Googley-Eyed PUMA

I recently became a soccer mom. My 4 year-old joined his first soccer team. What’s more, my husband decided to be the team’s assistant coach. My husband may have been more excited than my son. OK, he was a lot more excited. While my little guy was lukewarm about the idea of giving up his Saturday mornings to play a game he knew nothing about with kids he didn’t know, my husband couldn’t contain himself.

As a former soccer player, himself, my husband insisted that we get certain brands to equip our son with gear that would set him up for optimal success. In my husband’s mind, that meant buying PUMA soccer cleats.

So, just a couple of weeks ago, I purchased soccer cleats and a few other items directly from PUMA.com. As a marketer, I had a great experience on the site and thought it would be good to dig in and see what PUMA had done to create that experience for me - and to ensure I purchased directly from them instead of any other site.

The following case study incorporates my experience as a user, as well as background information about PUMA’s journey to optimized SEO with the help of Google Analytics.

About PUMA

As one of the world’s leading brands of sporting apparel, PUMA has established a following of fans comprised of both athletes and casual wearers. The company was founded in 1948 in Germany, but it can trace its roots back to the 1920s (PUMA, 2015).

The brand produces performance products for football, running, cross-training and fitness, and motorsports.Throughout several decades of design, development and sales of footwear, apparel and accessories, PUMA has maintained its commitment making products to support the fastest athletes on the planet. The company, still headquartered in Germany, distributes its products in more than 120 countries and employs more than 10,000 people worldwide (PUMA, 2015).

The Initial Situation

People choose PUMA not only because they’re good-looking, but also responsive, agile and fast. It was only natural that PUMA would want these same traits from its web analytics platform. The PUMA website, like many sites today, serves as not only a major sales and marketing tool, but also as an online storefront.

In 2012, the company wanted to optimize the performance of its website and online store. It set out to design and develop a new website, and based its strategy on SEO best practices and the functionalities of Google Analytics (Google Analytics, 2013).

Web Analytics Requirements:

• Compare the performance of each of its product categories independently
• Understand visitor behavior throughout their PUMA.com experience
• Increase sales in PUMA’s key target geographic areas around the world

(Google Analytics, 2013).

Solution: Getting Started with Google Analytics

To ensure PUMA’s new website and online storefront would attract, engage and convert as many customers as possible, the company partnered with Virginia-based digital agency and Certified Partner of Google Analytics, Viget Labs. This partnership introduced PUMA to Google Analytics and helped them incorporate it into the site plans and development process (Google Analytics, 2013).

Variable Testing

Once the beta version of the site was completed, PUMA did a soft launch with different variations of the site. Google Analytics’ custom variables was used segment visitors based on which test variation they saw. This effort generated valuable data, which PUMA used to compare how variables between the different versions of the site impacted conversion rates, events, click-rates and other important metrics (Google Analytics, 2013).

Customized, Segmented Visibility

One of PUMA’s goals in its web redevelopment project was to gain visibility of each of its product categories independently. To achieve this goal, the company used a combination of Google Analytics’ profiles and custom filters to create a view of all of PUMA.com as a whole, as well as separate views of each PUMA product category on the website (Google Analytics, 2013).

Events to Track Engagement

PUMA also used events in Google Analytics to measure visitor interactions with dynamic page elements.

Audience Segmentation

Because PUMA is a global company, selling to more than 120 countries, one of its major goals was to be able to see how its visitors from different corners of the globe interact with and behave on the site. To achieve this goal, PUMA used Advanced Segments to isolate visitors not only by geographic location, but also by any other demographic (or other) indicator tracked by Google Analytics (Google Analytics, 2013).

This tactic continues today, as users enter the site, they are shown the localized version of PUMA.com according to cookie data and Google’s understanding of where the users are located.

The Results

PUMA credits the data it has generated through Google Analytics - and, therefore, the improvements and iterations the company was able to make to its site - for the following impressive results:

• The amount of time visitors spend interacting with PUMA’s content, such as news, videos, and photos more than doubled.
• A 47% increase in traffic from growing regions such as China and India
• An 84% increase in conversions among mobile users

(Google Analytics, 2013).

