Analytics Archives - FunnelEnvy

How to Use GA4’s Data and Reporting Model

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) represents a significant leap forward in how marketers analyze and leverage data. Designed for a digital-first world, GA4’s innovative data and reporting model provides a holistic view of customer behavior, enabling marketers to make informed, data-driven decisions.

For B2B companies, particularly those in SaaS or lead generation, GA4 is an indispensable tool for optimizing website performance and increasing conversion rates.

What sets GA4 apart is its ability to track user interactions across platforms and devices, providing a unified perspective on the customer journey. This is particularly valuable for B2B marketers, who often deal with lengthy, multi-touchpoint sales cycles.

By leveraging GA4’s advanced features, businesses can gain deeper insights into user behavior, measure their campaigns’ success, and identify areas for improvement.

Navigating GA4’s Reporting Tools

GA4’s reporting tools are designed to provide actionable insights, but effectively using them requires understanding the key reports and their relevance to B2B marketing.

Key Reports for B2B Marketers

Engagement Report:
This report offers insights into how users interact with your content. It tracks metrics such as engagement rate, average engagement time, and specific interactions like clicks or scrolls. For B2B marketers, these insights can help identify which content resonates most with your audience, such as white papers, blog posts, or product demos.
Conversion Report:
The conversion report focuses on goal completions, such as lead form submissions or demo requests. By tracking these actions, B2B marketers can measure the effectiveness of their website in driving meaningful user interactions.
Acquisition Report:
This report highlights where your users are coming from, whether through organic search, paid ads, or referral traffic. Understanding acquisition channels can help you allocate resources effectively and optimize campaigns for maximum ROI.

Customizing Dashboards for B2B Needs

One of GA4’s most powerful features is the ability to create custom dashboards tailored to your specific goals. This customization allows B2B marketers to focus on metrics that matter most to their business, streamlining data analysis and decision-making.

Steps to Create a Custom Dashboard

Define Your Objectives: Identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that align with your marketing goals, such as marketing qualified leads (MQLs) or demo requests.
Select Relevant Data: Choose metrics and dimensions that provide meaningful insights into your objectives, such as traffic sources, event counts, or engagement rates.
Use Filters and Segments: Refine your dashboard by applying filters to focus on specific user segments, such as first-time visitors or returning leads.
Visualize Data Effectively: Utilize charts, graphs, and tables to present your data in a clear, actionable format.

Pro Tip: Regularly review and update your custom dashboards to ensure they align with your evolving business objectives and campaign strategies.

Analyzing Event-Based Data

GA4 replaces the traditional session-based tracking model with event-based tracking, a significant shift in data collection and analysis. Unlike Universal Analytics, which groups user interactions into sessions, GA4 treats every interaction as a discrete event, offering a more granular view of user behavior.

The Benefits of Event-Based Tracking

Event-based tracking allows B2B marketers to measure specific interactions, such as:

File Downloads: Tracking white paper or case study downloads provides insights into what content prospects find valuable.
Form Submissions: Monitoring lead generation forms helps identify where users drop off and improve form design.
Outbound Link Clicks: Understanding which external links users interact with can guide partnership strategies and content priorities.

How to Configure Custom Events

Custom events can be set up in GA4 to track actions unique to your business. For example, a SaaS company might track when users request a product demo or navigate to a pricing page. Setting up these events involves:

Defining the action you want to measure.
Creating an event tag in Google Tag Manager.
Testing the event in GA4’s DebugView to ensure accurate tracking.

Pro Tip: Use GA4’s event parameters to capture additional context about each interaction, such as the type of content downloaded or the time spent on a page.

Leveraging Predictive Analytics

One of GA4’s standout features is its predictive metrics, which use machine learning to forecast user behavior. These insights can inform strategic decisions, helping B2B marketers optimize campaigns and allocate resources more effectively.

Key Predictive Metrics

Purchase Probability: Although traditionally geared toward e-commerce, B2B marketers can adapt this metric to predict the likelihood of high-value actions like demo requests or consultation bookings.
Churn Probability: Understanding the probability of losing a lead allows marketers to develop re-engagement strategies.
Revenue Prediction: Estimating potential revenue from leads helps prioritize high-value prospects.

Integrating Predictive Insights into Your Strategy

Predictive analytics isn’t just about forecasting—it’s about action. For example, you may:

Use purchase probability data to identify which leads are most likely to convert and target them with personalized campaigns.
Combine churn probability insights with email marketing to re-engage at-risk leads.
Leverage revenue predictions to allocate marketing budgets toward high-potential channels.

Pro Tip: Predictive analytics is most effective when combined with other data points, such as customer demographics and engagement history.

Implementing GA4 for B2B Business Success

Transitioning to GA4 can seem daunting, but a structured implementation process ensures you can fully harness its potential for B2B marketing.

Step 1: Define Your Goals

Start by identifying your primary objectives. For B2B marketers, this often includes:

Increasing lead generation.
Tracking multi-touchpoint customer journeys.
Optimizing campaign performance.

Step 2: Configure Your GA4 Account

Set Up Data Streams: Ensure all relevant platforms—such as your website and app—are connected to your GA4 property.
Define Events and Conversions: Identify key actions, such as form submissions or downloads, and configure them as events.
Enable Enhanced Measurement: Activate this feature to automatically track common interactions like scrolls and outbound clicks.

Step 3: Customize Reports

Create custom reports and dashboards tailored to your business needs. For instance, a B2B SaaS company might focus on metrics like trial sign-ups, demo requests, and user retention.

Step 4: Integrate with Other Tools

Integrating GA4 with your CRM, marketing automation tools, or ad platforms maximizes its capabilities. This creates a seamless data flow and ensures consistent reporting across your tech stack.

Step 5: Train Your Team

Empower your marketing team with the knowledge they need to use GA4 effectively. Provide training on:

Navigating GA4’s interface.
Configuring events and conversions.
Interpreting predictive metrics.

Pro Tip: Regularly review your GA4 setup to ensure it evolves alongside your business needs and marketing strategies.

