Today, let’s look at landing page analysis using Google Analytics. To begin, Google Analytics is a great tool for analyzing landing pages. The problem we see is that many beginner analysts use the data completely wrong. Here’s the most important concept:

Landing pages cannot be analyzed without fully accounting for the traffic source which driving sessions to them.

Here’s an example. First, let’s take a look at a few sample landing pages with their conversion rates.

Now, let’s account for the traffic sources.

Note that the same landing page (#2 above) has a great conversion rate when accounting for “all users” but when isolating for organic traffic, cuts in half!

The takeaway: Landing page metrics are useless without accounting for the specific traffic source. Run a similar analysis on your landing pages and it will be clear that traffic source affects landing page quality in a big way.

How to Use Google Analytics to Measure Landing Page Performance

Now that we’ve identified how not to do it, consider this approach to getting the right data about your landing pages from Google Analytics.

Option 1: Traffic Segmentation and Landing Pages

The easiest way to do this is to use Google Analytics segments to filter the pre-canned landing page report so that only data for a specific campaign shows. This ensures that the traffic source is the same and allows you to really see, based on your campaign, which landing pages were best at converting, engaging users, etc.

Option 2: Custom Reports for Landing Pages

The second option is to create a simple custom report which allows you to filter by traffic source before viewing landing page metrics. Here’s what that might look like:

Landing Page Metrics Worth Considering

Depending on your objective, there are lots of metrics to consider for landing page performance. These cut to the chase:

  • Bounce Rate: Measure of how engaging the landing page is relative to the traffic source
  • Conversion Rate: Represents how well the landing page can “set the user up” to convert on the site. NOT a measurement of actual conversions on the landing page. It’s a measure of the rate by which people convert who first land on that page.
  • Cost/Conversion: You need a custom report for this one. What better way to measure a landing page than a simple CPA or cost per transaction average for the page? After all, conversions are the goal and we want them for the least ad spend possible!

Questions, please post below.

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