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Assignment: Website Analysis for General Awareness on Google Merchandise Store (GMS)
Try to think like the you’re the Marketing Manager who works on the Google Merchandise Store eCommerce shop that sells Google-branded products. Use the GMS demo account (the dataset) that you connected to Google Analytics (the analysis software/tool) for this analysis.
Objective(s)
Demonstrate how to do website analysis for a specific objective with descriptive analytics (what happened?)
Identify an insight (1, maybe 2) in what you see with diagnostic analytics (why did it happen? why is something important?)
Communicate the analysis concisely using data-supported narrative and/or clear data visualization
Reminders
Change the timeframe to curate data for the period you want to analyze
To determine increase/decrease you need to compare vs. a previous timeframe
Minimize visual noise for nominal amounts:
Round any $ to the nearest whole dollar (i.e. $467.67 becomes $468)
Round any # of something to the nearest whole number (i.e. 567.4 becomes 567)
However, for % percent keep it consistent and round any % to two decimal places (i.e. 1.11%) even if it’s whole (i.e. 2.20% or 3.00%)
Instructions
Download a copy of this document to work with and submit
Complete parts 1-2 by responding in this document
Answers can be in clear, succinct bullet point-style sentences vs. long paragraphs
Use data-supported objective statements
Keep this document to 2 pages total following the page breaks for each part
Don’t change formatting (font, size, margins, bullets) or this document won’t be marked
Under Evaluation, you have a choice of how much effort to invest and what to submit for this assignment based on the mark you want to try to achieve
1) Your Information
Your Name (First and Last)
GBC Student Number
GBC Email address
Course CRN
2) Analysis Question(s)
When thinking of general (brand) awareness at an overview level for the website, you want to answer:
Is there more/less interest from people during the timeframe?
How did people tend to get to the website overall?
What happened with general awareness for the GMS in 2019?
Your answer
1. How many Sessions did the GMS have in 2019?
2. How does this number of Sessions compare to 2018?
3. What’s the difference in the number of Sessions?
Why did it happen?
Your answer
4. Which Channel delivered the highest number of Sessions in 2019?
5. How does this number of Sessions compare to 2018?
6. Is this a driver of the change in 2019?
7. Which Channel(s) drove the change in 2019?
(We can usually answer the quantitative why it happened. However, because we don’t have the context of working inside Google we won’t know the qualitative “why” of the business decision behind the result.)
Write a concise summary using data-supported statements
Evaluation
See the rubric for Digital Marketing Analysis Challenges on GMS in Blackboard for details about evaluation/marking
If you want to Meet Standards
Use Google Analytics to get the seven (7) pieces of information that help you answer the Analysis Question(s) from page 2–enter this in the Your answer column in the tables
Use the answers that are most important for the data story to write a concise summary using data-supported narrative
Submit the completed pages 1-2 of this document in PDF format
If you want to try to Exceed Standards
Do what’s outlined above in If you want to Meet Standards to help organize your information…and then:
Create a 2-page (+cover) Slidedoc report using one of the Microsoft PowerPoint templates that was provided in the course resources
Cover page with Your Name (First and Last), GBC Student Number, GBC Email address, Course CRN
One Slidedoc page can tell the “what happened?” story
The other Slidedoc page can tell the “why it happened?” story
Each page of a Slidedoc is designed to include these elements along with white space:
TITLE
Main takeaway
Supporting narrative copy
Data visualization (usually 1, absolute maximum of 2 on a page)
Make sure each element on the page is clearly readable at 100% page size (“zoom”)
Typically, this means the minimum font size of 12pt for the important elements
Submit the report in PDF format–which will keep your original formatting intact
Things to Consider
Sometimes you’ll notice different views of data in Google Analytics might give slightly different results for the same/similar measure (this also happens in other software). You need to use your best judgment in these situations. In most of these cases the difference isn’t material or significant so just pick one and use it consistently.
Sometimes you’ll come up against something you can’t figure out/solve–hard to translate words/terms, a bunch of zeros for data–try to search for an answer or make an educated assumption…and call it out where you make an assumption.
From a data storytelling perspective, you don’t want to data dump a bunch of information on a page. 99% of the time screen snipping the full page of data from the dashboard on the screen isn’t a good idea. You are expected to create your own data visualization (i.e. table, bar graph or pie chart) for the analysis to support the story you want to tell from what you’re seeing.
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