Moving Ahead with GA4

Google Analytics 4 is more than a reporting tool—it’s a strategic asset for B2B marketers looking to drive growth and improve ROI. Businesses can unlock actionable insights that transform their marketing efforts by navigating GA4’s reporting tools, analyzing event-based data, leveraging predictive analytics, and implementing a structured setup.

Not sure where to start? Funnel Envy can help you Unlock the full potential of GA4 in just 21 days. Our new GA4 Audit includes:

150-point audit
21-day delivery guarantee
Precise plans & instructions

Partner with FunnelEnvy to optimize your GA4 setup and maximize your B2B marketing impact. Contact us today to learn more!

By Kala P|2025-01-22T20:16:09-08:00February 3rd, 2025|Analytics, GA4|0 Comments

Understanding Downfunnel Attribution for Website Optimization

What is Downfunnel Attribution?

Downfunnel attribution refers to the process of assigning value to marketing touchpoints that occur further down the sales funnel, typically after the initial click or interaction. In contrast to traditional attribution models, which may focus on the first or last interaction, downfunnel attribution takes a more holistic approach, recognizing the entire customer journey and the series of interactions that lead to a conversion.

The Importance of Downfunnel Attribution in Website Optimization

Understanding downfunnel attribution is crucial for website optimization because it helps marketers identify which touchpoints have the greatest impact on conversions. Without downfunnel insights, businesses may overlook key interactions that drive actual sales and revenue. By optimizing these touchpoints, you can maximize the effectiveness of your marketing spend and enhance the overall user experience.

How Downfunnel Attribution Improves Conversion Strategies

By enabling downfunnel attribution, you can improve conversion strategies in several ways. It allows for a more accurate understanding of which channels and tactics are truly driving high-quality leads. With this data, you can refine your campaigns, allocate resources more effectively, and optimize your website to encourage conversions at the critical moments in the funnel.

Key Takeaways from the Video

In our video, we take a deeper dive into the process of enabling downfunnel attribution. Watch the full video to get actionable tips and learn how to implement downfunnel attribution in your own marketing strategies. Understanding where conversions are happening and optimizing the right parts of the funnel can significantly increase your overall website performance.

By David Janczyn|2025-01-12T15:08:51-08:00January 12th, 2025|Conversion Rate Optimization, Digital Marketing, Analytics, Testing|0 Comments

Improving Martech Observability to Reduce Costs and Boost Efficiency

In the world of marketing technology (Martech), analytics observability is often overlooked. Yet, without it, businesses risk inefficiencies, revenue losses, and operational setbacks. Martech observability focuses on maintaining a robust analytics infrastructure, ensuring data flows seamlessly and accurately. Let’s explore the costs of broken analytics and how improved observability can be the solution.

The Cost of Broken Analytics

Broken analytics systems are more than just an inconvenience—they are a financial burden. Without proper observability, businesses face a range of problems, including:

Revenue Loss: Incorrect or missing data results in missed opportunities and lost leads.
Operational Inefficiencies: Teams waste time and resources troubleshooting issues instead of focusing on strategic objectives.
Poor Decision-Making: Misaligned sales and marketing efforts stem from inaccurate data, leading to ineffective campaigns.
Brand Damage: Faulty campaigns delivered to the wrong audience can harm customer trust and retention.

The long-term cost of maintaining broken analytics systems often exceeds the initial cost of building them.

Why Observability Matters in Martech

Observability, a concept rooted in software development, has yet to gain widespread traction in the analytics world. However, it is the key to ensuring data reliability and system resilience. By incorporating observability practices, businesses can proactively identify and resolve issues before they escalate.

Key Strategies for Martech Observability

To strengthen your analytics infrastructure, consider two primary approaches to observability:

1. Synthetic Testing
Synthetic testing involves running scripted transactions and workflows through your systems to simulate user interactions. This proactive measure helps you spot inconsistencies or errors in data processing before they impact real users.

2. Real User Monitoring
Real user monitoring (RUM) captures real-time data from actual users navigating your systems. This method ensures data flows correctly, providing immediate insights into potential issues affecting your audience.

The Benefits of a Resilient Analytics Infrastructure

Implementing these observability practices provides numerous benefits, including:

Accurate Data Insights: Gain confidence in your analytics for smarter business decisions.
Operational Efficiency: Reduce troubleshooting costs and improve team productivity.
Stronger Brand Trust: Avoid damaging campaigns and maintain customer loyalty.
Informed Resource Allocation: Spend less time fixing data issues and more on growth-focused initiatives.

Final Thoughts: Observability as a Martech Imperative

Improving Martech observability is no longer optional—it’s essential for any business relying on data-driven decision-making. By integrating synthetic testing and real user monitoring into your analytics stack, you can ensure accuracy, prevent costly mistakes, and create a competitive edge.

Watch the video above for a deeper dive into these strategies, and start building a resilient analytics system today.

FAQs

What is Martech observability?
Martech observability is the practice of monitoring and maintaining the health of marketing analytics systems to ensure accurate and efficient data processing.

Why is broken analytics costly?
Broken analytics lead to revenue loss, operational inefficiencies, poor decision-making, and damaged customer trust, all of which negatively impact business growth.

What is synthetic testing in analytics?
Synthetic testing simulates user interactions through scripted transactions, allowing teams to proactively identify and fix issues in data systems.

How does real user monitoring help Martech systems?
Real user monitoring captures real-time data from actual users, ensuring the accuracy of analytics and helping to spot and address system issues promptly.

What are the benefits of improving observability in analytics?
Improved observability ensures data accuracy, reduces operational costs, strengthens brand trust, and allows for better resource allocation.

Is observability in Martech similar to software development?
Yes, observability in Martech borrows principles from software development, focusing on proactive system monitoring and real-time data analysis to enhance reliability.

By James Praise|2025-01-07T11:44:13-08:00January 7th, 2025|Conversion Rate Optimization, Analytics, Strategy, SaaS|0 Comments

Softening the Ask – How to Improve Opt-in Form Conversions

The internet triggered a revolution in most fields, and marketing is no exception. The ability to track people’s online behavior gave marketers critical new data and insights into consumer behavior.

Capturing information via online forms added additional value—for example, email addresses. Unlike traditional mail, email was relatively free. While free can be great for a business, it also lowers the barrier to entry. Users’ email accounts soon became swamped with spam.