The testing PUMA conducted as it launched its new website in 2012 paid off - big time. For example, it discovered that one variation of its header image performed far better than the other options. By committing to the top-performing variation, PUMA ended up increasing online orders by a little over 7%.

On the long-term, getting started with Google Analytics helped PUMA to develop a deep understanding of the importance of web analytics, as well as how to generate the data they needed and how to use it to generate more sales. As a result, people have a better experience and, are more likely to make a purchase. This is a win/win for PUMA its customers (Viget Labs, 2015).

Ongoing Impact & Opportunities for Improvement

Conversion Optimization

Years after PUMA began using Google Analytics, the site clearly has a focus on conversion opportunities. When a visitors arrive to the site, they are greeted with a pop-up box that requests that they subscribe to the PUMA email list.

What’s nice about this is that the brand not only requests your information, but also explains clearly what to expect from subscribing. You’ll get new product announcements, exclusive offers, news and event invitations. For a PUMA fan, this might easily be worth handing over an email address. This is a great and relatively simple way for PUMA to grow its mailing list.

Image: PUMA.com

One area for possible improvement would be implementing event-based calls-to-action and forms. For example, an offer to join the email list could appear in a small box in the lower right corner of the browser window either after the visitor has been on the site for a set amount of time, most often 2-5 seconds, or after the visitor scrolls a certain amount down the page, such as 25% or 50%.

Another opportunity for PUMA to retain its visitors and convert them into customers before they leave the website would be to implement a lightbox CTA that appears as visitors move their cursors off the screen.

Personalized Content

As PUMA collects data about its users, it would be wise to begin personalizing their experiences on the brand’s website. For example, as the company learns more about me, it could begin showing me products that are more and more relevant to me. Instead of showing me the standard home page, it could show me the latest outfits for women or sales on women’s shoes.

While the site is already providing country-specific versions of the website based on user location, PUMA could take it even further. User location data could also be used to market to them in even more personalized ways. For example, users in Arizona in January could see site content promoting PUMA’s products for mild winter weather, while users in Michigan could see PUMA’s best products for even the most extreme winter weather at the same time.

PUMA is a great example of a company trying hard to harness the power of SEO, conversion optimization and Google Analytics. It’s incredibly difficult to stay on top of the constant changes, but PUMA is doing a lot of things right. And that’s really all you can do, right? Try hard to stay at the forefront of technology and opportunity.

Resources

Google Analytics. (2013). “PUMA Kicks Up Order Rate 7% with Insights from Google Analytics and Viget”. GoogleUserContent.com. Retrieved from https://static.googleusercontent.com/media/www.google.com/en/us/analytics/customers/pdfs/puma.pdf

PUMA. (2015). “History”. PUMA Website. Retrieved from http://about.puma.com/en/this-is-puma/history

Viget Labs. (2015). “PUMA”. Retrieved from https://viget.com/work/puma

The Good. The Bad. The Google.

Image: CIO.com

In 2012, a federal regulatory agency concluded that Google abused its monopoly power in ways that harmed not only its competitors, but also Internet users like you and me (Pagliery, 2015).

You may not remember this situation in the news because it was a rather uneventful story. Why? Because Google avoided a massive antitrust battle, thanks to the Federal Trade Commission’s decision not to pursue a legal fight.

That’s right. Even after the federal regulatory agency concluded wrongdoing by Google and a two-year investigation by the FTC into the company's online monopoly power, all five FTC commissioners decided to not sue (Pagliery, 2015).

How did this happen? Why is it that even though it was concluded that Google actually posed harm “to consumers and to innovation” (Mullins, Winkler and Kendall; 2015) that they, themselves, came away relatively unharmed?

According to a CNN Money article about the Google monopoly issue, it’s because the battle would have been too great for the FTC: “In reality, the FTC likely didn't pursue a legal fight because it was going to be a tough case. After all, it had to be able to prove that Google was a monopoly power that was not only harming competition but also the public. Google was popular with the public, which could easily choose to use competitors that were just a click away like Yahoo and Bing” (Pagliery, 2015).

