GOOGLE MERCHANDISE STORE

SEARCH
AND
ANALYTCS
REPORT

KELSEY SHERWOOD

N8312591
AMN425 Digital
Strategy and Analytics

Word Count: 2,662

 
         
 Table of Contents
Objectives   3  
Google  Analytics  Report   4  
Audience  Overview  Report   4  
Figure  1  Audience  Overview,  users  per  device   4  
Figure  2  Audience  Revenue,  conversions  per  device   4  
Acquisition,  All  Traffic,  Channels  Report   5  
Figure  3  Channels  Overview   5  
Behavior,  Site  Speed,  Overview  Report   6  
Figure  4  Site  Speed,  Pages   6  
Conversion,  Goals,  Goals  URL  Report   7  
Figure  5   7  
Conversion,  Goals,  Reverse  Funnel  Visualization  Report   8  
Figure  6  Funnel  Visualization   8  
Search  Report   9  
Acquisition,  Google  Ads,  Campaign  Report   9  
Figure  7  Google  Ads  Campaigns   9  
Figure  8  Google  Ads  Campaigns,  Mobile  Device   10  
Figure  9  Google  Ads  Campaigns,  Desktop  Device   10  
Acquisition,  Campaigns,  Paid  Keywords  Report   11  
Figure  10  Paid  Search  Traffic   11  
Interpretation  of  Data   12  
Recommendations   14  
Introduce  native  mobile  advertising   14  
Reduce  mobile  bounce  rates   14  
Increase  mobile  site  speed  with  Google’s  AMP   15  
Review  site  cart  abandonment   15  
Develop  a  Mobile  Search  Strategy   15  
Reference  List   16  
Appendices   18  
Appendix  1:  Audience  Report   18  
Appendix  2:  All  Channels  Report   19  
Appendix  3:  Site  Speed  Report   20  
Appendix  4:  Goals  URL  Report   21  
Appendix  5:  Funnel  Visualization  Report   22  
Appendix  6:  Google  Ads  Campaigns  Report   23  
Appendix  7:  Paid  Search  Traffic  Report   26  
 

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Objectives  
This report will seek to determine the current effectiveness of analytics and
search strategy utilised on the Google Merchandise Store (GMS) website.
Furthermore, this report will discuss what actions should be taken in order to
optimise financial investment moving forward. The aggregate data
presented in this report was collected from 1 February – 30 April 2019.

The following objectives will provide focus for this report:

1. Increase the number of users on mobile devices by 10% within the

next six months.
2. Increase the number of conversions on mobile devices from 1% to
5% within the next six months.

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Google  Analytics  Report    
Audience  Overview  Report    

The Audience Overview Report (Appendix 1) provides insight into behaviors

of users (Google Support, n.d.), which is significant in identifying the devices
users access the website from. This is relative to the report objectives in
determining the number of mobile device users compared to desktop users.

Data from this report, presented in Figure 1 and 2 respectively, shows a

clear 69% predominance of users visiting the website via desktop devices.
However as Figure 1 shows, users accessing the website on a mobile
device are more likely to convert and make up 58.26% of total purchases.
Thus, it can be evaluated that mobile user conversion is a priority for GMS
and focus should shift to optimising the mobile site.  
Figure  1  Audience  Overview,  users  per  device    

Figure  2  Audience  Revenue,  conversions  per  device  

 
 
   

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Acquisition,  All  Traffic,  Channels  Report  

The All Traffic, Channels Report (Appendix 2) specifies where the website’s
traffic is coming from, which is important in understanding what channels
require budget allocation in terms of paid campaigns, optimisation and
potential areas of improvement (Tode, 2019).

Data from this report, presented in Figure 3, shows 54.37% of users

accessed the website through an organic search. Interestingly, channels
generally associated with mobile usage, referral and social, gained minimal
traffic and conversions. Referral gained only 12.46% of traffic with zero
conversions and social gained 4.56% of traffic with one conversion. This
provides an opportunity with budget allocation to increase mobile
conversions.

Figure  3  Channels  Overview  

 

 
 
   

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Behavior,  Site  Speed,  Overview  Report    

The Site Speed Overview Report (Appendix 3) shows how quickly users are
able to see and interact with website content (Google Support, n.d.). As
mobile users are more inclined to abandon a website that takes a long time
to load, it is vital the site speed be optimised to reduce bounce rates (Bird,
2016). A 3 second site speed is ideal in order to increase mobile traffic and
sales (Bird, 2016).

