Measuring Success: Using Google Analytics to Improve Your Business Decisions

Your Dream Business

Today’s episode of the podcast is an interview with Laura McKenzie, where we are talking all about why as business owners we need to be taking data and analytics in our business seriously.

Through her business Cloudy Day Digital, Laura offers measurement marketing services to business owners and sales teams; helping them to demystify the world of analytics and feel confident in making data-driven decisions. With a varied background in film and television, broadcast digital media, as well as hospitality sales, Laura’s background offers businesses a unique approach to analysing their next campaign.

KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

1. How your data can help you make better decisions
2. What you should be tracking through Google Analytics
3. GDPR compliance and tracking your customers online

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE

Connect with Laura on LinkedIn and Instagram Sign up for Laura's email list 'The Forecast' Connect with Teresa on Instagram, LinkedIn or Facebook

Transcript

Teresa: Hello and welcome to this week's episode of your dream business podcast. How the devil are you? I hope you are good. So, back again with another interview, like I said, I think I mentioned it last week, I'm going to be doing a lot of interviews. I just really enjoy talking to people. And also, I enjoy talking in general, actually, kind of understatement. But also there's a lot of things that I am not the expert on. And I know a lot of amazing humans who are expert at things. And as I said last week, they just happen to be members of my executive club, which is wonderful, but that's not the reason I chose them. I chose them because they are very good at what they do. So today I have got the very lovely Laura McKenzie, who is joining me on the podcast. Now, Laura sent me her bio over, but basically I'm going to say in short, Laura is like all things Google, tech, data genius stuff. Okay. And she's going to help us understand a little bit more about what that is. Things like Google, my business, Laura did some training for us. And I realized in that training, I didn't have a Google, my business, which I still haven't done. Don't tell her. So yes, so Laura is all things tech and analytics, and she's going to help us understand what they do for us in our business. So welcome to the podcast, Laura, how are you doing? Laura: That's lovely. Thank you very much. It's great to be here. We'll be listening to quite a few of them recently. Just thinking, Oh God, what am I going to say? But no, I'm here now. And ask me whatever you want. Teresa: Oh, well now I'm going to, like, you're going to be sorry you said that. So like most of my amazing members, members, I said that wrong, members, I'll start again. I did just tell Laura that this is a clean episode, i. e. whatever we record goes out. So I've messed up. That's fine. Laura has a really interesting background and a bit like when we had Katie on and it's like, we'll be in the group chat saying something and then they'll drop in and one of them will go, Oh yeah, when I did so and so and we're like, what? Like, this happens all the time with Laura as well as Katie. So Laura had a background in, like, the television type industry, so I want you to tell us, and actually she gave me a fact, that she was once a picture in a wanted poster on a BBC daytime drama. What the hell, man? So how do we go from being a wanted poster in a BBC daytime drama, to doing what you do today? Laura: Okay, yeah, so my, my journey has been quite interesting, I guess. I've got a film degree, and that's always what I wanted to do from when I was very little. I always wanted to be a director with a hat on, telling people what to do. But then when you get out in the real world and actually learn, you think, Oh, I don't actually, I don't want to do that. So yeah, I first started out as a runner, so making teas and copies everywhere for film and TV sets. And I worked in drama, so rather than, like, your X Factors entertainment shows, I was working on those sort of Netflix dramas, or poor Netflix. And yeah, one of the shows I worked on was a daytime TV show for the BBC. And often the art department would, they'd have to create so many different props. And one of them was this Wanted poster. Where they came in and said, oh, we really need just a picture for this. So I thought, well, if here's my chance to be a criminal on TV, why not? Teresa: I love it. I love it. Laura: So yeah, I love that fact because then I completely forget about it. And then, yeah, when it was on TV, I was watching and I said, oh, let's rewind that back. Yeah, that was great. That was quite fun. So, my, yeah, my background was in film and TV for a bit. And it was really good. Then I sort of moved, because you sort of work on contracts of contracts in television, so you go three months on one thing, then you jump on to the next, so it's not very stable. Neither is freelance life, so maybe that's why I quite like it. Yeah, that's probably it. So, I was doing that quite a bit. And then I moved into more of a digital role in TV broadcasts. And I loved it. And it wasn't something I ever thought that I would ever do before. And all of a sudden, here I am with a digital team. And we're coming up with different campaigns to get people to watch the main program. And it was just a complete eye opener for me. And I was sort of hooked from then on. So It was in broadcast media, contracts happen, and then they stop. Normally in TV, if you get to near October and you've not got the next contract, you're thinking, okay, I'm not going to be working over Christmas. Yeah. So, I randomly got a job in hospitality, just to cover me for that time. And I ended up working in a hotel as a concierge, just to get a bit of money. And My marketing wasn't quite satisfied and moved into their marketing team. So all of a sudden from broadcast media and doing something completely different. I'm in the marketing team, quite a corporate big business with, quarterly sales