Lesson 1.5.
Setting up Economic Value
Want to measure Economic Value of your Social Media efforts on your site? Then this manual is right down your alley.
- Connect Google Analytics
- How to Set Up Goal Values
- How to Identify $ Value of Your Goals
- Resolving issues
Connect Google Analytics
To connect your Google Analytics account to TrueSocialMetrics head for your Settings->Source page and click on 'Connect' button near 'Google Analytics':
How to set up Goal Values
In order to calculate Economic value in TrueSocialMetrics reports, a Goal Values should be set up in your Google Analytics account for all your goals.
Follow the steps below to set up Goal Values in your Google Analytics account:
Step 1
In your Google Analytics account go to the ‘Admin’ page. Then click on the ‘Goals’ tab in a 'View' section (make sure you have selected the correct Property and Profile before you do this). This will show you a list of all Goals for this profile. Choose the desired Goal and then click on it.
Step 2
In this form, find the ‘Goal Value’ field and switch it to ‘On’. You will then need to fill in the amount of money that you receive each time this goal is completed by a user. (Note that double value is also suitable 0.01). To choose the currency for your account, go to the ‘Profile Settings’ tab – you will find this on the same ‘Admin’ page and ‘Profile’ section where you found the ‘Goals’ tab – and select your currency from the ‘Currency displayed as’ drop-down list.
How to identify $ value of your Goals
What is a Goal Value and how do you identify the right value for each goal? Here is an official explanation from the Google Analytics guide:
When you set up a Goal, you have the option of assigning a dollar amount to the conversion. Each time the Goal is completed, this number is recorded. All instances of this number are then added together and reported as the Goal Value. Every action a visitor takes on your website or app can be translated into a dollar amount. One way to help determine what a Goal value should be is to evaluate how often the visitors who complete the Goal become customers. For example, if your sales team can close 10% of people who sign up for a newsletter, and your average transaction is $500, you might assign $50 (i.e. 10% of $500) to your Newsletter sign-up Goal - a Goal visitors complete when they reach the final sign-up page. In contrast, if only 1% of signups result in a sale, you might only assign $5 to your Newsletter sign-up Goal.
Learn several techniques how to identify goal values at Avinash Kaushik's article Excellent Analytics Tips #19: Identify Website Goal [Economic] Values.
If you’d like to know best tips on selecting right goals for your site we also recommend you to read this super useful article by Avinash Kaushik: Excellent Analytics Tip #13: Measure Macro AND Micro Conversions.
Resolving issues
If your Metrics reports shows zeros for Economic value, there are several possible reasons to check for:
- Make sure you have connected correct Google Analytics Account, Property and View at your TrueSocialMetrics account Settings.
- Be sure that you have set up Goal Values for your Goals in Google Analytics more than 48 hours before the current date (Goals can't be tracked retroactively).
- Check if visitors from social networks have completed some Goals on your site during report period.
If you have created Goals in GA more than 48 hours ago but Economic value in TrueSocialMetrics report is appearing as "0" then the first thing to check is: were there any goals completed by visitors from social networks during the time range you have selected at your report? Maybe users haven't completed any goals and that's why the Economic value is "0".
To check it you can create a Custom Report in your Google Analytics account using 'Social network' as a dimention (or 'Source' as a dimention if you need to check visits from your blog) and 'Per session goal value' as a metric (you can import this report into your GA account using this link: https://www.google.com/analytics/web/template?uid=Jmx-2k58QtOKGpeKgoCE9w) And make sure you select the same date range in Google Analytics and TrueSocialMetrics.
If this report will show $0 for Per Session Goal Value for visits from Social Networks, than it would be the reason Economic value is appearing as "0" in your TrueSocialMetrics reports.