So here we are a couple of years later and Google has continued to grow as a monopoly. It continues collect incredible amounts of user data and toe the line on privacy concerns. BUT - and this is a big but - the company also continues to churn out innovative products and services that are truly changing our lives in meaningful ways.

Is it worth it?

Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all way to answer whether or not the positive impact Google is making on our lives with its innovative products and ideas is worth the sacrifice of privacy and control over our own data.

The fact is, privacy holds a different level of importance for each of us. For every person who isn’t sharing anything online - who is holding tight to every ounce of privacy they’re able to maintain in this digital age, there is another person who is oversharing by the minute, with selfies, photos of their kids and pets, images of the meals they’re eating, the places they’re visiting and the items they’re buying.

While there no definitive way to say that Google is or is not crossing the line, it is possible to take a closer look at what data the company is collecting and what is being done with it. Perhaps if we were all a little more educated, we could at least take more ownership over our own privacy concerns, regardless of what Google is or is not allowed to do as a business.

What Does Google Know About YOU?

According to Google, itself, Google collects the data about its users in the following ways:

• Things you do: When we use Google’s services, the company tracks what it refers to as “basic information to make these services work”, including things we search for, websites we visit, ads we engage with, our location, our devices, our IP addresses and our cookie data.
• Things that make you “you”: When we create a Google Account, the company records and stores information we provide, including name, email address and password, birthday, gender, phone number, country and billing information. This information is account related and, Google insists that it is stored securely on their servers.
• Things you create: When signed into our Google Accounts, the company stores and protects what we create while using their services so, as Google says “you will always have your information when you need it. This data can include emails sent using Gmails, contacts we add, calendar events, photos and videos we upload, and the Docs, Sheets and Slides we create on Google Drive.

(Google: Data Collection, 2015)

While the second two areas explained here don’t really surprise me, as they pertain to the information I want and expect Google to store for me, it’s the first area that makes me - and a lot of other people - a little uneasy. Google is not only watching everything I do online, it is also recording it and storing it. ...and sharing it.

Regardless of your comfort level with the company’s data collection practices, it’s important to be informed about what Google is doing with your personal information.

Again, according to Google, the company says, “By analyzing patterns across the data we collect, we give you more useful results and recommendations. And when you sign in with your Google Account, we can give you an even better experience” (Google: Data Use, 2015).

But what does that mean? Is this data actually making things better for you? Or is it all about pleasing advertisers? If you ask me, it’s actually a little of both.

What does it mean for YOU?

The data Google collects about your behavior while you use its products makes your searches more accurate, efficient and relevant. For example, if you are traveling and use Google on your smartphone to search for Starbucks. If you allow Google to see your location, it can provide Starbucks locations closest to you.

As another example, because Google tracks information about our emails, it is able to provide better spam filters that keep annoying and potentially malicious emails from reaching your inbox. In fact, Google claims that thanks to their efforts in this area, less than 1% of all spam sent to Gmail actually makes it to their users’ inboxes (Google: Data Use, 2015).

Lastly, the same data that helps advertisers also helps you. When Google knows more about you, including your location, your previous searches, your demographics, the devices you use, etc., it can deliver ads that are most likely to actually be of interest to you. That means that if you’re a 25 year-old single woman living in Florida, you would be extremely unlikely to see ads for a senior citizen assisted living community in Nebraska.

So is Google a monopoly? Perhaps. Is that a bad thing? It depends on how you look at it. While bad things can certainly result from monopolies and no one wants their personal data exploited, it seems as though Google’s efforts thus far have been aimed at making the world better and more relevant.

Should Google be watched closely? I think so. But in the meantime, just be aware of how your information is being tracked and shared. Take ownership of your privacy, but also try to appreciate the quality of life that is made possible when you share a little bit of personal data.

