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Image Courtesy: Silicon Angle |
For
most of the established stores,
major percentage of sales comes from their branded keywords (Br-KWs) from both organic and AdWords sources. Lately, there
has been a growing concern among retailers that they are seeing a fall in
revenue from branded keywords from organic sources.
What
they see is the data they filter
using custom segmentation in GA for branded keywords. Result – negative
revenue in YoY comparison. On the contrary, when they see overall organic
Br-KWs, they see positive revenue.
So,
what goes wrong after they segment in GA?
The culprit may be ‘Not Provided’.
The overall organic results show both Br-KWs
+ ‘Not Provided’. If we filter ‘Not provided’ in GA with custom segment,
the end result is negative (revenue in this case).
You
should worry only when the overall revenue from organic Br-KWs (Br-KWs and ‘Not
Provided’) is negative when you do bi-yearly or YoY comparison. Filter result
in custom segment in GA based on ‘Br-KWs by eliminating ‘Not Provided’ may not be accurate to see the revenue and sales
performance.
You
need to see if % of ‘Not Provided’
is increased. If it is, then how much is the difference? A YoY comparison of ‘Not
Provided’ gives you insights into analyzing the data more accurately.
We
have seen that % of ‘Not Provided’
under organic keywords search is increased significantly. GOOGLE DOES NOT
PROCESS THE QUERY STRINGS UNDER HTTPS. Hence, high converting Br-KWs are masked
as ‘Not Provided’, and when this is
filtered in custom segment, it shows negative for all visible Br-KWs’.
‘Not Provided’ may be comprised of
Br-KWs and generic keywords as well. However, if you see a higher % of ‘Not Provided’, and lower revenue from
Br-KWs, its more likely that % logged in users (possibly your existing
customers or returning visitors) is relatively higher than your unique
visitors.
Rising Trends in ‘Not Provided’ –DIY Validation
If
you want to validate if %‘Not Provided’
is increasing up, and higher, log into your GA, and compare the data for the
following TWO periods.
- Jan 1, 2012 –Dec 31, 2012 vs Jan 1, 2011 –Dec 31, 2011
- Jan 2011 –Sep 2011 vs Oct 2011 –Mar 2013
The down arrow shows that Google’s ‘Not Provided’ started showing up in Oct 18, 2011 (as indicated by
saffron line) when Google officially announced that GA can’t show search data
from secure SSL/HTTPS. Here is a reference link of Google Official site - http://goo.gl/xgCRB.
Since
Oct 18, 2011, the trend in ‘Not
Provided’ is growing up, and up. You can analyze this too to validate this
if you see GA and compare the data for Jan 2011 –Sep 2011 vs Oct 2011 –Mar
2013.
Finding 1- Revenue from Organic Br-KWs
for the past TWO years (2011 and 2012) may be possibly down after you filter ‘Not-Provided’ in custom segment
Finding 2 -Revenue from Organic ‘Not Provided’ KWs for the past TWO years (2011 and 2012 may have possibly increased significantly.
If you closely
analyze the TWO findings, you see that a large % Br-KWs that generate revenue
from Organic search are masked as ‘Not provided’ while Br-KWs that generate
lesser revenue or no revenue are shown up in GA.
Conclusions
1. It’s
not true that revenue from organic Br-KWs is down if we consider both ‘Br-KWs’
+ ‘Not Provided’, for a large % of
BR-KWs are masked as hidden or ‘Not Provided’.
2. 'Not Provided’ may consist of other
generic keywords plus Br-Keywords but as I mentioned above that that higher %
of sales actually comes from Br-Organic KWs than generic KWs.
Measure with Caution
We
are all seeing a growing % of “Not
Provided” in GA for organic KWs
search, and it’s expected to grow further in 2013 due to growing number of
users using mobile, and devices, and they are mostly logged in G+ or Gmail when
they search on Google. This is a growing area of concern for a mid-level retail
store if they should continue to bank on FREE GA or consider other analytics software
for a good analysis of their online business performance.
Amazing post and nice concept!!!
ReplyDeleteI agree, you have wrote a nice article, after releasing of penguin 2.0 the ranks of websites have got down and of course the ROI so that maximum businesses are focusing upon the Br-Kw because it is the ultimate source that is genuine and will let you be on the before revenue again.
ReplyDelete