

rank.

For example, GA data can point to pages that have not been named properly or whose URL might

not be user / search engine friendly.

CRO = Improving a conversion process/path.

For example, GA data can uncover problematic parts of a conversion funnel.

For the term project, each of you have been assigned a different client to study. Each client can be

found in the master GA account.

GA – Client Project Part 1 – TO DO LIST 1 (Week 2) Mgmt5074

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Check the client assignment form to see which company you have been paired with.

Visit the client's website and absorb as much as you can.

Make sure you can find the client in the GA interface. You might have to search by company name

OR URL.

There is NO need to contact the client you're working with. They have agreed to give us access

to their data for learning purposes but have not agreed to be contacted by students this

semester. Many have just finished a demanding project in the Google Online Marketing Challenge

with us. If you have questions, please direct them my way.

A reminder that this is an individual project but that doesn't mean you can't collaborate to come up

with creative ideas. Each submission, however, should be unique.

When it's submitted, the project will be a very succinct document that includes only the MOST

meaningful data and conclusions that you have found in your investigations. There are no

introductions, no superfluous information, no unnecessary graphs/charts. You won't have the space

to include it all.

To get down to the good stuff that should be included, you have to do lots of thinking and

digging. Each week I will prompt you with questions to ask yourself to ensure you're moving in the

right direction. In the week preceding the project due date, it will be your job to dig through the

answers to all of your questions and pull out the best of the best. Only those observations that you

believe would have the most impact on the organization should be included. All of this preliminary

investigation should be detailed weekly but does not necessarily get submitted.

This week's project to-do list is as follows:

1. Define the purpose of your client's website. 2. Define the audience(s)/persona(s) you believe the site is targeting. How do you know? 3. Is there a clear and definable "conversion" on the site?

GA – Client Project Part 1 – TO DO LIST 1 (Week 2) Mgmt5074

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4. How does the site make that purpose clear? Ie. what are the calls to action, are the paths to conversion clear?

5. Do you believe that purpose would be clear to the target audience(s)/persona(s)?

The questions above should begin to help you uncover UX tests you might want to run later. For

example, if you don't think it's clear how to go about finding the lead generation form, you could ask

your test panel to do that and analyze their thought process as they attempt to get there.

Much of the project will involve you coming up with hypotheses based on intuition and/or GA

data. For example, the GA data might point to a navigation issue. You might see that users often go

back and forth between two pages and you might hypothesize they are confused. This hypothesis

could be testing with your UX credits.

Once you have given lots of thought to the website and its objective, it's time to turn to the GA data

and start to dig. It might take you some time to uncover nuggets of data that are worth talking

about. If it's not meaningful or you're having trouble drawing implications for the company, then I

don't want to read about it in the report. I should not have to say "SO WHAT?" when I'm reading your

report.

For now, start exploring the client's GA data and I will have some specific ideas for you next week

once we have finished looking at the Audience Dimension.