Talking Metrics With Tomorrow’s Managers (and you get to join the fun)

I had the pleasure of serving as a guest lecturer for Columbia College Chicago’s Marketing Technology students. Providing not only an introduction to Google Analytics, but building the critical connections needed to understand how it functions in a larger digital marketing plan is something you don’t have to me twice to talk about.

Instead of traditional presentation slides, I developed a purpose-built microsite to serve as a dynamic resource for the lecture and you can tap into that goodness free of charge at ccc.artshacker.com.

Once we secured the general concepts of digital data analysis, we moved into the larger structure of measurement strategy. We learned how to begin applying content analysis to determine where a website might fall into one or more of the five primary business objectives:

From there, we examined how to apply those same content analysis skills to identify both macro and micro conversion actions along with assigning custom goal values.

The activity portion was especially enjoyable. We broke the class into five groups, providing each with access to the real Google Analytics account for Adaptistration Jobs. The students were provided with key site parameters (existing unique user types with related registration requirements, e-commerce elements, and static support content) and were tasked with answering the following questions:

It was fun watching the students dive into the deep end using actual metrics data combined with their recently acquired academic knowledge.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the questions don’t have cut and dry answers and since there wasn’t enough time to perform an exhaustive review (and really, when do professional marketers ever have that luxury?), it was fascinating to watch each student group focus on different elements.

In the end, I hope this exercise brought the students a little closer to seeing the value in developing skill sets capable of allowing them to quickly and confidently review and assess any website they encounter and begin combining data analysis and implementation strategy to produce an effective measurement strategy.

Even though I’m not able to provide readers with access to Adaptistration Jobs’ analytics account, you can still have fun on your own via the first three questions using the concepts from the lecture microsite and all of Adaptistration Jobs’ frontend content.

To that end, feel free to post your insights in a comment below or send along via an email and I’ll be happy to provide some corresponding feedback.

Many thanks to Professor Ryan Smith for reaching out with the invitation and to the @ccc_business students for their attention and participation.