Resources

Google. (2015). Google: Data Collection. “What data does Google collect?”. Google. Retrieved from https://privacy.google.com/data-we-collect.html

Google. (2015). Google: Data Use. “What does Google do with the data it collects?”. Google Retrieved from https://privacy.google.com/how-we-use-data.html

Mullins, B., Winkler, R., and Kendall, B. (March 19, 2015). “Inside the U.S. Antitrust Probe of Google”. The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved from http://www.wsj.com/articles/inside-the-u-s-antitrust-probe-of-google-1426793274  

Pagliery, J. (March 19, 2015). “Google abused its monopoly power, FTC experts found”. CNN Money. Retrieved from http://money.cnn.com/2015/03/19/technology/google-monopoly-ftc/

Google Analytics vs. HubSpot

New digital marketing capabilities are emerging every day. Marketers can now use a wide range of social media platforms, email marketing tools, digital advertising, and mobile advertising, not to mention a vast range of content options, to reach their target audiences. But the flip side of all these new ways to reach new people, engage them and convert them into leads and customers is measurement. How can you be sure your efforts are doing what they were designed to do?

Thankfully, there are also many analytics tools available, with more being introduced, updated and improved seemingly every day. Two key players in the world of web analytics are HubSpot and Google Analytics. In this post, I’ll take a look at each of these analytics options and compare their features and functionalities to you to decide which is best for your website and your business goals.

Google Analytics

Google is, of course, a massive company providing a wide range of products for consumers and businesses, alike. But one of its products, in particular, delivers exceptional value for digital marketers: Google Analytics.

Celebrating its 10-year anniversary this month, Google Analytics was launched in November, 2005 (Google Company, 2015). It offers more than 80 reports to measure and help you analyze your site's performance (Reed College of Media, 2015). Focusing on how visitors are accessing your site and what they’re doing there, along with some limited demographic information about them.

The metrics tracked and reported by Google Analytics are split into four main categories: Audience, Acquisition, Behavior and Conversions. There are also a few additional features, such as Real Time reporting, which provides a snapshot of what is happening on the website as you watch the analytics. It enables you to watch what’s happening on your site in - you guessed it - real time. Intelligence Events is another extra reporting feature, which provide automatic and custom alerts triggered by predetermined events or occurrences on the website (Google Analytics Help, 2015).

HubSpot

Launched in 2006, HubSpot introduced the world to the idea of inbound marketing. The approach moved marketers from pushing content and advertising out to their target audiences to, instead, pulling targets in toward them by publishing content that their targets would find valuable in places where they would easily access it, thus drawing them into their sites to convert and be nurtured as leads.

Like Google, HubSpot’s platform goes far beyond analytics. The web-based platform allows marketers to build websites; launch campaigns with batch and automated emails, landing pages and forms. Also with HubSpot, users can manage contacts from both Marketing and Sales perspectives with two separate, but connected platforms, including a CRM that rivals Salesforce. And, of course, HubSpot’s analytics tools are pretty spectacular, too.

Costs

Before diving into the comparison of the features and functionalities of Google Analytics and HubSpot, one major difference should be noted. Google Analytics is free (although there are premium options available for a fee) and HubSpot comes at a price - a steep one.

HubSpot Pricing:

Image: HubSpot

HubSpot’s pricing is based on the number of contacts you have in your database. Pricing starts at $100/month for 100 contacts. A company with 15,000 contacts would pay $2,450 per month - after a $5,000 onboarding fee (HubSpot Pricing, 2015). Of course, this includes far more than analytics tools, but it’s safe to say that it’s a strategic business decision to adopt HubSpot, while Google Analytics can really be implemented and used on a whim - no strategic meetings or purchase orders required.

That said, here’s a closer look at some of the metrics and reporting features offered by Google Analytics and HubSpot.

Who

Google:

With Google’s Audience reporting, understand who is visiting your website and when. Use these reports to learn more about the individuals that are coming to your site, as well as how they are accessing it and engaging with it. Here, if you enable the collection of user demographics and interests data, you can harness the power of Google’s cookie tracking to get a better understanding of your visitors’ demographics, interests and preferences (Google Analytics Help: Audience Reports, 2015).