Eventually, the FTC regulated email standards, but people today still face crowded inboxes and are more concerned with privacy than in the past. Many are wary of filling out forms and sharing their information on websites.

The challenge for marketers is that forms are still essential to lead generation and sales. From landing pages to websites, Hubspot reported in 2020 that 83 (48%) of 173 study respondents say forms are their highest converting tool.

Source: HubSpot

Whether it’s a sign-up form for a newsletter or a contact form for inquiries, how you frame these forms can significantly impact conversion rates. In an era where people are increasingly cautious about sharing their personal information online, the art of “softening the ask” becomes crucial.

Let’s look at a few steps marketers can take to encourage web visitors to complete an online form.

Create a Form Audit

Before you dive into tweaking your forms, it can be helpful to know where to start. “Create a form” audit for your forms is a valuable tool. Here are some characteristics of high-performing forms to get you started.

Is the form context distraction-free?
Is there a compelling benefit to filling out the form?
Is the first step effortless?
Do the instructions offer clear guidance?
Do error messages do more than just point out errors? Do they help the user fix the error?
Does the password input field give an option to see the password?
Are you using drop-down menus for lengthy lists? (Hint – you want to avoid drop downs because they can introduce decision fatigue)
Does the form leverage microcopy to guide users?
Does the form validate responses in the field?
Do you have relevant social proof?
Do longer forms have multiple steps and progress indicators?
Is the submit/CTA button optimized?
If there are any next steps after filling out the form, are they clear?

You can also incorporate some of the following ideas into your audit to improve your opt-in form conversion rate.

Build Trust

“Softening the ask” boils down to building trust. Asking users to provide their information is a matter of timing. People are protective of their personal data, and their experience on the website needs to inspire trust.

Walk In Their Shoes – The Buyer’s Journey

Understand where your visitors are in their buyer’s journey. When they feel they are in the right place, they are more likely to see filling out a form as the natural next step.

Are they in the early research phase or signaling intent to purchase? Tailor your content and benefits accordingly. For those in the early stages, offer educational resources. Quizzes are a way to gamify forms and work well for some audiences. Prospects closer to a decision may appreciate a free trial or a personalized demo.

Gartner reports that B2B prospects’ behavior is changing. They prefer a digital-first approach and spend up to half their discovery phase in DIY research. 33% would rather not talk to a salesperson to complete a sale. That means forms leading to a direct sales contact or call back aren’t likely to convert as many as forms offering deeper dive information, like webinars or research studies.

Points for Professionalism

Make sure the form looks professional. You want to serve up something other than an equivalent of a used car salesman cliche experience. A poorly designed form doesn’t inspire trust. A visually noisy popup that keeps interrupting them feels intrusive and can cause prospects to click away.

Visual Cues – Logos and Badges

Visual cues such as trust badges, security logos, and affiliations with respected organizations can convey a sense of trustworthiness. Users who see these symbols on your website are likelier to believe you’ll handle their information responsibly.

Testimonials

Sharing testimonials from satisfied customers can have a profound impact on form conversion. Testimonials are the equivalent of online word-of-mouth recommendations. Real-life success stories and endorsements help potential leads see your value and encourage them to take the next step.

Be strategic about testimonials. Generalized kudos pack a weak punch. Tailor testimonials to highlight your USP and answer your buyers’ conscious and subconscious objections.

Privacy Transparency

Be transparent about how you intend to use the information collected. A clear privacy policy is a legal requirement and can also be a selling point. Your statement should outline how you use, store, and protect their data. Make sure users know that you respect their privacy and are committed to safeguarding their data. You can also reinforce this point in the confirmation email with a link to your privacy statement.

User Experience – Keep It Simple

Various studies have shown that the more fields there are to fill out, the higher the abandonment rate. So, one of the easiest ways to increase conversions is to decrease the number of required fields on the form to no more than three.

Some B2B companies get around this by offering a valuable lead magnet for free, like original research or detailed templates. They use multistep opt-in forms to segment and gain more information about leads, such as company size and occupation.

Placement and Pacing Matters

Try to position opt-in forms toward the top of the page, above the fold. Even for mobile phones and tablets, devices that don’t have a “fold” per se, presenting the form sooner rather than later is a best practice. The idea is to capture their attention so you don’t have to rely on them scrolling down to encounter the form.

That only gives you a little time to make a compelling case for why they should convert, so be clear about your unique value proposition (UVP), what benefit they will receive, and what will happen next.

Consider breaking the form into multiple steps for longer forms, like payment forms or intake questionnaires. Venture Harbour reported that breaking the form into multiple steps improved conversions by 300%. If it works for your audience, try quizzes, which are multiple-step forms in disguise.

Variety and Personalization

Bombarding users with the exact offers repeatedly feels like an annoying buzzing fly. If they’ve already received a whitepaper download offer, don’t present it to them again on the same page, especially if they opted in. Instead, track their progress and personalize the experience by showing them responsive content or offers that align with their behavior signals.

Moving Ahead

Fine-tuning website form performance can be challenging. Create forms that build trust and encourage user engagement by addressing emotional considerations, displaying trust signals, considering context, and tailoring content.

The good news is that form performance is easy to test. The more challenging part is the tech behind the analytics for form optimization. At Funnel Envy, we have the expertise and tools to help you dial in your website form performance and increase conversions. Give us a call today.

By Kala P|2023-09-21T07:10:26-07:00October 2nd, 2023|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

The best landing page design tests to boost conversions

With many elements of your marketing and funnels, there’s a degree of guesswork involved. Even companies who’ve been in their industry for many years and have deep knowledge of their audiences have to rely on their predictions based on the trends they’ve observed in the past.

But when it comes to designing your landing page, there’s a rare path to certainty: testing different options with real traffic to see which page visitors prefer. You might never be 100% accurate at giving every visitor what they’re looking for on your landing page, but with different tests on page elements, you can likely please most users.

The accuracy of your testing will determine how helpful your landing page data is for achieving business goals. Below are some of our favorite tests that will help you improve your landing page with quantifiable data. Our focus is on the specific elements of the page, and which style of test you want to use.

