Technology will never be the same as it was yesterday. Thus, the impact it has on business is profound. In this modern era of digitalization, there is nothing more important than a powerful web analytics tool to carry out marketing campaigns, generate insights, and drive eCommerce sales. Right from personal website hosts to online business owners, every single professional is always keen on having that one tool. With the SaaS industry flourishing at great heights, Google Analytics has been their prime choice. Being one of the finest, flexible, and easy-to-use analytics tools that keep track of your entire business, Google Analytics for SaaS provides useful data points on your website, and a lot more.
Source: MoosendEven if you’ve just begun with your SaaS journey or have laid a strong foundation in the industry, Google Analytics can be a great analytics platform for all your needs. But are you just feeding data into it and generating meaningless reports which aren’t sailing you in the right direction? Maybe you already have ‘utilized’ the platform for your business in the best possible way, but they say ‘There’s always room for betterment’. Maybe there is a thing or two you’ve still been missing on. And as you further advance into this, you will just wish to have known them much earlier!
1. Customized Tracking for SaaS
The primary interface and setup of Google Analytics are not of great help to the SaaS industry users. Most of the SaaS websites and apps operate through a single page hence you need to get past the usual way of pasting data in the tracking code and generating insights for your business. And you will generate the essential metrics for SaaS tracking only through the goals and events that you set for your platform.
Source: Supreme Propaganda The number of subscriptions is an essential parameter that drives your SaaS business. So, set your top goals which are also known as micro-conversions along with your main goals and build a funnel. The funnel visualization is one of the handiest and well-optimized features of Google Analytics. You can easily view eCommerce tracking, conversion rates, and product performance through it. It also provides insights to plan campaigns for your business through different websites, pages, and acquisition channels.
For a SaaS business, make use of the following elements to track customer data:
- Sign-Ups and Sign-Ins
- Upgrades in the existing plans
- User Invites
- Purchase of subscription models
- Uploads and downloads
2. Simplifying Reports by Cleaning URLs
You can streamline your reports and always focus on collecting only relevant information as Google Analytics allows only a specific set of unique values per day. If you’re using the free version, then you can daily hold up to 50,000 rows of data or 75,000 if you have the premium Google Analytics 360.
Thereby, if your data values go beyond a certain limit already set, then Google Analytics will automatically segregate such values and add them to a new row in the table. If there are several dynamic elements in your URL paths, then you can take them out of your page path from the Google Analytics pageview. Most of this data is unnecessary and does not generate many insights for your business. This feature further helps to simplify and create well-structured plans and reports.
3. Unveiling Hidden SEO Data
A successful content marketing campaign is largely dependent on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Only through SEO, you can generate quality organic traffic over your website and attract many leads for your business. Many of us are not aware, but Google, by default, will show ‘not set’ when you look out for the SEO data. Trust us, you’re missing out on a lot by not doing so.
Source: Keyword Tool You can simply resolve this by linking your Google Analytics account with Google Webmaster Tools. Once done, you can navigate through the section and define the domain as per your choice. On doing so, certain important search engine keywords will start to show up based on your content and business architecture. Also, under the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ section in the Google Analytics report, you’ll be able to view reports on your SEO data. In this way, you can have a better understanding of your content, keywords, and have a plethora of opportunities to generate traffic over your website with ease.
4. Setting up Custom Dimensions
Before the introduction of Universal Analytics, every Google Analytics user was making use of custom variables which enabled them to do some useful things by feeding data, but it had certain limitations as well. As soon as Universal Analytics was launched, custom dimensions and metrics were introduced and many of the limitations were also taken off.
Source: CodeLearn With custom dimensions, you can keep a track of the customer’s behavior based on his traits and also about the company he’s working for. Based on his subscribed plan, website visits, etc. you can get your hands on very beneficial data. The custom reports, metrics, and dashboards generated will give a secondary dimension about the customer and you can adjust your SaaS business accordingly.
You can make use of the following Custom Dimensions to gain better insights:
- User ID
- Occupation of User
- Subscription model or plan of the User
- The domain of the user’s company
- Size and customer base of the company
5. The AARRR Framework
The SaaS industry is a customer-driven industry and without them, your business cannot flourish. Your success depends on your customer base and customer success parameters. In a nutshell, everything depends on how you deal with your customers- whether you want to focus on customer acquisition or retention. But in the end, revenue generation is of prime importance in business. The AARRR Framework by Google Analytics for SaaS will assist you to ease down this entire process.
Source: Google Developers These metrics, also known as Pirate Metrics, are as follows:
Through which sources or channels do your customers find about your business or visit your website to know more about it? Google Analytics bestows you with plenty of options on how to acquire these customers.
From the data churned and the analytics obtained, you can change customize your service as per the customers to make them happy, satisfied and convert the visitors into paying users.
Once you decide to move ahead with customer retention, Google Analytics will use your customer base data and advice you on how to repeatedly bring your customers back and provide them a satisfactory experience every single time.
Your happy customers are your brand evangelists and their reviews do matter. They are the ones who will refer your SaaS business to other people and in turn, drive your customer base and Google Analytics will lend you a hand in this.
The better your services, the happier the customers, and the more they pay. Google Analytics will let you know the minute details of every customer and how to keep them content.
6. Usage of Segments
Segments are one of the most important features of Google Analytics. Segmentation allows you to easily group your customers and visitors based on similar attributes or traits. There are already some pr-define segments in Google Analytics that you can use right away but for your SaaS business to reach new heights maybe you need to take a step forward.
Everyone is well aware of the power content marketing in the SaaS industry, and thereby it is very crucial to look out the metrics that your content delivers. Google Analytics for SaaS provides that necessary analysis to further increase the traffic on your website. Heard about convertors? Well, the Google Analytics segments provide convertors by the court of visitors and convertors by revenue too! This way you easily filter out the required sections and dive deeper into a specific segment.
The Takeaway
Being user-friendly, Google Analytics is a top-notch tool to generate outstanding insights and drive your SaaS business. Even if you are perfectly utilizing the tool for your business, the above-mentioned features can enhance your Google Analytics data and its exposition. The platform is much more than just generating insights for your SaaS business. These implementations are the baby-steps towards making an out and out usage of this fantastic tool for the marketing, improvising customer base, and product analytics of your business. So, dive in deeper and leverage the best out of this magnificent tool by the tech-giant Google itself.
Anshi has over 12 years of experience in demand generation, digital marketing, and managing global teams. In her prior role as head of marketing operations for a high growth US healthcare tech organization she transformed marketing from cost to revenue center.
Published July 08, 2020, Updated May 19, 2022
