Web Analytics -Case Study
I see, that most of online businesses usually fail because they are not aware of the actual return on their online investment (ROAS). I see a single business is investing money in different online ads platform ie: Facebook, Google, TikTok, Pinterest, Bing, and others. But at the end of the day, they do not know which of the platforms give them more sales or leads. At the same time which are the platforms are assisting more in achieving business goals. In this case, I remember a worst scenario, A big company invested in different ad platforms and one of the ad networks never gave them a single sale, but a huge amount of money was already spent there. This happened because they did not have an accurate setup of conversion tracking and they were not aware of how to cross-check the attribution from analytics.
That’s why, accurate Web Analytics and conversion tracking setup are essential for businesses and website owners looking to optimize their online presence and marketing efforts. Having the setup, you will not only know about the measurement of the Ads network level but also the campaign and ads levels segment, meaning you will be aware of which campaign and ads are doing well or not. Subsequently, you can make your decision on budget allocation. A huge amount of money will be saved.
Another important thing to mention is that now ad networks are using their AI and machine learning systems. That means, If I send the user information to the ad network of the person who purchased on our site or completed the lead, our ads will be optimized accordingly, and our ads will be served to similar people, so that, we can get more conversions. This helps us to get better ROAS i.e.: 3X to 4x times.
Throughout my career, I worked for different renowned organizations, here, I mentioned a single case, how I helped them to have proper web analytics and tracking setup to achieve the following:
1. Data-driven Decision making
2. Identifying effective marketing channels
3. Measuring ROI accurately
4. Attributing Modeling
5. A/B Testing and experimentation scope
6. Budget Allocation
Case-1: SK Jewellery is a well-known jewelry retailer in Asia, particularly in Singapore, established in 2003. It offers high-quality, innovative, and excellence-designed Jewellery both online and offline.
Challenges: They were looking for an accurate Google Analytics setup. They had the existing analytics setup which was not providing accurate results. Analytics was reporting more sales than the actual sales reporting in the website backend. As they had investments in multiple ad networks and other platforms like email and SMS marketing, It was hard to find out which traffic sources were giving them better sales, and how is the attribution. At the same time, Facebook conversion tracking was not properly set up. Subsequently, they also had the requirement of tracking setup for Google ads and TikTok.
Solution: I set up Google Analytics (GA4) accurately. I set up all the required enhanced e-commerce events like view_item_list, view_item, add_to_cart, remove_from_cart, begin_checkout, add_shipping_info add_payment_info, and purchase. All the events together help them to have a proper funnel so that they know where in the funnel, the users dropping off. I implemented server-side tracking which improved tracking accuracy a lot by allowing access to 1st party user data through their custom subdomain.
Image-1: Server-Side Tracking Setup
Image-1: In the above photo we can see all the tracking data is being collected by subdomain of the main domain. So, data is being collected by 1st party context and the browser will not make any blockage. That’s how you will receive the tracking accuracy of 95% to 99% whereas is the browser side tracking accuracy is avg 60% to 70%.
I also implemented Facebook CAPI and Pixel with deduplication, which is recommended by Facebook, This is the optimum tracking setup for Facebook. To ensure deduplication, I sent a unique event_id along with all the events. I implemented sending all available user data (like Email, Phone Number, First Name, Last Name, City, Country, etc.) along with the purchase events. Apart from this, all the available information is sent along with other respective events as well. I configured all the E-Commerce events for Tiktok Ads through the server side.
Image2: in the above image Facebook both from the Server-side and Browser-side and I send a unique event_id for deduplication. In this case, Facebook will receive data in both ways and count from a single one but it will work as a backup of each other. So, there will be a very tiny chance of losing tracking data.
Image3: In the above image, you can see the higher event quality which is required for ads better optimization. I sent all the available user information along with the event. Send user information is recommended not only for Facebook ads but also for Google platforms like Google ads, TikTok ads, etc. It also helps Facebook to create a genuine Look-alike audience.
Outcome: A proper analytics setup helped them to see the user purchase journey and checkout journey. Now they can see the abandon rate of each step and figure out the possible reason for it and finally help them to take different steps to improve the Conversion Rate. Server-side tracking helped them to track with an accuracy of 95%. Accurate implementation of FB helped the ads to be optimized properly. At the same time sending user information into the ads platform improved the ads campaign result to a great extent.