Is your event website helping you out, or holding you back?
If you鈥檙e not sure, you鈥檙e in good company. Many event organizers aren鈥檛 positive whether their websites are 鈥渃onverting鈥� visitors into attendees, which marketing channels are attracting the right visitors, or how long people typically stay on their event page. But while the behavior of your website visitors is hard to predict, it can definitely be tracked.
The best place to start? Google Analytics. The free platform allows you track who鈥檚 visiting your event page, who鈥檚 buying tickets, and how they鈥檙e getting to your page 听鈥� if you know how to use it. Here鈥檚 a quick primer to get you started.
Google Analytics: The basics for events
Google Analytics is essentially a dashboard that lets you track whether and how your website is meeting its goals. For event organizers, that goal is to turn page visitors into registered attendees or ticket buyers (or to 鈥渃onvert鈥� website visitors).
So how does the dashboard help you improve your website performance? Here鈥檚 an example: you might learn that the majority of your ticket buyers are from a specific geographic region, inspiring you to target event-goers in that region. If you advertise to people more likely to buy tickets, you鈥檒l see higher conversion on your website.
Another example: say you learn that online ads are bringing tons of traffic to your event page 鈥� but those visitors immediately leave your site. The culprit might be a compelling, but ultimately misleading ad鈥ime for a creative refresh.
Or, imagine you find that people are spending a long time on your page, but they aren鈥檛 pulling the trigger to buy. If that鈥檚 your problem, try some simple UX (user experience) testing to make the purchase flow is clear.
Get started with Google Analytics for your event
Your first step is to . From there, you can to your account as a 鈥減roperty,鈥� which will give you a . That ID or code is how you鈥檒l link your page to your Google Analytics account.
(Pssst鈥f you have an 91国产 event page, it鈥檚 easy to track visitors coming to your event listing with 91国产鈥檚 tracking pixels tool for Google Universal Analytics.)
Once your account is set up and linked to your page, the next step is to tell Analytics your 鈥済oal鈥� 鈥� getting a page visitor to buy a ticket or register for your event. Click 鈥済oals鈥� in the 鈥渧iew鈥� column of your Analytics admin page and add a 鈥渘ew goal.鈥�
Now GA鈥檚 various charts and stats will tell you if and how your goals are being reached 鈥� who is buying tickets, when they鈥檙e buying them, how they鈥檙e getting to your page, and more.
If you鈥檙e using Google AdWords for your online ads, you can also link your AdWords account to evaluate how those ads are performing. Click 鈥淎dWords Linking鈥� on the admin page to set this up.
Now, you can and your Analytics reports, known as 鈥渧iews,鈥� to show you what you want. If you have multiple pages on your site, for instance, you could focus on specific pages, or you could exclude visitors from your own company from the reports. You can adjust the reporting date range, set up shortcuts for the reports you use most, add 鈥渟egments鈥� to compare your data by subsection, and export or share the reports for use in other programs.
Not sure where to start? Here鈥檚 a breakdown of the data you might find in Google Analytics:
New versus returning visitors
How to find it: Click into the 鈥淎udience鈥� category on the left-hand navigation column, then 鈥淏ehavior,鈥� then 鈥淣ew vs Returning.鈥� You can get the percentage of ticket buyers听by clicking the 鈥淓commerce鈥� tab at the top of the graph.
This metric will help you see whether your website visitors have visited your page before. A high percentage of new visitors mean you鈥檙e expanding your reach, bringing potential new attendees to the site. High returning visitors means you鈥檙e bringing them back 鈥� they could be ticket-buyers wanting to double-check the directions to the event, potential attendees who weren鈥檛 quite convinced to buy a ticket last time, or repeat attendees (if you host repeated events on the same site).
If you have your goals set up in Google Analytics to track conversions, these data can also tell you the percentage of ticket sales purchased by first-time versus returning visitors. If it鈥檚 mostly returning visitors who are buying tickets, perhaps you should invest more in ad retargeting to get that rate up even more.
Frequency and recency of returning visitors鈥� visits
How to find it: Click into the 鈥淎udience鈥� category on the left-hand navigation column, then 鈥淏ehavior,鈥� then 鈥淔requency & Recency.鈥�
This metric shows you how听often unique visitors visit and how recently those visits were. For instance: let鈥檚 say your returning visitors are, on average, coming back every day. They鈥檙e interested 鈥� hoping for news and updates about your听event or just waiting for the right time to buy a ticket. Or maybe the frequency of unique visitors is down. If so, maybe update the site more frequently 鈥� try teaser videos, discount codes, or clips of past shows.
Visits broken down by mobile, desktop, and tablet
How to find it: Click into the 鈥淎udience鈥� category on the left-hand navigation column, then 鈥淢obile,鈥� then 鈥淥verview.鈥� Go to the far right-hand corner of the screen and click the pie chart in the row of icons. That will bring up a pie chart breaking down your traffic by device type.
To optimize your page and ticketing process, you need to know how visitors are engaging with them. This metric lets you know how important optimizing for mobile is for your event. (Spoiler: it鈥檚 important.) If 90% of your visitors are on their phones, you want to know.
User flow
How to find it: Click into the 鈥淎udience鈥� category on the left-hand navigation column, then click on 鈥淯sers Flow鈥� (it鈥檚 the last option in the list).
Imagine you could look over a potential attendee鈥檚 shoulders as they scrolled through your site. You saw which pages they visited in the order they visited them, including what they were looking at right before they bought tickets 鈥� or left the site. That鈥檚 what this of your visitors鈥� paths through your site provides.
This will show you where website visitors are dropping off of or converting on your site. Is a confusingly worded testimonial turning visitors off? Drop it. Is a photo gallery of last year鈥檚 event spurring conversions? Make sure more visitors see it.
听
Of course, these are just the basics. You can learn all about Analytics with . And for even more tips on creating an event website that sells, download this free guide: How to Create an Event Website That Will Sell Out Any Event.