Headlines

By their nature, headlines are typically one of the first page elements that draw a visitor’s eye. That’s why ensuring your headlines are effective is essential for any industry-targeting audience. The famous advertising executive David Ogilvy said: “When you have written your headline, you have spent eighty cents out of your dollar.” He was talking about newspapers and flyers, but the principle still holds on modern landing pages decades later.

A good headline should always do the following:

Use action words related to the benefit of your product or service, not its features. For example, if you offer a software platform for manufacturing companies, your headline might use attention-grabbing verbs like “simplify,” “streamline,” and “organize.”
Incorporate jargon without overdoing it. Using the words and phrases that professionals in your audience understand is particularly important for B2B landing pages. These buyers are more discerning about the technical abilities of their vendors.
Address the visitor directly. Another key to good writing from the advertising world: the best copy speaks directly to the reader as an individual. This applies to your landing page headlines as well.

Form Field Labels

Most landing pages use at least one form for conversion, whether signing up for a newsletter or scheduling a demo with a sales representative. But to persuade people that it’s worth filling out the form and converting, they must first understand what the form means.

We recognize that form fields aren’t traditionally considered part of a page’s design – sometimes, they aren’t even part of the page, depending on the software stack you’re using. Many marketers simply fill out the form fields as an afterthought.

The problem with this approach is it neglects one of the most critical conversion elements on your landing page. Different people have different ways of recognizing the same things. No matter how well you know your audience, you’ll never be able to predict precisely what they think about a form title or a label. That’s why it’s critical to test as many of your form labels as possible, from the title of the broader form to the labels on each field.

No matter how well you know your audience, you’ll never be able to predict precisely what they think about a form title or a label. Share on X

Calls-to-action (CTAs)

The CTAs on your page are the last element before a page visitor becomes a conversion. Although your landing page has many vital components, the CTA element is arguably the most crucial leverage point to improve conversions. Even if the rest of your page is well-optimized for conversions and technically sound, a poorly-designed CTA will throw people off and significantly restrict your results.

There’s a massive array of different types of CTA designs, but these are three of the most popular:

Colored shape. This is typically a diamond, rectangle, or oval in a color that stands out on the page – often a bright color like red, orange, or light blue. Within the shape, you’ll see a simple text-based CTA like “Book your meeting” or “Download the guide.”
Plain text. Plain text CTAs are simple calls to action embedded directly in the text. Some marketers will add a paragraph of text at the end of the page, while others will simply include it as a line at the end. A word or phrase in the text will sometimes be hyperlinked to allow the user to submit the form or convert in another way.
Image. An image-based CTA is excellent because it allows the most flexibility and customization, which means it has the best chance of standing out on the page and grabbing attention. Conversely, an image-based CTA also provides more technical risks than other kinds – not all platforms and browsing devices load images well, especially if they are large and complex.

Which kind of CTA design is best for your landing page? It’s impossible to offer a one-size-fits-all recommendation. Each landing page has its own layout and design theme that a CTA should fit into (while also standing apart). Also, remember to consider your audience. Are you trying to provide a product or service for a more buttoned-up industry like law or accounting? Or does your audience have a more laid-back vibe like the hospitality or travel industry? These factors should all weigh into your CTA decision – and the nice thing about them is they are all so distinct that it’s relatively easy to perform a test to decide which ones are most effective.

Our Final Thoughts on the Landing Page

As is the case with many of the suggestions we provide on different topics related to funnels and conversion rate optimization, the advice given in this article should be viewed only as a starting point. Everything we’ve discussed is based on what has worked best for companies we’ve worked with during our many years of experience – you may find that another idea you have for landing page design works better or that something suggested here doesn’t move the needle as you’d hoped.

And that’s completely fine! The key to success is backing up everything you do with testing and data. Without any empirical evidence to support your landing page design decisions, it’s impossible to know whether or not they are the right choices.

But if you’re relatively new on this journey or recently started using a much different landing page, you might be struggling to find answers for design optimization. This is where our expert team at FunnelEnvy can assist. We have experience working with companies in various industries – from consumer healthcare to industrial equipment. Our focus has been helping them build a better-converting landing page in each instance. We can meet you where you are and provide customized assistance with all elements of your landing page design, from technical aspects like page speed and caching to form fields and CTA design.

Are you interested in finding out more? Just click here to complete a short quiz that we’ve created to help us learn more about your needs and how we may be able to help.

By Raj C|2023-06-01T03:07:35-07:00June 12th, 2023|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

How will Google Analytics 4 affect your funnel?

For most B2B marketers, Google Analytics (GA) is a foundational part of their stack. Google’s long-running web analytics platform emphasizes universal compatibility, meaning it often serves as the connective tissue between different elements and software applications you use in your marketing. Most business and marketing tools incorporate Google Analytics. With the continued implementation of Google Analytics 4, the platform has leaped forward in critical areas.

Announced in late 2020, Google Analytics 4 is one of the most significant upgrades the platform has seen since its launch over 15 years ago. You might have already migrated your data to this new version, but if you haven’t, the deadline is coming up quickly. On July 1, 2023, Universal Analytics properties used by older versions of GA will stop processing new data. Depending on your settings, Google may automatically create a new instance of your old profile into the new GA4 platform. If possible, try to get ahead of this deadline and migrate your profiles before Google does it for you.

This article will help you understand some of the most important new features in Google Analytics 4, how they differ from previous versions, and how this could impact how you use GA throughout your funnels.

What Are the Biggest Changes in Google Analytics 4?

The overall mission of GA hasn’t changed: it’s designed to help website owners and marketers better understand the way visitors interact with digital properties. Google has changed the way that its platform understands and measures these interactions in a few key ways:

More flexible events. The system for gathering data (or “hits,” as Google calls it) is much broader in GA4. It’s derived from the Firebase Analytics platform, which Google developed for mobile devices and apps. In the updated version, you can set custom events based on almost any action or event you want instead of limiting yourself to Google’s predetermined event categories.
Support for apps and other websites. The new version of Google Analytics can track user data on external apps and social media platforms. It’s especially beneficial to apps built with Firebase SDK, Google’s suite of app development tools and platforms to help developers and engineers streamline products.
New visual dashboard. Google has streamlined the main GA dashboard’s interface and visual aesthetic, offering a more concise set of options and a cleaner main page. There are fewer options on the left-hand navigation menu and a less boxy design. Google has also implemented a tab-based navigation system that many users will find more intuitive.