Data from this report shows a 4.29 second average page load time,
however a 5.75 second average page load time for mobile users. This is
causing a direct increase to mobile bounce rates, and thus reducing the
potential for mobile conversions. As Figure 4 illustrates, the homepage has
the largest number of page views, yet a high average page load time of 5.11
seconds. Positively, the basket page loads very quickly at an average 2.68
seconds.

Figure  4  Site  Speed,  Pages    

 

 
 
   

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Conversion,  Goals,  Goals  URL  Report  
 
The Goals URL Report (Appendix 4) shows the URLs where users finalise
their conversions. This data is fundamental in understanding which pages
generate the highest volume of conversions, and thus provides insight into
where the website should direct traffic (Tode, 2019).

Data from this report, as shown in Figure 5, shows the highest number of
conversions are coming from ‘your info’, ‘basket’ and ‘home’ URLs for both
desktop and mobile devices.

Figure  5  
 

 
   

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Conversion,  Goals,  Reverse  Funnel  Visualization  Report    
 
The Funnel Visualization Report (Appendix 5) gives a visual representation
of the steps users take to convert, and also highlights where users exit the
website (Tode, 2019). This data can be used to understand how users do,
or do not, complete a process online.

Data from this report, as shown in Figure 6, shows of the 24,557 users who
visited the website during the three-month period, only 252 (1.026%)
actually completed a purchase. Most users exit the website in the cart URL,
which is a very common theme according to B&T Magazine (2018). In
Australia alone, 57% of users abandon online shopping carts.

Figure  6  Funnel  Visualization    

 
   

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Search  Report  
Acquisition,  Google  Ads,  Campaign  Report    

The Google Ads Campaign Report (Appendix 6) provides important post-

click metrics for users who have clicked on particular Google Ads and
landed on the GMS website (Google Support, n.d.). This report details a
critical profile of users’ acquisition–behavior–conversion cycle and provides
insight into which paid advertising strategies are working and not working
(Google Support, n.d.).

Data from this report, as shown in Figure 7, illustrates there are 10

campaigns that ran for the three-month period. A total of 40 purchases
were completed as a result of these campaigns, with 29 made on mobile
devices and only 7 on desktop, as shown in Figures 8 and 9 respectively.

Figures 8 and 9 show the cost per click (CPC) average on mobile devices is
far less than desktop, at $0.09 CPC compared to $0.40 CPC, which
supports the objectives in optimising mobile devices. The AW-YouTube
campaign had a very high bounce rate across all devices, and resulted in
zero conversions. The AW-Apparel campaign is the top performing across
all devices, with the most number of conversions (13/40) occurring on a
mobile device.
Figure  7  Google  Ads  Campaigns    
 

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Figure  8  Google  Ads  Campaigns,  Mobile  Device    
 

Figure  9  Google  Ads  Campaigns,  Desktop  Device    

   

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Acquisition,  Campaigns,  Paid  Keywords  Report    

The Paid Search Traffic Report (Appendix 7) shows the keywords or

phrases set up within Google Ads campaigns to trigger the ad to show. This
report provides insight into which paid keywords are working and not
working, along with subsequent transactions.

Data from this report, as shown in Figure 10, shows the highest performing
keyword was ‘Google Merchandise Store’, which resulted in 17 total
transactions. Of these 17 transactions, 12 occurred on mobile devices. The
second highest keyword was ‘not set’, identifying traffic that didn’t come
from a particular keyword but resulted in a transaction (Google Support,
n.d.). All three transactions for ‘not set’ were made on a mobile device. The
‘YouTube merch’ keyword had a very high bounce rate across all devices,
and resulted in zero transactions.

Figure  10  Paid  Search  Traffic      

 

 
   

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Interpretation  of  Data  
Data from this report has shown the effectiveness of current analytics and
search strategy as poor, according to research. Research shows mobile
devices are the leading source of Internet traffic, accounting for nearly 80%
of all Internet usage (Petrov, 2019). Consumers are continuing to use
mobile technology to consume content, interact socially and importantly,
shop online (Petrov, 2019), and research is showing that in certain
categories, mobile is the only outlet consumers consult to complete a
purchase (Tode, 2019). Mali (2019) predicts by 2021, mobile ecommerce
sales will account for 54% of total ecommerce.

