Barnardos – Case Study Barnardos got in touch with us in June 2015 as they had been using Google Analytics since 2006 but recently had been experiencing problems with the reporting of traffic and conversions on barnardos.ie. The help they requested was to include:- Check existing site and microsite setups to ensure tracking was implemented and working correctly. - Check goal set up and ecommerce tracking to ensure it’s working properly. - Assist with an analytics ‘action plan’ - Potential training for staff Based on this, we took a phased approach to our work We take a phased approach to most analytics projects and follow the below structure:

Measurement Valida/on

GTM Support

Analysis & Insights

Op/misa/on

Training

M easurement Validation Prior to investing time gleaning insights from an analytics account it is important that you can be confident that the technical side of the analytics implementation has been dealt with. The measurement validation part consisted of an audit of the set-up of the analytics account - from ensuring that the code has been installed correctly, to ensuring interface settings have been configured correctly to reach insights in a more effective manner. Key outcomes from the Measurement Validation included:- Streamlining and restructuring of the account as it contained a number of inactive properties and views. - A small number of pages were identified which were missing the GA tracking code. - Enhanced Link Attribution and Demographics & Insights have now been enabled. - Webmaster Tools account has now been linked. - Bot filtering is now turned on within the account. - Incorrect 'Default page' was listed in some filtered views, causing incorrect URLs within the content reports. This has now been corrected. - Incorrect currency displayed in some views has now been corrected. - No filters were set up - we recommended setting up filters for internal and partner traffic. - We also recommended a filter to rewrite some duplicate URLs.

- A filter was set up to only pull in content of a subdirectory but the corresponding homepage sat outside the directory and wasn't included in the relevant view. We recommended changing the filter to be based on the URL rather than subdirectory. - Excessive event tracking within the account meant it was difficult to take meaningful insight from the data. We recommended streamlining this and focussing on useful information rather than recording every single user interaction. - We also recommended additional events to be tracked - e.g. Outbound Links, Video Plays, Social Sharing. - 20 goals were set up in the account but only 4 were registering conversions. None of the donation goals were set up correctly so we turned off any goals that weren't working and adjusted the setup of the Donation goals so they can now be tracked accurately (including funnel process). - We also re-used some of the defunct goals and set up some additional goals e.g. Setting up a Donation page, Clicks off to Social pages, Emails Sent. - Campaign tracking had been used across the site to track clicks on internal site links. As such, it rendered the campaign tracking reports obsolete as it was no longer possible to see where any traffic came from or which traffic was highest converting etc. We advised to remove all campaign tracking parameters from internal site links in order to be able to accurately measure the success of online campaigns. We also created a bespoke campaign tracking guide in order for Barnardos to follow best practice when setting up future campaigns. Google Tag M anager support As part of our commitment to dedicating 10% of our time to charitable work, we offered to implement Google Tag Manager and all necessary tags for Barnardos at no cost to them. Our GTM support included:- Transition to Universal Analytics via GTM (from hard-coded version) - Email Link Click Event Tracking - Outbound Link Event Tracking - PDF Download Event Tracking - Add To Cart Button Event Tracking - Event Sign Up Virtual Pageview - Sponsor A Friend Virtual Pageview - Virtual Pageviews for each step of the Donation funnel Analysis & Insights After an initial set-up audit. an analysis was conducted to evaluate the performance based on data collected in the account. The result of this was an audit detailing how visitors are finding the site (acquisition analysis), what users are doing when they get there (user behavior & path analysis) and what happens as a result of their visit (outcome analysis).

Outcome Analysis Behaviour Analysis Acquisi/on Analysis

Key Findings from the analysis included:Insights specific to the account included: –

Spotted an anomaly in users vs pageviews dating back to 2013 – after some research we discovered the tracking code had been installed twice in 2013 and was finally corrected in November 2014 – this caused a ‘drop’ in pageviews but in fact, they had been inflated previously and were now correct;

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Understanding how engaged new visitors are with the site compared to returning visitors, understanding how their experience on the site differs;

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Understanding how visitors from mobile experience and engage with site content compared to desktop users;

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Evaluating the key paths users take through the site and understanding the most popular content areas and navigation elements on the site to inform where content could be culled or expanded upon;

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Conducting keyword behaviour analysis in an attempt to understand the user intention behind the keyword better;

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Examining the key pages viewed in the lead up to creating a conversion;

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Studying visitors who completed desired outcomes and understanding how to maximise on this;

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Scrutinising inbound link values;

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Identifying groups of content that work well together for particular types of users;

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Understanding visitors who choose to engage further with the site via social networks: understanding where do they do this and after how long;

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Drilling down to see how different customer groups navigate through the website;

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Evaluating site search and speed intelligence to seek areas of product expansion, inform website design and increase website speed;

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Noticed “y” was a popular site search result – and following further investigation, we could see it was being appended when a user visited a series of pages (in a certain order) so we have since created a filter to exclude ‘y’ as a site search result.

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Analysing the comparison in city-specific traffic behaviour;

The insights were assembled into a PowerPoint presentation and presented back on completion. Optimisation A natural follow-on from gleaning the actionable insights, is the development of a plan-of-action based on the insights. This allows all previous efforts up to this point to be realised. The resulting strategy will depend on insights garnered from the account but will facilitate the development of a strategy to support content writing efforts, social activity, search (SEO and PPC), customer profiling among other elements. This part of the project is still to be delivered, subject to the availability of funding. Training Customised training course in web analytics will be developed and delivered based on: - Current use and knowledge of analytics in the business - Business structure - Skills and knowledge of web analytics required This part of the project is also still to be delivered, subject to the availability of funding. Conclusion Our analytics project for Barnardos has given them the confidence that the data within their account is now accurate and can be used going forwards to proactively plan future strategic decisions. We helped them make sense of historic data anomalies, for example, the 50% dip in pageviews in November 2014, which was a result of the tracking code being implemented twice across each page of the site. In addition, we helped them clean up and improve existing tracking such as removing the Campaign Tracking parameters from internal site links, which now means they can actually measure and correctly attribute the success of online campaigns to the relevant channels. We also provided them a framework for future campaign tracking and best practice. We also advised on the existing Event Tracking setup, and implemented more practical, useful event tracking via GTM so they can more accurately understand on-site behaviour without being lost in a sea of meaningless data. And we did this as part of our commitment to providing charitable work where possible as part of our CSR remit.

We have also been on hand to answer any questions or queries they have had – and funding permitting, will continue the project through to completion in the coming months.