New Reporting Tools

As most experienced marketers know, the data you gather is only valuable if you can measure and understand it. This is typically done by taking it from the platform on which it was collected and contextualizing it into a report or similar document. Google Analytics always had powerful reporting tools, but GA4 ups the ante by adding a few new features.

Besides the new cross-platform reporting tools mentioned above, GA4 offers more sophisticated attribution models than the last version. That means deeper insights into where leads come from and which sources provide the most qualified prospects. Better attribution can lead to better marketing and less wasteful spending on channels that don’t produce the same results.

Google Analytics always had powerful reporting tools, but GA4 ups the ante by adding a few new features. Share on X

Finally, Google’s upgraded platform also incorporates machine learning, the fundamental principle behind the vast artificial intelligence trend that seems to be sweeping every industry. This can be used for predictive recommendations about optimizing your site or app and protection from spam or bots that may be generating a high level of suspicious traffic. Machine learning can also track the habits and patterns of specific users and help you develop protocols for serving preferred content to the groups that want to see them.

These tools are great for both business administrators and marketers responsible for explaining their work results to clients. Better reporting means more efficient use of the data you create and access in Google Analytics.

Cross-Platform Support

Google understands that the internet is a much different place than it was in the late-2000s when Google Analytics first rose to prominence. Today’s web is fragmented – people use several different apps or social media networks to find what they’re after, whether information, entertainment, or connection with others.

That’s why one of the key hallmarks of GA4 is expanding the places where Google lets you track user data. With GA4, you can gather data from Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to help you measure significant trends and patterns related to your business and its presence on third-party websites. You can imagine how helpful it might be to include social media data and information about your funnel’s different websites.

Compatibility with social media is also powerful because of GA4’s attribution technology. You can attribute leads from specific social media networks, which can be used to tweak your campaign and investment. You can also include GA4 attribution as a component of a larger lead-scoring formula to grade new opportunities across the company.

Best of all, if you’re already using a tool for attribution – perhaps a CRM like Salesforce or a marketing automation platform like HubSpot – you can still connect your Google Analytics account to the most popular types of lead tracking and marketing analytics software.

Final Thoughts on How Google Analytics 4 Impacts Your Funnels

Most marketers who have been on the job for a considerable time have some experience working with Google Analytics or at least have worked alongside others who know the platform well. For the better part of two decades, it’s been a pivotal arrow in the quiver of marketers and website administrators looking to get a sense of where their traffic is coming from, how people interact with their pages, and what the ideal prospect looks like.

With their new update that will sunset older versions this upcoming July 1, Google has widened the scope of data available to users and increased the number of ways to measure user interactions on their websites. From a business perspective, these updates will lead to marketers and businesses getting an even firmer grasp of their ideal clients, letting them develop more customized solutions that address their most pressing problems.

You may still have time before the deadline, but it’s always better to be prepared well. If you haven’t already made the jump and are looking for help converting your Universal Analytics account to Google Analytics 4, want to set up a new campaign, or are simply struggling to gain meaningful business insights from Google Analytics or any other platform for gathering data about user interactions with your web presence, we may be able to help.

The team at FunnelEnvy has many years of collective experience working with consumer and business software companies across all kinds of industries, from healthcare to real estate. To find out more about whether or not we can help and get additional details about our pricing, fill out this short quiz.

By Raj C|2023-05-22T08:32:12-07:00May 29th, 2023|Analytics|0 Comments

3 Examples of Helpful A/B Tests and Why They Work

A/B testing is a powerful tool for B2B marketers and considered a staple of the toolbox for improving a campaign. Marketing teams in every industry with every type of product and service can use A/B testing to figure out which option in a campaign works.

The fact that you must conduct A/B testing in a specific method to attain success doesn’t get discussed as regularly. A/B testing done the wrong way can cause a lot of wasted time and effort for your team. Even if you generate sufficient data from the tests, it won’t be as effective as with proper methodology.

To help you better handle your A/B testing, we provide three examples of some of the most crucial A/B tests you can perform in many different contexts. Remember: the advice here is general, so you’ll need to think about how to apply it to your specific funnel.

Landing Pages With a High Bounce Rate

Every experienced marketer knows the dreadful, pit-of-your-stomach feeling you get when you spend lots of time and resources building up what you think is a great landing page for your funnel, only to find that it flops with very little engagement and conversions.

You likely have a few landing pages already in mind that need to be tweaked and improved. If not, an excellent way to get started with this type of A/B test is to explore your analytics platform to identify which pages need the most improvement.

Here are a few other tips for landing page testing:

Have a predetermined length in mind. You don’t want to have one A/B test running for a week, another for a month, and another for just a few days – this distorts your data and dilutes the quality of the tests’ results.
Don’t make traffic splits equal. You should start by giving the existing landing page a larger share of site traffic, then slowly increase it. Do this to account for the potential negatives of incorporating any new idea onto a page.
Consider predictive traffic. In this blog, we’ve previously explored some of the relative benefits and drawbacks of using A/B tests compared to predictive bandits, which use machine learning models to determine the optimal version of your site to deliver to users. The most significant benefit of this approach is that it avoids the “one-size-fits-all” problem with A/B testing.

Important Form Page for your Funnel

You can apply form pages in several different ways within your funnel, for everything from a critical conversion step to a basic logistics element like booking a video call. With this in mind, it’s important to think carefully about which form you decide to A/B test.

A seemingly-minor form page setup improperly can have just as much of a negative impact as a final form directly tied to conversions. Share on X

That doesn’t mean, however, that you should only test critical funnels directly linked to the main conversions you’re tracking. A seemingly-minor form page setup improperly can have just as much of a negative impact as a final form directly tied to conversions.

For example, imagine a well-designed form with dynamic fields, progress indicators, and other staples that should convert properly. However, when a user reaches the last step or segment – or even the confirmation page – there’s an element that causes users to lose confidence and fail to complete the subsequent steps to get them down the funnel.

