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Products and Keywords in Google Analytics
April 11, 2008
In Google Analytics, there are a couple different ways to match up the products you sell with the keywords that brought users to your site.
The first method is already built right in to Google Analytics. All you need to do is look under the Ecommerce section of your Google Analytics profile and expand the Product Performance section. There you'll find a report called Product Overview. In this report, you'll see a list of all the products that were sold for the given date range. You can click on an individual product and segment it by Keyword to see which keywords were responsible for the product sale.
But what about when you want to see things the other way around? In other words, for each keyword, can you see which products were sold? Well, if you use the above method, you'd have to segment each and every product. That's not very efficient.
Luckily, you can use filters to find this information pretty easily. Here's how:
The trick is to include the keyword information right in the product reports. But before you go creating filters, you probably want to create a new profile first. Since we'll be modifying the information in the product reports, you'll want to keep your main profile clean.
So, first create a new profile. Then, include the following filter, called something like Keyword/Product Matching. The filter looks like this:
The filter includes the keyword (if there is one) with the product name. Whenever you look at any report that contains products, you'll now see the keyword right along with it.
Here's what the Product Overview looks like with the filter in place:
To find out which products were sold from a keyword, type the keyword into the search bar at the bottom of the report. The result will look like this:
There are a few additional notes here:
1. Not all products will have keywords.
This is because not all visits have keywords. Direct visits, referrals, banners, and offline campaigns will not have a keyword.
2. This list contains both ppc(cpc) and organic keywords.
If you want to make sure your list contains only cpc or only organic, you can use either exclude or include filters within this separate profile. You could also use an additional advanced filter that includes the medium in the product report.
3. The search box uses Regular Expressions.
If you need to further refine your searches in this report (and all reports), you can use Regular Expressions. For example, typing in cheese will show you all keywords that contain the word 'cheese'. But if you type in the expression ^cheese -, then you'll only see the 'cheese' keyword exactly.
Thanks for reading and as always, I'd love to hear your comments about this approach.
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Posted by Shawn Purtell, Analytics and Optimization Specialist at 3:09 PM
Permalink | Comments ( 8 ) | TrackBacks ( 0 )
Filed under: Analytics, Online Advertising
Tagged as: Analytics Technology, Pay Per Click, Tracking
Comments
said:@John:
You're absolutely right! This is what happens when I try to think on a Friday afternoon. Thanks for catching this - I'll edit the post to reflect this. The dash doesn't need to be escaped.
April 11, 2008 3:47 PM
Hey Shawn,
I sat here thinking some about your post . . .
I like that your solution puts the Item Name and the Keywords in the same field. That has some good benefits when looking at the data. But,
What about using a filter to put the Item Name in, let's say, Java Enabled? Then you could go to the Keyword report, find the keyword phrase that you're interested in, and segment by Java Enabled, and see a list of all Items purchased for that keyword.
This would be sort of the opposite of what GA provides by default. Instead of selecting a product and segmenting by keywords, you would be selecting a keyword and segmenting by product.
Any thoughts, or known problems doing it this way?
April 11, 2008 4:21 PM
said:@John:
The only drawback that I can see without testing is that you'd lose your Java report (which probably isn't a huge deal - especially if you are using a separate profile). I also know that occasionally mixing ecommerce data and your other fields can be disastrous because of the ways that data is collected -- so you'd definitely want to test this first. It's also possible that this Java Enabled field is boolean (yes or no) - although I doubt it.
That being said, I think there is definitely value in using the Java Enabled? field and it's absolutely worth testing - especially if it allows people to use the Segment pulldown. Ultimately, both methods would do the same thing - and I'd love to hear if you test yours how it works out.
Thanks for the idea!
April 11, 2008 5:26 PM
@John: I've used your approach, but stored the data in user-defined. I've only got a day of data, so it's a bit early to be sure, but I seem to be getting ecommerce data. (And I have experienced disasters and loss of ecommerce data when trying to manipulate campaign variables using filters in the past.)
@Shawn: I've also used the version you suggested in the original post and even with one day's data it's proved to be very useful. A revelation in fact. Lots of great insights into the function of brand search in the final, purchasing, visit.
Thank you.
Now I'll try to combine both in one profile...
April 16, 2008 5:04 PM
said:@Tim: I'm glad the method is proving useful for you.
Before you use the User Defined vairable, you may wish to consider using Michael's Exact Keyword Tracking tool. If you're doing any kind of pay-per-click advertising, you may find it more useful than product-keyword matching. We've found it to be an absolute goldmine for negative keyword research and new keyword discovery.
Really, it all comes down to priority. You could use the exact keyword method in one profile,and the product/keyword match in another. I'd love to hear how the User Defined method works out for you.
April 16, 2008 5:19 PM
Hi Tim
Sorry if this seems a bit dim, but please can you explain the setting up a profile. I want to track the keywords that lead to product sales for our new website eBathroom. I have an account for this domain. Do I need to set up a second profile and add a second set of tracking code to the site? or is it a different profile?
Many Thanks
Darren
December 10, 2008 2:33 PM
said:@Darren:
When setting up a new profile within Google Analytics, you have two options. First, you can simply create a profile for an existing account number (or 'domain' - but it's really account number). This means you can create a second set of data without having to add a second tracking code to the site.
The second option is to create a profile for a new account number (or domain). This is usually only done if you need to track a second, completely different site. You would need to add a new script to the new site.
Let me know if this doesn't quite answer your question.
Hope that helps!
Great post. I love clever uses of filters. But there *may* be a minor oversight.
"But if you type in the expression ^cheese$, then you'll only see the 'cheese' keyword exactly."
To match 'cheese' exactly, you'd probably want something like "^cheese -" without the quotes. Since the product name will be appended to the keywords with a space and a dash. (Or does the dash need to be escaped?)
April 11, 2008 3:41 PM