meetings, APIs and everything like that. So that was quite fun. And yeah, that's really how I started to get into it, and I was there for quite a few years, and I just started noticing in probably around June for hospitality, if anyone's worked in it before, June is when you start talking about Christmas, and you get your Christmas jumpers on, you're going around hospitals with mid spies, and. Teresa: Oh my goodness. Yeah, that would be my husband's idea of hell. I mean, he's not even cool with Christmas in December, let alone in the middle of the year. Laura: Exactly. It's just, it's a bit of a nightmare, but, you start looking at it. And so all your marketing campaigns are revolving around Christmas a lot of the time. And I just kept on thinking, it was like a niggling thing that was in my brain all the time about, well, how, when, how are we measuring this by each different thing that we do? Cause a lot of it was quite ridiculous. I mean, all respect to sales teams and hospitality, they're probably the hardest workers I know, but, Yeah, I kept thinking, Oh, you do all this all the time, but we're measuring the outcome, but you're not measuring the little individual bits to see what makes sense. So that was always in the back of my mind. And when the pandemic hit was when I was in another role because I'd moved cities. And I lost my job. So I was about six months into 2020 going, Oh, I've not got any income whatsoever. Teresa: Probably need a job, or some money. Laura: Yeah, need a job. And I thought, I've been thinking about this for ages. Why don't I just do it? Don't have a boss. I'll just see what I can do. And here I am, a few years later, still doing it, so. Yeah, it's going okay. Teresa: That's awesome. Awesome. Awesome. So the first question I've got to ask you is what programs are you on that people would recognize? Because that's obviously one of the most important things. Laura: Of course. So big one is Hollyoaks probably. So that was, that was possibly one of the best places to work. So if anyone's around Liverpool, they need a job. Try and work at Lime, at Hollyoaks. They're the best people. So, Hollyoaks, and then, first film I worked on was the Horrible Histories Bill film. So, they did this big thing in Yorkshire where it was about William Shakespeare writing his first play. And so yeah, so I was a production runner on that one. And then, No Offence, if anyone's watched that one, with Joanna Scanlon. So that's a Channel 4 thing. Based in Manchester. So there was lots of fake, fake blood and fake drugs and everything on that scene. Teresa: Love it. Laura: So that was quite fun. Teresa: That's awesome. Honestly, that's so cool. And I love like the, the previous lives that people have had prior to doing a business. And what's super interesting is like, often when we come into our own business and we do our own thing, we can lack masses of confidence because somehow we just forget that actually we did some pretty amazing stuff prior to it. And like the stuff that you did for the campaigns, for the hospitality and like, you know, It's almost like we just forget about all that and go, Oh, you know, as if I'm starting again, which we're not like we have all this amazing history. So you are going to talk about stuff that people don't turn off people don't switch off. I promise it'll be worth it. Sorry, Laura. She knows me well. I'm joking. But it is one of those things like when I had to update my Google analytics to G. something for something. I don't know. Literally. I was like, I don't even know what this is. Like. And this, and I'm someone who has experience in websites and Google analytics. And, you know, I wouldn't say I was a fay in it. I wouldn't say I was like, yeah, I've got this, but I do at least know what they are and know kind of roughly the basics. And I was like, Oh, no, someone else do this, please. And then things like Google my business and the analytics and the, all of that stuff around it. Like now do we like get us excited about it or tell us why we should be listening to this podcast and why we should be taking our kind of analytical side of our business. Like importantly, that's that didn't make sense, but you know what I meant. Laura: I know what you mean. So, analytics, I think you said it really, as soon as people hear the words on GA4, Google Analytics, have you looked at your bounce rate, everyone just sort of switches off and sort of falls asleep. But when more exciting things like actual marketing campaigns and getting this nice flashy thing out or ads and you start seeing the money rolling out and then stuff coming in. Everyone gets excited about it. But the big thing is if you haven't got your analytics set up, then you don't really know what's working. And that's the, that's the crux of it all really. And, you know, you see lots of business owners constantly, every year, focusing on, okay, I know I need to do this thing, get my email list out, I know I need to do this Facebook ads, or do I do Google ads, or do I even need to do ads, or even do I need a website when I've got social media? Like, all these things, people are always asking themselves every single month, pretty much. But the truth is, if you set up your analytics and have the code on all your websites, have all your links with the UTMs and the tracking things at the end, people know they need to do but never do. If you get that all set up, you, you go back and have a look at your dashboard and everything, all the answers are there pretty much straight away. So if you've set it up in a very specific way. Within five minutes of just glancing at your analytics, you can see what your next move needs to be. Because you know what your business goals are. So that's in a nutshell, that is why everyone needs to pay attention to it, but possibly don't. Teresa: So I'm going to play devil's advocate and go, okay, Laura, I have done my website through Squarespace or whatever the Wix, whatever it is. I barely managed to put that together. I don't. Like, how do I even start to understand how to do some of this stuff that you're doing without blowing my own mind? Cause it feels, and I think half the problem is the words alone. You said something about setting up the URL with the. And I know what you mean. It's the question mark. Minute. There's a question mark. Everything after the question mark is tracking as to how you got to that link. But the word you said, I was like, what is that? So like, if someone's listening to this, like, yeah, that sounds cool, but I literally have no idea how to start. Like. How do they do this stuff? Laura: So the first thing that, if anyone wants to start setting this up, I would always say just close your laptop, first of all. Dont. Teresa: Throw out the window, ignore it. Laura: Throw out the window into the ocean to get about it. Just don't look, don't look at anything. 