That’s why we recommend considering A/B tests for even the smallest elements when it comes to forms. Form field length, field titles, progress bars, button text – even the form’s primary and secondary colors can impact how people view your forms.

It may not seem significant, but as is the case with many other types of A/B testing, a tiny change can significantly impact conversion rates.

Email Subject Lines

Almost every successful modern funnel will use some kind of email, especially for B2B marketers who need to provide their prospects with a significant amount of information along each step of their funnel.

Unlike some of the other elements discussed in this post, most people know the importance of email subject lines. They are frequently cited as determining whether people even open an email. According to Zippia, just under half of all email recipients will open an email based on the subject line alone. Similarly, about 7 in 10 email recipients will mark an email as spam based solely on the subject line.

Here are a few ways to A/B test email subject lines:

Experiment with length. Shorter is usually better here. Generally, it’s recommended that your email subjects be somewhere between 20 and 60 characters, but you should run some tests to find your own sweet spot.
Incorporate one or more emojis. Of course, it’s important to understand your audience and the email’s subject matter – with certain somber topics, it may not be smart to use emojis. On the other hand, an unexpected emoji can be a great way to stand out in someone’s inbox.
Sentence structure. Sometimes, a question is the most effective way to get a recipient’s attention. In other cases, using a short statement or fact is best. Remember that many marketers get in trouble by trying to make their subject lines too mysterious or clever. This mystery is often a direct route to the spam folder.

Regarding length and timing, the guidelines we mentioned apply here: start with a small percentage of your list receiving alternate subject lines. A 70/30 split is a great starting point; from there, you can slowly increase the number of subscribers who receive the alternate version.

Also, remember that you’ll need to get sufficient data to ensure that your test results have value. The specific amount of time it takes for your data to be significant varies depending on the size of your list, but you’ll generally want to give the test at least a week.

Final Thoughts on A/B testing

Anyone who says A/B testing isn’t valuable to their marketing funnel or overall business probably hasn’t been able to find an approach that works for them. Indeed, there are some situations where A/B testing isn’t the best option for tweaking your funnel.

But in many cases, all that’s standing between you and a successful A/B test is the right approach. If you’ve been struggling to find meaningful results from A/B testing, or you simply want to get an outside perspective on improving the process, our team at FunnelEnvy can help. We have many years of combined experience helping companies of all sizes in all industries ensure they get the most out of the resources they put into testing.

Just click here to fill out a quick quiz to learn more about us and our pricing and determine how best we can assist you with your funnel optimization requirements.

By Raj C|2023-03-13T11:34:09-07:00March 20th, 2023|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

3 Symptoms of Siloed Data and How to Fix It

Data siloing is like a poisonous, invisible gas: it’s hard to identify, you may not even know it’s affecting you, and it can cause significant health problems for your business.

Before we go any further, let’s back up and establish the term’s meaning. “Data siloing” is when you store important information in your business in a single, isolated place that is not easily accessible for people in the company outside of those who originally put it there. The term comes from the traditional silo used in agriculture to store grain or other supplies in bulk.

But unlike traditional silos, which are easily visible to most people, data siloing is challenging to identify. In fact, in our experience, companies suffering the most from data siloing don’t even know it’s an issue.

In this article, we’re going to correct that problem. Below are three of the most significant symptoms of data siloing. After we outline each problem, we’ll include a general fix for the problem that you can apply to these and other symptoms.

Redundancy and Repetition Across Departments

Most companies organize their teams into groups ranging from a handful of people to dozens of employees, depending on the size of the company and the nature of its work. Given this inherent separation between teams, it’s normal for there to be some repeated information across groups.

Suppose you see a huge percentage of information repeated in meetings, presentations, or other kinds of department-level communication, though. In that case, it’s a good sign that each group may have its data siloed. One classic example is a separation between an organization’s sales and marketing teams, which happens to companies of almost every size. Marketing teams often collect data related to a prospect’s initial demographic info: the size of the company they work at, their job title, etc. Once the sales team gets involved, they typically learn new information related to more specific details about the prospect. If the two teams don’t share data sufficiently, it can lead to repetition of the same tasks and frustration on the part of the prospect, ultimately causing them to drop out of the sales funnel.

Teammates Ask Several Questions About Other Departments

One of the most obvious signs that your company has a siloing problem is when individuals in separate departments have very few details about how different parts of the organization work. This disconnect often leads to questions about how the other part of the company completes tasks, inquiries they wouldn’t ask if data wasn’t so siloed.

Remember that there will always be some degree of separation between departments – that’s their nature. You wouldn’t expect someone in marketing to understand how to put together a quarterly accounting statement, just as you wouldn’t expect someone on the support desk to work on developing your company website. But when different departments in a company don’t have a basic understanding of how other groups work – where their files are stored, how they communicate internally, etc. – it’s a sign that you may store their data too far apart.

Changing Access Levels Takes Longer Than Expected

From small shops with just a few people to the largest global enterprises, companies of all sizes have some sort of permission structure. These systems typically govern things like access to software platforms, the ability to read and write data in a certain folder, or access to a certain email inbox.

During a normal month or quarter, it’s common to change these permission levels for several reasons. Old employees leave, new employees start, and some may even change positions in the team, bringing up a need for different permissions. It’s okay if permissions don’t change instantly, but if it’s regularly taking your team several days or weeks to change permission levels, it’s a sign that your data and processes may have a problem with siloing.

Solving the Siloed Data Problem

As we mentioned, these indicators are just symptoms of an issue with siloed data in your organization. You may come across other signs in your organization, but it’s arguably most important to note that you may not come across any signs at all. Data siloing can happen even within a growing organization that seems successful otherwise. It might not be a mission-critical issue, but if you don’t nip it in the bud right away, it can grow into something much more serious. Even if it never becomes the issue that threatens your business’s existence, there’s still a chance it can prevent you from operating at maximum efficiency.

Data siloing can happen even within a growing organization that seems successful otherwise. Share on X

In our experience, the best way to prevent siloed data from becoming a problem that threatens your business to any degree is to implement a shared data platform that all the different teams in your business can access to share relevant information. Regarding sales and marketing alignment, we suggest our clients implement a tool known as a customer data platform or CDP.