This research is interesting as GMSs’ mobile sales already account for

58.26% of total ecommerce (Appendix 1) indicating the website is ahead of
the mobile shopping trend. As more users turn to mobile devices to shop,
GMS need to follow suit to provide consumers with a positive user
experience that enables a seamless transaction process (Ellins, 2017).

As shown in Appendix 2, organic search provides the most traffic (54.37%)

to the website which indicates consumers are actively seeking out the
products. This presents a significant opportunity for GMS to take advantage
of knowing what customers are actively searching, and showing it to them
through native mobile advertising (The Drum, 2016). Native mobile
advertising is more than twice as effective as desktop, as consumers spend
more time on their phones than desktop devices (The Drum, 2016).
Combined with contextual placement and user behavior, mobile advertising
on social networks and referral sites will achieve a higher response rate
than desktop ads (Borison, 2019). This suggests that an investment into
native mobile advertising will increase mobile conversions for GMS (Mali,
2019).

The issue to overcome is mobile bounce rates, which average at 47.69%

(Appendix 2). The use for consumers on mobile devices often involves the
need to look up something quickly, and websites with high bounce rates are
often exited due to this timeliness factor (Enge, 2019). Reducing the
bounce rate of mobile URLs will have a direct effect on the attention span of
users, and as such, increase the number of users and conversions on
GMSs’ mobile site (Borison, 2019).

Site speed is equally important for mobile ecommerce as 40% of consumers

won’t wait longer than 3 seconds for a site to load before exiting and
potentially shopping elsewhere (Mali, 2019). GMSs’ mobile site speed
averages at 5.75 seconds (Appendix 3), which is increasing the probability
of bounce by up to 106%, according to a recent Google study (2018). In
short, speed equals revenue, and GMS must focus on keeping consumers
engaged on mobile devices by building mobile-first experiences (An, 2018).
Competitor ecommerce giants such as eBay and Amazon have adopted
Google’s AMP initiative which has hugely increased their site speed and
ranking on Google (Enge, 2019). This has allowed competitors to create
cached, fast-loading versions of their mobile websites and effectively

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increase mobile conversions (Mali, 2019). It is highly likely the slow site
speed and high bounce rate of GMSs’ mobile website is driving traffic off the
website and on to competitors websites (Enge, 2019).

Consumer behavior identified in the reports show that most conversions are
coming from ‘your info’, ‘basket’ and ‘home’ URLs, which suggests these
pages are optimized enough for users to easily convert (Appendix 4). It is
important to make the website easy for consumers to navigate and
essentially convert. One method of achieving this is redirection, whereby
certain URLs redirect consumers to those pages with high conversion
results (Jenkins, 2019). Pages with higher exit rates should therefore be
redirected to these three URLs to reduce exits and make it easier for
consumers to convert (Google Support, n.d.). This will have the duo effect
of correcting consumer pain points within the website and increasing mobile
conversions.

According to Appendix 5, only just over 1% of GMS users complete a

purchase, with most exiting the website in the cart URL. This is common
purchasing behavior, as many consumers have a high tendency to abandon
virtual carts, particularly in the fashion category (B&T Magazine, 2018).
Research shows that due to the high saturation of competitors, consumers
are price-savvy, and often abandon virtual carts because of: high shipping
costs, high price points, out of stock products, long delivery times, poor
exchange policies and a better competitor offering (B&T Magazine, 2018).
This means users are being driven to a competitors website due to a better
price or offering, therefore reducing conversions and revenue for GMS.

As Appendix 6 and 7 show, GMS’s current paid search strategy provides

little user traffic at only 4.78%, which is poor performance and a waste of
marketing spend. Research shows that mobile-based CPCs cost 24% less
than desktop CPCs and have a 40% higher click through rate, which mirrors
the results seen in the report (Petrov, 2019). Advertising on mobile devices
is a more cost effective strategy for GMS, with lower costs for higher traffic
and as such search strategy should transition to a mobile focused approach.

