How reliable is your data?

In the ever-evolving world of digital marketing, understanding how your audience interacts with your website is crucial for refining strategies, improving ROI (return on investment), and driving more conversions. Tools like Google Analytics (GA) and Google Tag Manager (GTM) are incredibly useful for tracking and analysing website traffic, campaigns, and user behaviour. However, even experienced marketers can sometimes encounter puzzling challenges when interpreting data, especially regarding direct traffic, cookie consent, and return on ad spend (ROAS).

In this blog post, we’ll explore how these elements relate to Google Analytics, and how they can inform SEO and PPC efforts, with a focus on charity organisations and third-party communications.

1. Google Tag Manager: The backbone of accurate tracking

Google Tag Manager (GTM) is a tool that simplifies adding and managing tracking codes (tags) on your website. Whether you’re running an SEO campaign and want to measure which search terms result in the most clicks on a landing page, or you’re managing PPC ads and want to track phone call inquiries, GTM allows you to track user interactions without needing to modify your website’s code directly. This makes it easier to deploy cookies consent banners, Google Tags, AdWords conversion tracking, and other marketing tags (such as the Meta Pixel), ensuring that they fire in the correct order so that your website is GDPR compliant, and your data is accurate and up to date.

For charity organisations, Google Tag Management can help with the tracking of critical donation conversions, volunteer sign-ups, and other forms of engagement. Moreover, these conversions can be used to improve the effectiveness of your Google Ad Grant account.

If you are struggling to understand your data or track your web visitors, then Daily Bread Consultancy can help. Get in touch and let us know what you are struggling with.

2. Why Google Analytics shows direct traffic as your main traffic source

One common issue marketers face is when Google Analytics categorises significant amounts of traffic as “direct.” While this can seem confusing, there are a few reasons why this happens:

• HTTPS to HTTP Transitions: If someone clicks a link from a secure (HTTPS) site to a non-secure (HTTP) site, the browser may not pass the referral data, causing GA to mark that session as “direct.”
• Organic Social or Email Traffic: Links from email campaigns or social media (without proper tracking) are often misidentified as direct because the source isn’t passed through.
• Operating Systems: When iPhone and iPad users tap “Open in…” to launch a link in their preferred browser, referrer data often doesn’t get passed along.
• Manual address entry: This actually is direct traffic – people who type your website url directly into the web address bar (or have your site bookmarked).

For PPC campaigns you need as accurate a picture of your web traffic as possible, to calculate ROI/ROAS and to ensure your campaign is providing value. As such it’s crucial to ensure all external links and campaigns use accurate tracking and UTM parameters to better understand the effectiveness of each channel.

If you feel like you aren’t getting the most out of your Google Ad Grant, then Daily Bread Consultancy can help. Just get in touch and we can provide a quick review of your account.

3. Cookies consent and its impact on data in Google Analytics

One of the most important aspects of digital tracking today is cookie consent. With data privacy laws like GDPR in place, many users are now prompted to accept or decline cookies on websites. This directly affects how data is collected in Google Analytics.

When a user declines cookies, Google Analytics cannot track their behaviour, leading to data discrepancies. It’s essential for marketers, especially those working with charities or businesses, to ensure that cookie consent is managed properly.

• Transparency: Clearly inform users about what data is being collected.
• Compliance: Make sure your cookie consent process aligns with GDPR, CCPA, and other global data protection laws.
• Consider Google Consent Mode: Consent Mode enables you to fully take advantage of conversion modelling for more comprehensive reporting and optimisation when conversions can’t be linked to ad interactions.

Implementing an appropriate cookie consent solution ensures that your data in Google Analytics remains as accurate as possible, reflecting the true actions of users who accept cookies and those who do not.

Unsure if your website is GDPR compliant or if your Tags are firing in the correct order to provide you with the best data? Get in touch and we can quickly review this for you.

4. Measuring Return on Ad Spend (ROAS)

One of the primary goals of running paid advertising campaigns is to maximise your return on ad spend (ROAS). For charities and businesses alike, understanding the effectiveness of your ad spend is crucial for budget allocation and campaign strategy.

Google Analytics can help you measure ROAS by:

• Tracking conversions from PPC ads
• Setting up e-commerce tracking to monitor donation completions or product purchases
• Attribution modelling to assign credit to different touchpoints in the customer journey that helps create conversions

By integrating Google Tag Manager and using conversion tracking codes properly, you can ensure that your data is accurate and reflects the true impact of your campaigns. For charity organisations, tracking ROAS isn’t just about donations, it can also be about engagement metrics like newsletter sign-ups, event registrations, or even volunteer applications.

Final Thoughts: Optimising Your Digital Marketing Efforts

Understanding the intricacies of Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager, cookie consent, and ROAS measurement is essential for any organisation running digital marketing campaigns. For charities and companies, it’s important to ensure your data is clean, compliant, and actionable.

By ensuring proper setup, accurate tracking, and proper data interpretation, you can better optimise your SEO and PPC strategies, making data-driven decisions that lead to more conversions and a higher return on investment.

Remember, whether you’re optimising for organic traffic, managing paid ads, or working with external partners, keeping your analytics in check will give you the insights needed to succeed.

If you need help with anything mentioned in this article, then do get in touch. We’d be happy to help set you on the right track.