The benefit of using a CDP is that, unlike traditional data-storing methods, this platform allows information to be put in and taken out by all the appropriate parties and applications. We refer to this as bidirectional integration. In other words, a CDP can integrate with all the tools you’re already using in your stack: a CRM, website analytics tool, email automation platform, etc.

In ideal cases, not only will implementing a CDP help you better manage the data your business uses on a day-to-day basis, it will help you get more out of that information to serve organizational goals better. For example, suppose you can input information about visitors to your website and the specific pages they visit. In that case, you might then be able to integrate it with data from your sales department about which particular parts of your solution prospects were most interested. The conclusions you can gain from these two types of data combined will be much more effective than the information you gain from analyzing the data alone, which often happens when siloed.

Final Word on Siloed Data

Although it’s not the most obvious problem or glamorous challenge to solve in your business, siloed data is still a profound issue worth trying to prevent. If you let it fester and expand within your business, it can eventually become such a severe problem that it impacts conversion rates and customer satisfaction.

Are you concerned that your organization may be suffering from siloing, or simply want to take preventive measures to prevent this situation from happening in the future? Our team is available to help. We have years of experience ensuring our clients can leverage the data they gather across the entire organization instead of watching their productivity suffer from inefficient communication and unnecessary re-work.

To get started, just click here and fill out a short questionnaire that will help you learn more about FunnelEnvy pricing and give us the info we need to determine how best we can assist.

By Raj C|2023-02-08T18:35:48-08:00February 20th, 2023|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

The 3 Most Important UX Considerations in Your Funnel

Now that the digital marketing space is maturing, the focus is increasingly on the finer details of digital experiences. Most marketers already recognize the importance of major pillars like email, social media, and web design. Plenty of different software and service options are available to help organizations in need.

Success on a broad level in channels like email marketing and social media is still vital, but they’ve become the minimum barrier to entry for top-quality B2B marketing. In 2023 and beyond, the best marketers will not only be nailing the larger elements of their funnels but also understand how to give prospects a desirable experience through the less obvious aspects of their campaigns.

We call them less obvious because, individually, it may not seem like the details that comprise user experience (UX) considerations will have that big of an impact on the success of a funnel. But when combined, these factors can determine whether a prospect has a positive or negative overall experience with your funnel, which in turn impacts their decision to do business with you.

Below, we’ll talk about three crucial UX elements of your funnel that you might have overlooked and give tips on addressing them in your campaigns.

Progress Bars and Indicators

In today’s world of increasingly crunched deadlines, dwindling attention spans, and bite-sized content, your prospects’ time is likely stretched thinner than ever before. That’s why it’s important to show appreciation for every second they give your marketing by explaining how much time it’s going to take for them to get through each part of your form.

Research shows that using progress bars can make people more willing to devote time to a form or wait for a page to load. Of course, you shouldn’t make users wait long for elements on your page (we’ll get to that in the next section), but there’s always going to be some level of load time. Similarly, it will always take some time for a prospect to give you the information needed to advance the sales cycle. The best you can do is make that time as painless as possible.

Of course, the B2B world can be a little different. When it comes to complex sales cycles or those in industries with many regulations, most prospects understand that it’ll take some time to get through their buying journey. On a macro level, B2B transactions generally take longer than B2C. While you can use that to your advantage by requesting more information at an earlier stage in the buying process, never take for granted the time prospects’ are willing to invest in your funnel. Progress bars, page numbers, and completion time estimates are all helpful tools for this area.

It will always take some time for a prospect to give you the information needed to advance the sales cycle. The best you can do is make that time as painless as possible. Share on X

Page Speed and Responsiveness

We’ve paired these ideas together because they are both ultimately technical requirements for your website and its funnel elements. Your site needs to load quickly enough to stop people from getting impatient and leaving. It also needs to load properly on each device a prospect could use to visit your funnel. Both concepts have been critical in B2B marketing for quite some time, yet we still come across plenty of organizations leaving a lot to be desired with how their page appears to users.

Page speed is vital for the UX of your funnel, in part because of the short attention spans of modern web users. According to Google, the chance a user will bounce increases by 32% after a page’s load time reaches 3 seconds. You don’t want your funnel to stick out like a sore thumb when a user has been browsing other fast-loading pages, a situation we, unfortunately, encounter with clients in industries like healthcare and manufacturing.

As for responsiveness, there’s a straightforward standard your funnel elements should live up to; they must be viewable and equally usable on any device. Page visitors shouldn’t have any issue navigating your funnel site, whether using a keyboard, stylus, or their fingers on a touchscreen. Remember to frequently test different versions and sizes of your funnel as part of your efforts to optimize conversions.

Content Quality and Tone

This final area is more abstract, but it might be the most important. “Content” doesn’t simply mean the writing on your forms, landing pages, or other funnel elements. It’s an all-encompassing term that combines those elements with their design, multimedia, and the trade-off you’re looking for users to make (typically filling out a form for some kind of asset).

Take a step back and simplify your campaign to its essentials: what are you offering? Is it compelling enough for prospects to give you what you’re seeking from them? A law firm’s office manager may be willing to provide their name and email address for an eBook but may not want to provide their physical address, phone number, or other personal details. On the other hand, if you’re working on some kind of funnel further along the pipeline, like an appointment or consultation request, prospects may be more willing to give you that type of information.

The tone of your funnel content is also important for the user’s experience. Part of this is human nature – people inherently want to like and trust others they meet who are similar to themselves. However, when it comes to B2B transactions, buyers are responsible for ensuring they’re working with vendors with a sufficient understanding of their field. Writing is, of course, a big element of your tone. Other factors can include:

The clothes worn by people in video content
The colors in your funnel’s design
Fonts and typefaces used in parts of your funnel
The use of industry-specific jargon

In many cases, prospects don’t expect vendors to have the same depth of knowledge about a field – an accounting firm purchasing business software probably won’t expect the developer to be able to audit their books, for example – but they do expect them to be familiar with critical elements of the industry and how they work. Even if it’s communicated subtly, showing prospects your understanding of their needs can go a long way in improving your funnel.

