Feature
The Gist
- Anaytics and event registration. Leverage GA4 Analytics for understanding your audiences.
- Campaign optimization. Utilize UTM tags to refine event campaigns.
- Registration insights. Conduct funnel analysis to streamline registrations.
Conference season 2023 has begun! In the aftermath of the pandemic, which necessitated a heavy reliance on webinars, professionals are demonstrating a strong desire to abandon Zoom calls and engage in face-to-face networking. Recognizing this trend, event marketers are strategically seeking opportunities to capitalize on this increased demand for in-person events.
As the transition from Universal Analytics (UA) to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) approaches, marketers have an ideal opportunity to reassess not just their fundamental analytics, but also their advanced settings, exploring ways to enhance event registrations. One highly effective strategy is to scrutinize audience segments and harness the potential of newly introduced features.
The key for a good measurement plan is to set up the audience segmentation, then focus on analytic settings for the media and reports that will support the campaign.
Related Article: 8 Google Analytics 4 Features That Leave Universal Analytics in the Dust
Setting Up Your Registration Audience in GA4
The first step in planning the measurement of your registration audience involves configuring audiences in GA4 reporting. Within Google Analytics, audiences are viewed as sessions segmented into distinct groups. An audience can be created based on the scope relative to a visitor's engagement with a website or app — this could be across all sessions, within a single session, or tied to a specific event.
To create an audience, you enter the admin section of your Google Analytics account, then select Audiences, and then select New Audience. There you choose one of three scope options to create an audience:
- General Audience
- A Template
- A Suggested Audience
Each setting represents a set of conditions that visitor activity must align with. These scopes are designed to reflect either a static or dynamic evaluation of activity, aiding in the establishment of a time frame within which measured events transpire.
The General Audience
The general audience setting is the most straightforward choice among the three. It is meant for examining basic changes in activity condition. You can enter the name in description of a custom audience, and then add the new conditions, which can be set based on metrics dimensions and events.
A Template
Templates are configured audiences based on a few GA standard reports like visitor demographics and technology (the type of device used to access a website or app).
A Suggested Audience
The suggested audience feature, introduced a few years ago, is designed to assess a sequence of session events on an app or website, then make a predicted suggestion of an audience based on the number of days since a transaction.
Multiple Selection Settings
Multiple selection settings are possible, allowing for up to 100 audiences per property. This should be sufficient for most marketing needs. When the audience is created, the setting may take 24 to 48 hours for data to be reflected in the dashboards. Google Analytics then accumulates audience-related data onward from the set date.
The Management Table
The management table is available to let you manage the audiences for other reports in your analytics account. The management table lists predefined audiences and your customized selections. You can add an audience to a particular dashboard. This helps in sharing audience settings in other dashboards as needed.
Related Article: Storing UA Data: Your Best Last-Minute Google Analytics Transition Play
Adding Other Analytic Reporting Settings
With audience segments set, you and your team can now focus on analytic settings that address media for the registration campaigns as well as the registration activities on a page or within an app.
Linking to Google Ads
If your team is using digital ads for personalized campaigns, it is a good idea to link Google Analytics to your Google Ads to share an audience. To do so, you must make sure that the Google Analytics and Google Ads accounts are first linked before running the campaigns. Then you make sure that the default setting in the analytics account is set to enable personalized advertising.
Email Segmentation by Engagement Level
If the team is using email to attract past event attendees or customers who missed a few previous events, reporting email segmentation by engagement level can be helpful to reenergize event buzz. Doing so reveals ways to examine email campaigns according to how reader engagement varies. That can be helpful if your registration emails contain additional information that also sparks interest.
Tags & Associated Media
Other things to check within your analytics involve your tags and associated media. Having UTM tags dedicated to event campaigns are a definite as well as a dedicated landing page to your audience segment. These can be refined as you discover more information about your audience.
Segment Overlap
Another potential Google Analytics feature that can assist registration campaigns is segment overlap. This feature allows you to compare overlaps between certain dimensions and metrics. It is set through the Explore section within the GA4 reporting section. The information discovered can reveal how to approach ad campaigns relative to other media your analytics is using. Is the ad campaign best set by a certain device or by age? What should the copy be for this landing page and digital ads used?
Steps to Registration Submission
Finally, consider investigating the steps customers undertake leading to a registration submission. Traditionally, a goal and funnel analysis with the registration page as the target has been the conventional method for understanding where potential attendees may abandon the registration process. The analysis can answer if, for example, prospective registrants are looking at other content pages in general before completing a registration. Another question to pose: Are those pages experiencing a drop-off in visitors who eventually reach the registration page? This is a standard report more analytics solutions have, with some variation.
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In Google Analytics, the Universal Analytics version contains visitor flow reports that can be used for a goal and funnel analysis. The visitor flow reports were replaced in GA4 with Funnel Exploration. This type of analysis can aid in refining and streamlining the registration process to ensure a swift and straightforward experience for customers during registration.
Final Thoughts on Analytics & Event Registrations
Examining metrics in relation to customer audiences has become a crucial analytical tool for any company-hosted event. As customer attention online has become dispersed across various devices and platforms, conversations about events are increasingly occurring within online communities. It's imperative for marketers to consolidate analytics activity across these diverse mediums to gauge their success in achieving registration objectives, especially as events are coming back in vogue.