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Recommendations    
Research discussed in this report clearly indicates the need for GMS to
transition into a mobile analytics and search strategy in order to optimise
website performance, conversion and revenue. Such a strategy must be
clearly defined, as merely making the website mobile-responsive will not be
enough to increase conversions (Petrov, 2019). Users are demanding a
mobile-optimized website experience and as such, content strategy, search
strategy and advertising strategy will need to reflect this in order to achieve
the report objectives.

The following recommendations are to be implemented within a six-month

period to allow for a high application of end-user results and therefore the
improvement of more informed insights (Chen, Chiang & Storey, 2012, p.
1167). These recommendations will assist in optimising financial investment
moving forward, and will directly achieve report objectives of:

1. Increase the number of users on mobile devices by 10% within the

next six months.
2. Increase the number of conversions on mobile devices from 1% to
5% within the next six months.

Introduce  native  mobile  advertising    

GMS have an opportunity to take advantage of users’ organic search activity

and provide customers with content they are already searching for by
introducing native advertisements into their strategy (The Drum, 2016).
Hootsuite (2018) identify one of the reasons consumers use social media is
to research new products to buy. Furthermore, native advertisements lead
to higher user engagement, especially when paired with integrated content
across all channels (Goyal, Bron, Lalmas, Haines & Cramer, 2018).
Consumers believe native advertisements are becoming relevant to them
due to high profile targeting (Hootsuite, 2018). This, paired with statistics
that consumers are spending more time on social media than ever is
increasing advertisement click through rates significantly (B&T Magazine,
2018). Therefore, a series of native mobile advertisements on social media
and referral sites will be effective in increasing users on mobile devices.

Reduce  mobile  bounce  rates    

An important step in increasing mobile users and conversions is to reduce

the bounce rate for GMSs’ mobile site. Most pages bounce because the
content doesn’t match the keywords in the search engine or isn’t mobile-
optimised (Justesen, 2019). To overcome this, each URL must be reviewed
to improve content quality, relevance, readability and image quality.
Furthermore, internal navigation needs to be improved, to link pages to
URLs with proven conversion records and include calls-to-action (Justesen,
2019). Reducing the bounce rate of mobile URLs will have a direct effect on
the number of users and conversions on GMSs’ mobile site (Borison, 2019).

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Increase  mobile  site  speed  with  Google’s  AMP  

In line with reducing mobile bounce rates is increasing the site speed to
make the purchase cycle easy and pain free for consumers (An, 2018). If
the site speed is longer than 3 seconds, the likelihood of bounce rates
double (B&T Magazine, 2018). 64% of mobile users expect mobile site
speed to be faster than desktop speed and the result of having a slow
website is the loss of business to competitors (Enge, 2019). It is
recommended GMS make use of the Google AMP initiative as competitors
Amazon and eBay have to create cached, fast-loading versions of their
mobile websites and effectively increase mobile conversions (Mali, 2019).

Review  site  cart  abandonment    

Due to the high saturation of competitors, consumers are price-savvy, and

often abandon virtual carts for a number of reasons (B&T Magazine, 2018).
Many of these reasons can be controlled or improved from an internal
supply chain and logistics perspective, therefore this recommendation is to
commission an in-depth review of site cart abandonment to include:
shipping costs, price points, product quality, product stock levels, exchange
policies and competitor offers (B&T Magazine, 2018). This review will
provide valuable insight into methods GMS can take to boost customer
engagement and increase conversion (B&T Magazine, 2018). Similarly, this
review will determine any friction points in the consumer journey and will
decrease the likelihood of consumers exiting GMS to make a purchase on a
competitor’s website (B&T Magazine, 2018).

Develop  a  Mobile  Search  Strategy    

The final recommendation pertains to GMSs’ paid search strategy, which is

at current, a waste of marketing dollars. This is a clear indication that GMS
need a paid search strategy for mobile devices alone (Petrov, 2019). Given
the number of conversions on mobile exceeds that to desktop; paid mobile
search strategy needs to be the focus. To develop this strategy, an
inventory of mobile-centric searches is required, and must be updated
regularly (Gevelber, 2016). Secondly, GMS must be exhaustive in the
keywords and content used to address customers’ mobile search enquiries
to own a larger share of these searches (Gevelber, 2016). Finally, GMS
need to consider what consumers are seeking in those mobile-centric
searches, and revaluate any paid advertising to suit these answers
(Gevelber, 2016).