Where to Start With UX Considerations in Your Funnel

Each of these three areas of UX is relatively involved and could require its own campaigns to address. There are many other UX factors, some of which might even be more important to address in your funnel than the ones listed here. Knowing this, how do you decide where to begin with optimizing your funnel?

There’s only one answer: experiment, analyze the data, iterate, and repeat the cycle. It’s easy to guess what will be the most effective way to improve the UX of your marketing elements. But with actual data – conversion rates, heat maps, bounce rates, and ROI – you can see which parts of your funnel need fixing.

Looking for assistance running these tests, or simply want to get a few more sets of (expert) eyes on your funnel UX optimization? Our team at FunnelEnvy is ready to jump in and help. Just click this link and fill out a short questionnaire to learn more about our pricing and how we can ensure your prospects have a better experience with your marketing elements in 2023 and beyond.

By Raj C|2023-01-11T21:26:15-08:00January 23rd, 2023|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

4 Key Metrics for Your B2B Sales Pipeline

There’s a lot for marketers today to consider when it comes to tactics for bringing in new business, but your sales pipeline is what ultimately defines the success of all your funnels, marketing campaigns, and other efforts to add new clients and revenue consistently. But considering the huge array of software tools and data available to modern B2B marketers, it can feel overwhelming to measure all the metrics in a pipeline.

We’ve identified four of the most important metrics for B2B marketers looking to understand their pipeline better. Every company is different, but in our experience, an organization can get a great sense of the overall health of its pipeline by paying attention to the four metrics below.

Velocity

Sales velocity is defined by HubSpot as the measurement of how quickly a deal moves through a pipeline and turns into actual revenue. Velocity is an important metric because it helps you understand and identify obstacles or bottlenecks in your sales process. It doesn’t matter how great your landing pages or nurture sequences are – if there’s an issue with your pipeline velocity, it’ll constrain your sales.

It doesn’t matter how great your landing pages or nurture sequences are – if there’s an issue with your pipeline velocity, it’ll constrain your sales. Share on X

The widely-accepted formula for calculating pipeline velocity is to multiply the number of opportunities by the average deal value, then times your team’s average close rate, and divide that number by the length of your sales cycle. This formula is a great starting place to closely analyze each part of your pipeline to determine any obstacles.

For example, perhaps when evaluating the sales cycle length, you realize that your sales team is taking too long to follow up after the initial appointment with a prospect. Armed with this knowledge, you can adjust your sales process and inform your reps to follow up immediately after an appointment to keep the prospect moving through the sales journey.

Deal Size

The size of your deals doesn’t require any kind of complex formula to calculate, but it can still be difficult to identify issues in this area without some intentional analysis. For example, if your company has the same number of opportunities with the same sales cycle length as last year, but your revenue is down, it’s a sign that you may not be pursuing large enough deals.

Addressing a deal size issue is solely a matter of prospecting. Here are a few tips for finding higher-value prospects:

Use account-based marketing (or ABM). ABM defines a process by which you identify a handful of high-value accounts and create customized sales and marketing collateral explicitly designed for those accounts. According to Gartner, by the end of 2020, over 70% of marketers at midsize and large B2B organizations will be using or testing ABM.
Invest in thought leadership or content that brands give for free to gain trust and credibility by helping its intended audience. In a study published by LinkedIn and Edelman last year, 60% of B2B buyers said thought leadership builds credibility when a brand enters a new category, and 54% said they purchased a new product or service they had not previously considered. Thought leadership can help attract a more discerning type of buyer.
Get social. Participate in events, post on social media, and engage with your prospects in their communities. Remember to be genuine – it’s easy for people to identify someone who’s only interacting with them for the sake of a sale. Let your natural sense of curiosity and desire to help people guide your interactions.

Close Rate

Another straightforward yet critical metric for your sales funnel, a close rate identifies the number of prospects that become paying clients relative to the overall number of leads generated by your marketing efforts. Every company will have a slightly different close rate depending on the nature of their business. A more specialized company with a niche audience might be fine with a close rate between 5% and 7%, while others might be aiming closer to double digits or beyond.

While it’s possible to find general data online about close rates, a better approach is to track your own company’s close rate and assess where it needs to be for sufficient revenue growth. If there are problems with your close rate, it’s generally a sign to evaluate your sales team, the specifics of your client offer, or both. Solicit feedback from prospects whenever possible to better understand which elements are slowing down your close rate.

Sales to Support Ratio

This ratio may not be specifically related to the performance of your sales or marketing, but it’s still vital to understand how your sales pipeline affects the rest of your operations. It’s sometimes expressed as “sales staff to support staff,” but it isn’t necessarily just the number of people working at the organization in each department. For smaller companies with employees or contractors who handle multiple organizational tasks, it isn’t a simple “this to that” ratio.

However you quantify it, this metric is vital to understanding how much of your capacity the company uses for each client. You can also track this number based on deal size, client longevity, and other measures to get a sense of which types of clients require the most attention from your support team. You can use this data in your sales and marketing efforts going forward, helping you focus on the best types of buyers for your offering.

In a well-balanced organization, sales and support can handle a sufficient volume of responsibility that allows the company to stay on track with its goals. In assessing this metric at your own company, you may need to either increase your sales activity or add additional capacity for support, depending on how much your company’s product requires.

Final Word on Key Metrics for Your Pipeline

It’s essential to customize your pipeline metrics like any sales or marketing data. Every company has its own needs, meaning it might not make sense to track the same metrics as an organization in a different industry.

For best results with these pipeline metrics, track them for as long as possible and establish a performance baseline in each area. Note where the numbers are when things at the company are going well and vice versa when you hit a slow period. Doing this allows you to gain insight into where each of your metrics should be, giving you better context when you analyze your pipeline going forward.

If you’re unsure about what steps you need to take or which metrics to track to help improve the performance of your organization’s sales and marketing performance, our team is ready to help. FunnelEnvy has several years of combined experience working with B2B clients to identify gaps in their funnels, tweak critical elements like forms and landing pages, and optimize other aspects of the lead nurturing process to maximize your conversion rate.

Click here to take a short quiz and learn more about our pricing structure.

By Raj C|2022-10-20T04:37:11-07:00October 31st, 2022|Analytics, A/B Testing|0 Comments

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