Google Analytics Multi Channel Funnels Go Live

27th August 2011 Posted in Analytics

Multi Channel Funnels are here! Starting Wednesday the 24th of August 2011, you should begin to see Multi Channel Funnels (MCF) appearing in the new version of your Google Analytics interface. MCF signals the end of the prevailing ‘last-click-wins’ marketing measurement system and heralds the birth of a new, more intelligent way of understanding how your marketing contributes to your website goals and conversions.

Google Analytics Multi Channel Funnels

Using this new report in Google Analytics you can now see which of your marketing campaigns and channels are responsible for initiating, maintaining and converting a relationship with a website user into a customer. MCF allows you to test and hypothesise about performance of your marketing channels. For example; ‘I have always believed that last click attribution on brand terms masks useful keyword interactions earlier in the buying cycle'. Or; ‘I think I’m wasting my time with social media, does it contribute to conversions?’

Getting Ready for MCF

Although MCF will be activated in your account automatically, there are a few things you need to do to get ready for the data:

Set up goals: if you don’t already have at least one goal set up, this is the perfect prompt to do so. MCF will allow you to see paths to different conversion actions individually or all as one. Applying a value to your goals will allow you to model the data more intelligently. Now that even interactions like pdf downloads and video plays can be set as goals, there really is no excuse!
Tag your campaigns: Now more than ever, you should have all of your marketing efforts tagged to be recognised by GA. This means PPC, email, display, social media, QR codes, basically any traffic source where you have control over the URL. Without tagging, your funnels will be inaccurate.
Ensure your GA coding is intact and correct: Any problems with your coding can cause incorrect data in the funnels. Particularly in implementations which uses multiple trackers or cross more than one domain.

Finding MCF

Login to analytics and navigate to your dashboard.
Click the red ‘use new version’ link in the top right hand corner of the screen.
From the new top level navigation across the top left of the screen, click ‘my conversions’ and then 'multi-channel funnels'.

Analysing MCF

MCF could be a game-changer for many online marketers, allowing you access to the missing pieces of the puzzle and bestowing the ability to analyse your marketing more effectively. The answers, however, will not jump out at you. Analysis is required. Beyond the basics, deciding what the best attribution model for your organisation is; should you award goal value evenly across the funnel, weight it towards the later touchpoints or assign weighting by traffic medium?

To learn more on the features and functions of Multi Channel Funnels, please see my Econsultancy post from earlier this year, or get in touch.

Google Analytics Multi Channel Funnels Go Live