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12 Data Segmentation for Ecommerce WEB PROFITS
T e tracking code for Custom Variables is similar in nature to the Event code listed earlier, and follows this pat ern:
_setCustomVar(index, name, value, opt_scope)
• index is the slot assigned to the Custom Variable • name is the name for the Custom Variable • value represents the value
• opt_scope defi nes the level of user engagement on your site (i.e. Visitor, Session, Page.)
Four Custom Variables for Ecommerce Sites
1) Tracking Coupon Codes and Promotions
Promotions are one of the most important methods for driving sales. Yet I fi nd that not all stores track the eff ec- tiveness of various promotions to their fullest extent. I hear them say, “It made us X in sales, so it must have worked.” T e fact is, you cannot really know if a promo- tion works until you take a close look at it.
If you wanted to track all of your promotions aggre- gated under one variable, you could do something such as this:
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,1, ’PromotionalCode’,’<PROMO CODE HERE>‘,3]);
Or, say you want to fi nd the eff ectiveness of several diff erent promotions you ran, you might want to do something like the following:
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,1,’ HolidayPromotion’,’FreeOvernightShip’,3]);
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,1,’ HolidayPromotion’,’FreeGiftWrapping’,3]);
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,1,’ HolidayPromotion’,’25percentOff’,3]);
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2) Tracking Payment Methods What would your business be like if you could look at an analytics report and fi nd out that those who paid with a certain payment method (PayPal vs. credit card) spent more on average than others? It could change the way you look at running promotions, or even the payment methods you off er.
Here is an example of how you might set up tracking for segmenting this type of data among your visitors:
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,2,‘PaymentMethod’,’ <TYPE OF PAYMENT HERE>‘,3]);
Keep in mind that in all of my examples here, the components will vary based on your business needs.
3) Tracking Repeat Customers
Repeat customers build profi ts in an ecommerce store. Typically, it costs less to get repeat sales than to get the fi rst sale. Likewise, repeat customers have diff erent behavior habits than do fi rst time visitors. Understand- ing how this behavior interacts with your site can help build a solid foundation of repeat sales, upon which your business can grow. Tracking repeat customer behavior must be done at
the “Visitor” scope level (recall the three diff erent inter- action options mentioned earlier). Although in structure the tracking snippet is the same as previous examples, the trick here is in the timing of when you set the actual variable. When tracking repeat customers, we do not want to set this Custom Variable on their fi rst purchase. If they do not come back and purchase again, they are not considered repeat, and thus our data is inaccurate. Rather, we want to set this custom variable on their second visit to the site, not second purchase.
Here is an example of how you might set the Custom Variable for tracking repeat customers on your site:
_gaq.push([‘_setCustomVar’,4,’CustomerType’,’ Repeat’,1]);
Continued On 16 May 2012
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