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Measuring Online 'Micro-Moments' with Analytics

Google has been promoting the importance of 'Micro-Moments' to ensure success selling online. "Oh yeah... sure? This seems too 'out there'" ... you say! "So what the heck do these silly 'Micro-Moments' mean to me and my business?"

4 Micro-Moments

What Are 'Micro-Moments'?

Measuring Online 'Micro-Moments' with Analytics

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If you are selling online purchases or transactions are the main end-goals. But there is typically more involved in the 'sales process' than just a purchase. (See my recent blog post entitled "Website Macro Versus Micro Goals") Virtually any purchase involves various steps or 'touch points' that happen before an actual transaction is completed.

Google refers to 4 key moments when it comes to online opportunities that cover online behaviour and activity. These includes:

  1. I-Want-to-KNOW Moments
    Address these moments by creating 'snackable' content that offers helpful info (rather than direct selling)
  2. I-Want-to-GO Moments
    Show consumers that you are easy-to-reach, either with your bricks-and-mortar location or your online inventory. If you're selling online, make this inventory easy to browse on ALL devices including SmartPhones.
  3. I-Want-to-DO Moments
    Show people how your products help them. Creating 'how-to' videos, graphics, or other easy-to-consume content works here. Remember, that people are often in their "to-DO" moment when they are 'mid-task' (e.g. baking cookies, repairing a bike, booking a vacation, etc.)
  4. I-Want-to-BUY Moments
    Completing purchases or generating leads is the 'ultimate' moment for business or organizations 'selling' online. Consumers decide to buy in a variety of places: from the car, from the store aisle, from home, or from their seat on the airplane. And they'll increasingly buy from your website or app on their SmartPhone. Making it easy for people to complete a purchase or sales lead on any device in a variety of situations is a winning strategy!

Measuring 'to-BUY' Moments

Measuring "BUY" Moments on your website or app is often pretty easy with a variety of eCommerce platforms. If you are using Google Analytics, you can often pull in data from your eCommerce application. Sometimes this integration is 'ready-made'. Other times you need to do some coding to integrate eCommerce tracking with your digital analytics platform.

We love how Shopify, our favourite eCommerce app, plugs into Google Analytics so easily with a few clicks of the mouse. Using the 'Enhanced eCommerce' option in Google Analytics can supply lots of details well beyond just the number of transactions and revenues.

But you should measure more than just transactions. This other 'Moments' are important as well. We typically find that if we can increase the 'to-KNOW', 'to-DO' and 'to-GO' moments on a website increases in transactions (thinks sales or leads) increase as well.

Measuring the 'Other' Moments
(that Lead to 'Buying')

First, let me backtrack for a second. A 'buying' moment on an eCommerce website is often a product (e.g. that StormTech jacket I recently purchased), and sometimes a service (e.g. when I recently scheduled my haircut appointment). However, sometimes that 'Buying' Moment is generating a lead (e.g. when you go to our Contact Us page to contact me to arrange a free consultation!)

So here are some examples of metrics we might track for each 'Moment'.

  1. I-Want-to-KNOW Moment METRICS
    • Measure page views for 'key' pages e.g. product pages or blog posts
    • Measure how engaged people are with these pages e.g. I often track 60+ second visits as a Google Analytics goal or track 'scroll-depth' for longer pages to measure visitor 'engagement' .... with a 60+ second visit or a scroll to the bottom of the page implying that people are 'engaged' with your page's content
  2. I-Want-to-GO Moment METRICS
    • Measure taps on the Google map(s) on your website that shows your location or driving directions
    • Measure taps on phone number links on your website. NOTE: phone call tracking apps including those offered within Google AdWords can help here ... IF configured correctly
    • Measure online offers you provide that include incentives for people to visit your bricks-and-mortar store
  3. I-Want-to-DO Moment METRICS
    • Measure video views including the percentage of the video(s) viewed e.g. 25%, 50%, 75% or 100%
    • Measure clicks on product photo galleries including 'zoom' options
    • Measure downloads for PDF 'How-to' or 'White Paper' documents
  4. I-Want-to-BUY Moment METRICS
    • I've already discussed tracking the number of transactions and revenue
    • But you can also track average revenue per transaction, revenue by product type, and much more
    • If you are tracking leads why not add a 'select what service' field on your forms so that you can segment leads by the product or service people are interested in

Event & Goal Tracking with Google Analytics + Google Tag Manager

You can set up tracking for these types of metrics using Goals or Events in Google Analytics. Personally, I like to set up Event tracking within Google Tag Manger, then use this Event parameters to set up selected GA Events as Goals within Google Analytics. (This sounds like a great topic for a future blog post!)

Recognizing 'Micro-Moments',
Then Measuring Them!

Start by recognizing these 'Micro-Moments' exist. Then define 'Micro-Moments' that apply to your business. Once you are there, you can then set up metrics to track activity for each of these 'Micro-Moments'.

Then start segmenting these 'Micro-Moment' metrics by device: desktop, tablet, or mobile devices. If activities and conversions differ by device you may have a starting point to continue optimization efforts.

Why Mobile Devices Are So Important?

Micro-Moments on Mobile Devices

Google has been shouting from the mountain tops for quite some time that online activities in the mobile device world are critical to the vast majority of businesses. And mobile devices will become even more important in the future. Don't believe it? Consider these statistics:

  • 51% of smartphone users have found a new product or company when conducting a search
  • been seen in mobile search ads can increase unaided brand awareness by over 45%
  • 33% of smartphone users have purchased from a company or a brand other than the one they intended to purchase from because pertinent information was available at the moment the needed it

    Source: Think With Google

In our experience, if you can increase the properly defined 'to-KNOW', 'to-GO', and 'to-DO' moments the 'to-BUY' moments will increase too. If you can see these increases on mobile devices, you are likely setting up your website or app for ongoing success. And that's an incredible MOMENT!  ;-)

Now... YOUR Turn!

Do you believe that Google's 'Micro-Moments' apply to your business? Have you optimized your website or app to take advantage of these 'Moments'? If yes (or even no) please feel free to share your experience in our comments section shown below.

Roy McClean
Aug 23, 2016
By Roy McClean

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