'cause I think that's the big thing and that's where the overwhelm starts. Yeah. Is when people's. Instantly open up, even if they know the analytics, Google URL, as soon as they go on the website, you start going down rabbit holes. And it's quite notorious for being a rabbit hole of, Oh, I know I can look into this. I can look into that. Just close everything down and just sit there with a piece of paper and think about your business. And that's the big thing that I'd say is what do you need to know about your business to get where you want to go? So, is it that you're a brand new business and you know, in order to get sales, you just need awareness. And what I mean by awareness is people actually clicking into your website or to wherever your things are. So you know, you need that information. So even if you haven't got the technical jargon for it all, if you write down a list of what it is you need, so you need your traffic, how many people are actually looking at your website? You need to know why aren't people pressing this, the purchase button, or I've got a form on my website. People are submitting it, but I'm not sure if they're the right people. So those are the questions that you need to ask first of all. And then once you've got them, that's when you can figure out what level you need. So if you've not got any analytics whatsoever, or you've even got your little bit of code. Set up in the header of your website, because most people have got to that point and then they've ignored it and gone, well, you know, that's tracking something that's fine. So, the first thing everyone needs to do at that opint is get the code set up, which most web developers can help you with. They don't have to be a Google Analytics person. Or just ask, especially in business, you can ask your, your business mates about what they've done or how do they know somebody who can do it. 'cause initially that's all you need to set up. Teresa: And luckily because you're an exec club, you are our business mate. Laura: You could just ask me. Teresa: I forward it to, Laura, when any chance you could have a look at this for me, please. Thank you. Yeah, and I think, I think that's the truth about it is. And I know this is very easy to say, but everything is simple and you know, everything's hard until you know it. Right. And you did some training in the club. There's a training in the club about, Google My Business. Right. And that for me would appear something pretty simple. Okay. And it is really compared to some things. It is pretty simple process to go through. However, there were certain things that people didn't know. And I mean, I say it's pretty simple. I haven't got it set up. But there were things that people who had got it set up, didn't know that existed. And actually, if you just tweak that or did that or whatever, but the training was so simple and so structured that it was like, this is where the button is. You do this thing. And that's the same with Google analytics. It feels because there is so much involved and so much to it. It is so easy to go, don't know what on earth they're talking about on here and get lost in this gazillion million bits of data that you could find. But when you've got someone who can go, go here, do this, do this, do this, suddenly it's like, Oh, is that it? Laura: That's, that's the big thing and I think that's the thing I don't like about analytics because people get scared by it really quickly because there is instant jargon. If you Google anything, you get massive experts in the industry who are targeting like Don Lewis and Amazon and really big business people who need to know the really ins and outs of everything. And when you're looking for something really simple, you think there's no hope really, but there is hope and that's something that I've seen there's loads more people recently. I'm trying to do a similar thing to I am, which is trying to get cut through all the jargon and just make sure that everyone just gets what they need, because Google, even though we give it our data, so it's not free, it's free to all businesses. Yeah. And, you know, even if you have to spend a tiny bit of money setting up what it is you need to do, whether it's the questions you know. Teresa: Getting some help to do that, yeah. Laura: It's, from that point it's free. Up until you need the next stage, but then you know what it is that you actually want answering. So, yeah. Teresa: So what sort of stuff should we be looking to track? Or what sort of stuff, like, if you're a small business and you've got Google Analytics set up, what are the key things that I'm looking at or would be helpful to me? Laura: So, if you only just set up your account, the first thing I'd say is really boringly before looking at all the reports and the bar graphs and everything that looks really fun, just click into your admin and go through the boring little sections. Because those are the, those bits are the things that will make all the difference. So that in, in there, you've got how long Google's going to take your data. So, or keep your data. So, but it, either it's two months or 14 months. So Google went for a big thing recently where, and this is the reason why we're talking about it, is there was universal analytics for ages and ages and everyone knew they had to set it up and then if they...