Also in the Audience section, you’ll find information about where your visitors are located geographically and the language they speak. You can see their behavior patterns on your site, the technology and devices they’re using to view your site, and view your users’ flow for how they typically enter, browse and exit your site.

HubSpot:

This is really where HubSpot shines. It’s hard to compete with the level of information it provides about site visitors. The magic behind HubSpot is in the contact database included within the platform. Individuals can join the database by converting through a form submission on your website or by being imported from a list. Regardless, every contact in the database must at least have an email address, as this is the unique indicator to protect the database from duplicate records (HubSpot, 2015).

Once a contact is entered into the database, HubSpot does two incredible things. First, it tracks any and all activity or engagement with your company’s online presence, including your website and your social media accounts. Second, it scours the Internet for more information about that contact, including company information, Twitter handle, gravitar and more (HubSpot Products, 2015).

If a contact is NOT in the HubSpot database and visits your website, their activity and engagement is tracked just like they are by Google Analytics. While both analytics options collect similar data about site visits and user behavior, it’s clear that HubSpot delivers a level of data that is unmatched by Google Analytics. But, as mentioned earlier, while Google Analytics is free, HubSpot comes at a hefty price.

How

Both Google Analytics and HubSpot help answer the questions, “How are different online and offline sources driving traffic to my site?” and “Which traffic sources are generating the most traffic?” (Reed College of Media, 2015).

Google:

The Acquisition section of Google Analytics allows for visibility of the channels, sites, social media platforms and search engines that are driving traffic to your site. This is also where you can see traffic generated from Google AdWords campaigns, SEO efforts and any other defined campaigns you may have going (Google Analytics Help: Acquisition Reports, 2015).

Google’s Acquisition section is also where you are able to see what keywords individuals are using in their searches when they find your site. There are limitations to this information, though. In October 2011, Google changed the way it collects and shares this data from its users to protect their privacy.

If a user is logged into a Google product, such as a Google Account, their searches are conducted over SSL (secure sockets layer) and the data relating to that search, including keywords, is hidden. While Google can still see this information, website owners cannot (Broadley, 2013).

HubSpot:

HubSpot’s reporting section includes a Sources Report, which clearly shows what visitors are coming to the website from organic search, referrals, social media, email marketing, paid search or directly by entering the URL into the browser (HubSpot Products, 2015).

HubSpot's Sources Report

Image: HubSpot

HubSpot also has a Keywords tool that allows its users to enter in keywords they wish to rank for, tie them to campaigns if they wish and then see how effective those keywords are in generating traffic to the site. Additionally, HubSpot provides insights about which competitors are ranking for those keywords, as well as advice on how to improve your own rankings for each word or phrase (HubSpot 2015).

What

What  are people doing once they arrive at your website? Where are they entering the site - or, in other words, what pages are they “landing” on? What pages are they viewing? How are they navigating through the site? What pages are they viewing most often as they exit your site?

Google:

All of these questions and more can be answered with the reports available in the Behavior section of Google Analytics. This section is where you can see which of your pages are generating the most traffic, what information visitors seem to be gravitating to and what they’re searching for on your site.

Google Analytics Behavior Overview

Image: Google Analytics Client Example

Also in this section, you can get an idea for the speed of your site, or how fast (or slow) your pages may be loading. This is important, as it can impact your users’ experience, as well as your search rankings (Google Analytics Help: Behavior Reporting, 2015).

HubSpot:

While Google’s reporting is, in my opinion, clearer and easier to navigate, Hubspot does also answer these important questions about visitor behavior. In HubSpot’s newly updated Website and Blog sections, users can see which pages are generating the most traffic and what pages visitors are using to enter into the site.

HubSpot has a feature called “Events” where users can set up actions or behaviors to be tracked on the site (HubSpot Products, 2015). This is really helpful and interesting data, however, you have to know what you’re looking for before you can begin collecting and analyzing the information. In contrast, Google also allows for similar events as defined by the user, but also just automatically provides more information in this area.