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Reference  List    
 
An, D. (2018, February). Find out how you stack up to new industry
benchmarks for mobile page speed [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/marketing-resources/data-
measurement/mobile-page-speed-new-industry-benchmarks/

B&T Magazine. (2018). Internet to make majority of ad spending by 2022:

pwc [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.bandt.com.au/marketing/internet-take-majority-ad-spending-
2022-pwc

B&T Magazine. (2018). Study: 57% of Aussies abandon virtual shopping

carts [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.bandt.com.au/marketing/study-57-aussies-abandon-virtual-
shopping-carts

Bird, C. (2016, November 25). How fast is fast enough? Page load time &
your bottom line [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.semrush.com/blog/how-fast-is-fast-enough-page-load-time-
and-your-bottom-line/

Borison, R. (2019). Marketers need to cater to snacking mobile readers

[Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/advertisin
g/16479.html

Chen H., Chiang, R., & Storey, V. (2012). Business intelligence and
analytics: from big data to big impact. MIS Quarterly, 36(4), 1165-1188.

Ellins, J. (2017, September 2). Google Analytics: desktop vs. mobile vs.
tablet metrics [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.hallaminternet.com/google-analytics-desktop-vs-mobile-vs-
tablet-metrics/

Enge, E. (2019, April 11). Mobile vs. desktop traffic in 2019 [Web log post].
Retrieved from https://www.stonetemple.com/mobile-vs-desktop-usage-
study/

Enge, E. (2019, February 14). The complete guide to AMP: lessons from 10
case studies [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.stonetemple.com/the-canonical-guide-to-amp/

Gevelber, L. (2016). How to build your mobile-centric search strategy [Web

log post]. Retrieved from https://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/consumer-
insights/build-your-mobile-centric-search-strategy/

Google Support (n.d.). Overview of audience reports. Retrieved from

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1012034?hl=en

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Google Support (n.d.). About site speed. Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1205784?hl=en

Google Support (n.d.). About the Google ads report. Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/4355493?hl=en

Google Support (n.d.). What the value (not set) means. Retrieved from
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2820717?hl=en

Goyal, N., Bron, M., Lalmas, M., Haines, A., & Cramer, H. (2018). Designing
for mobile experience beyond the native ad click: Exploring landing page
presentation style and media usage. Journal of the Association for
Information Science and Technology, 69(7), 13-923.
doi:10.1002/asi.24016

Jenkins, K. (2019, January 25). One way to make or break your site
migration – whiteboard Friday [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://moz.com/blog/make-or-break-your-site-migration

Mali, N. (2019). Your m-commerce deep dive: data, trends and what’s next
in the mobile retail revenue word [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.bigcommerce.com.au/blog/mobile-commerce/#why-does-
mobile-commerce-matter

Justesen, I. (2019, January 15). 13 ways to lower your blog bounce rate and
increase conversions [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.constant-content.com/content-writing-service/2019/01/blog-
bounce-rate/

Petrov, E. (2019, March 12). 52 mobile vs. desktop statistics for 2019
[mobile’s overtaking!] [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://techjury.net/stats-about/mobile-vs-desktop-usage/

The Drum. (2016, October 12). Mobile ad spend is now bigger than desktop,
and here’s some things to think about [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.thedrum.com/news/2016/10/12/mobile-ad-spend-now-bigger-
desktop-and-here-s-some-things-think-about

Tode, C. (2019). Mobile increasingly the only tool used in purchasing

decisions: report [Web log post]. Retrieved from
https://www.mobilemarketer.com/ex/mobilemarketer/cms/news/research/
17925.html
 
   

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Appendices    
Appendix  1:  Audience  Report  

   

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Appendix  2:  All  Channels  Report  

 
 
 
   

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Appendix  3:  Site  Speed  Report    

 
 

 
 
   

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Appendix  4:  Goals  URL  Report    

 
 
 
   

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Appendix  5:  Funnel  Visualization  Report    

 
   

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Appendix  6:  Google  Ads  Campaigns  Report    

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

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Appendix  7:  Paid  Search  Traffic  Report    

 
 
 
 
 

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