Dashboards Help The Pond Guy Keep its Analytics Head Above Water

A lack of data is not something emarketers today can really complain about. But what they can complain about is data overload, and how difficult it can be to figure out what data is most useful for their brands—without becoming overwhelmed.

“You could spend all day in Google Analytics and that’s not productive,” says Ian MacDonald, director of ecommerce for The Pond Guy, a pond and lake supply marketer with both consumer and B-to-B divisions.

That’s why dashboards are essential to zeroing in on what you want to see every day. “You’re always ask¬ing the same questions, so why not save yourself a few clicks,” he notes. “After all, reports tell you what happened, but analytics tell you why, and analytics are actionable.”

Every change to a website should be measured by an analytic, says MacDonald. Early in his 9.5 years as vice president of Century Novelty, he wanted to determine whether lifestyle product photography or static product shots worked better. “Ninety-nine percent of our items are under a dollar, so do we want to use the images supplied by the manufacturer or [create compelling] images with models wearing eyepatches and bearing swords?”

The latter, it turns out, pulled better. The company determined the uptick in sales was keyed to the photography by looking at conversion rate, the average order value and the time spent on the site.

Other design elements—such as the size or placement of the search box—could be tested in the same way. “Whenever you want to do something new on your site, know how you’ll measure it before you do it,” he advises. “In ecommerce, we can see in real time if something works, and that can be overwhelming.”

Here are some other examples of analytics The Pond Guy is tracking that you might want to watch on your own dashboard:

•Poor Performers in Site Search: These were terms people searched for, and clicked through on—but then didn’t make a purchase. This is a mystery marketers need to investigate. Why didn’t customers like what they saw? Was it the price, the actual item, or another variable?

•No Results Found: In this instance, customers are searching for something they think you should be selling, but are not finding it. Maybe you don’t carry it, and if you don’t maybe you should consider stocking it. “This is a great way to expand your product line,” MacDonald notes.

The other option here is that you have it, but customers are calling it something different from your product description. For example, he notes, at Century Novelty people were constantly searching for “Mexican party supplies,” and coming up empty, even though the site had hundreds of items listed for Cinco de Mayo.

“Integrate the phrases customers actually use in your names and descriptions to enhance SEO,” says MacDonald.

•Who Searched, Who Didn’t: Compare the behavior of customers who searched for something on your site, versus those who didn’t. Look at the conversion rates and the time spent on the site, and see who spent more.

•Search Queries: This can help you drill down and eliminate stuff that your site doesn’t carry, but could be wracking up costly clicks. For example, The Pond Guy sells pond dye. In a search report, if it sees people searching for pink pond dye, the site might want to create a negative keyword in Google to discourage The Pond Guy popping up in searches for “pink.” Alternately, it does sell green pond dye, so it may want to have pages talking up that product.

•Funnel Analysis of the Checkout Process: This is something in Google Analytics that you might want to look at a few times a year, to get a visual illustration of how customers proceed—or don’t proceed— throughout your checkout process.

•Map Overlay: With this, you can get performance metrics by geography, and see the value of a particular area’s customers to your site. “At Century Novelty, we thought Canada was great—customers weren’t complaining about shipping costs— but they weren’t converting,” says MacDonald. “By stopping ads from showing up in low converting regions, we saved $20,000 a year.”