HubSpot doesn’t provide nearly as much information about the paths users take as they navigate through the site, how long they stay or what pages they use to exit. This is important information, of course, but it is best collected and reported by Google Analytics.

Conversions

Conversions are critically important metrics for any marketer to measure. They help reveal what efforts are working - not just to generate visits and pageviews, but to increase valuable actions taken site visitors. These include form submissions, email subscriptions, downloads and more.

Google Analytics:

Data about conversions are available through Google Analytics, however, they require a bit of work to set up because Google Analytics needs to know what your goals are before it can begin to tell you which visitors are reaching them. It’s worth the effort, though, as once this section is set up, the insights you can get in return are pretty rewarding.

Reports available in the Conversions section of Google Analytics include goals, events, conversions or actions on your site in a given timeframe. All of these reports require some information about what you hope to track, but once you set it up, Google Analytics will help you see the conversion progress you’re making toward reaching your goals (Google Analytics Help: Conversion Reports, 2015).

Here, if your site has eCommerce, you can see how it’s performing on your site as far as traffic, conversions and attribution, which is obviously quite important if you have an online store (Google Analytics Help: Conversion Reports, 2015).

HubSpot:

This is another area where HubSpot really delivers extreme value. Because it is a full-fledged inbound marketing platform, you use it to actually create the conversion opportunities, such as forms, CTAs (calls-to-action), landing pages and thank you pages, and workflows. For this reason, HubSpot already knows about each conversion opportunity you’ve created so it tracks and reports data about each one - automatically (HubSpot Products, 2015).

For even greater clarity, users can group together elements of a campaign using the Campaigns tool and see how the entire campaign is performing. This includes traffic to landing pages and site pages related to the campaign, related blog posts, social media activity, CTAs, keywords, workflows, emails and more.

Which Wins?

In summary, it’s hard to beat HubSpot when it comes to full-funnel analytics. HubSpot delivers the ability to track marketing efforts at every stage of the process: click by click. It even provides an exceptional amount of information about site visitors and provides a database and CRM to improve alignment between Sales and Marketing.

In contrast, HubSpot is expensive. In fact, many businesses simply can’t afford it. Thankfully, Google Analytics is also an exceptional tool that marketers can use for free. It provides an exceptional level of information about site visitors, their on-site behavior and the performance of your website. It’s a quality platform that keeps getting better. And you can’t beat the price tag!

So if you can afford it, I highly recommend HubSpot. And actually, I think you should use both HubSpot AND Google Analytics. But if you just don’t have the budget, dive into Google Analytics and max out its functionalities to get the most out of your website.

Resources

Baum, D. (August 8, 2012). “The King of Marketing Analytics: Google or HubSpot?”. IMPACT Blog. Retrieved from http://www.impactbnd.com/blog/the-king-of-marketing-analytics-google-or-hubspot

Broadley, C. (February 5, 2013). “How to Unlock Your ‘Not Provided’ Keywords in Google Analytics”. KISSMetrics. Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/unlock-keyword-not-provided/

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Audience Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1007027?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Acquisition Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/3125765?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Behavior Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1120718?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Analytics Help (2015). “Conversion Reports”. Google Analytics Help Center. Retrieved from https://support.google.com/analytics/topic/1631741?hl=en&ref_topic=3544907

Google Company. (2015). "Our history in depth". Google. Retrieved from https://www.google.com/about/company/history/

HubSpot. (2015). “Our Story”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/internet-marketing-company

HubSpot Pricing. (2015). “HubSpot Pricing”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/pricing/marketing

HubSpot Products. (2015) “HubSpot Product Analytics”. HubSpot. Retrieved from http://www.hubspot.com/products/analytics

Reed College of Media. (2015) “Week 5 Lesson: Google Analytics”. West Virginia University. Retrieved from https://ecampus.wvu.edu/webapps/blackboard/execute/displayLearningUnit?course_id=_51583_1&content_id=_2558935_1&framesetWrapped=true