As a leader in WordPress analytics, MonsterInsights is committed to helping small businesses, non-profits, and organizations make important business decisions backed up by real data. However, we understand that translating that raw data into actionable strategies can sometimes be challenging, especially if you’re not selling products online.
So today, we’ll take a good look at how a small business (in this case, a destination marketing organization called Visit Seattle) can effectively use analytics reports and MonsterInsights tracking features to grow.
Whether you’re a destination marketing organization (DMO) or any other type of small business, this real-world example will help you envision just how you can use analytics to help you grow your business.
Let’s get into it.
About Visit Seattle
Visit Seattle is a non-profit destination marketing organization (DMO) for Seattle and King County, Washington. Its website, visitseattle.org, serves as a comprehensive resource for tourists planning trips to the Emerald City, professionals looking to host a meeting in Seattle, and Seattle businesses wanting to become members. The site offers information on attractions, accommodations, dining, events, and more, aiming to showcase Seattle as a premier destination for leisure and business travelers alike.
About MonsterInsights
MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It not only connects your WordPress site to Google Analytics with just a few clicks but also provides advanced tracking features that go beyond standard Google Analytics capabilities. Plus, you get access to crucial data right in your WordPress dashboard, making it easier than ever to make informed decisions about your website and marketing strategies.
For an in-depth comparison of MonsterInsights and Google Analytics, check out MonsterInsights vs. Google Analytics.
Turning Tourism Data into Growth with MonsterInsights
Now, let’s dive into how Visit Seattle could use analytics and MonsterInsights’ tracking features to accelerate their website growth and increase tourism. We’ll explore the top five reports and features that could really have a significant impact on their goals.
1. Landing Pages Report
For an organization like Visit Seattle, understanding which pages visitors land on and engage with most frequently is crucial. It shows them what’s currently trending with their audience, which pages might be ranking in search, how popular their newest blog posts are, and more.
The MonsterInsights Landing Pages report shows not only the number of sessions the top landing pages got but also how engaged Visit Seattle’s audience was with the pages, whether or not any conversions occurred, and more.
For an organization that doesn’t sell products, it can be difficult to measure success. That’s why we definitely recommend setting up conversion tracking so that you have a different way to track your success! Then, you can see in the landing pages report if your visitors are taking the actions you’re hoping for on your website.
So, how could Visit Seattle use the top landing pages report? Here are a few examples:
- Identify the most popular attractions, blog posts, or events and feature them more prominently on the homepage
- Optimize underperforming landing pages to get more sessions and improve conversion rates
- Create more content related to high-performing topics to attract more visitors
- Promote under-used areas of the website on social media to draw attention to them
For example, let’s say their blog post on the top 10 transit-accessible Seattle playgrounds has gotten really popular over the last month. To capitalize on that success, the Visit Seattle team could create a cool map with all of the playgrounds on it, plus which bus or rail line they’re on to share on their social media profiles and embed in the post.
2. Form Submission Tracking
Visit Seattle’s website has a few different forms on it, including a newsletter signup, a form to request the official travel guide, a press team contact form, a membership team contact form, and more. MonsterInsights’ Forms addon can track submissions for each individual form and report on its impressions, conversions, and conversion rate:
With this data, Visit Seattle could:
- Get an idea at a glance of how many times different teams have been contacted
- Keep track of the level of interest in their different services
- Analyze why a form might have a lower conversion rate than the other and tweak the form to make it easier to fill out
Plus, using MonsterInsights to track form submissions means a Google Analytics event called generate_lead will be created. Visit Seattle can go into their Google Analytics account and label generate_lead as a key event, which means it’ll now be tracked as a conversion across all their reports. This is such an important metric to track to gauge a website’s effectiveness!
3. Outbound + Mailto Link Clicks
As a DMO, Visit Seattle’s website contains a large number of outbound links to local businesses, attractions, and partner organizations. MonsterInsights automatically tracks all of those outbound clicks and creates a Top Outbound Links report:
Tracking outbound link clicks is an awesome way for Visit Seattle to check in on trends in what tourists are looking for. They can see which hotels, boutiques, coffee shops, and other types of member businesses are piquing tourists’ interests and drawing clicks.
Outbound link tracking can help Visit Seattle:
- Understand which partner organizations or attractions are generating the most interest
- Identify opportunities for new partnerships or member spotlights based on popular outbound link clicks
- Optimize the placement and style of outbound links to improve click-through rates
- Measure the effectiveness of promotional campaigns for specific attractions or events
Visit Seattle also includes quite a few clickable email addresses on different pages of their website. MonsterInsights automatically tracks those link clicks in Google Analytics as well, so the Visit Seattle team can see who’s getting contacted through the website the most often.
4. Media Tracking
On the Visit Seattle website, there’s a special page called visitseattle.tv. This page acts like a video gallery with many embedded YouTube videos. While they can track the number of plays on YouTube, that’s not always the best way to track embedded videos. It doesn’t give you a ton of information!
With the MonsterInsights Media addon, they’ll be able to see not only which videos their visitors are clicking the play button on, but also how much of the video was watched and how often it was watched all the way to the end.
With media tracking, Visit Seattle can:
- Determine which videos are most engaging to visitors
- Identify the most popular videos
- Optimize the placement of different videos to increase engagement
- Make data-driven decisions about future content creation
Media tracking is awesome for finding out what topics and video styles are resonating with your audience.
5. Social Media Tracking
Visit Seattle has a pretty big social media presence. They post on Facebook, X, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. While each social media network has its own analytics, it can only tell you how your audience is interacting with your social media profile. What happens on your website when those social media visitors click over?
MonsterInsights automatically tracks social media traffic in a separate report, so you can see how those visitors are using your website.
How is traffic from each network performing? Are users from social media engaged and completing conversions, or are they only stopping by briefly?
Visit Seattle could use this data to:
- Analyze which social media networks send the best traffic
- Decide which social network is the best to try running ads
- Choose networks to spend more or less time on posting on
Bonus: Conversations AI
Running a DMO website involves managing vast amounts of data and content. Visit Seattle’s team might not always have the time to dig deep into analytics. That’s where Conversations AI by MonsterInsights comes in handy!
With Conversations AI, all you have to do is chat with your Google Analytics to find the data you need at the moment. It can even make a handy graph:
Say one of Visit Seattle’s members contacts them, wanting to know how many views their page got on the Visit Seattle website in the last month. All the Visit Seattle team would have to do is ask Conversations AI—they don’t even have to open a report.
Conversations AI is available with MonsterInsights Pro. Get started now to unlock these powerful AI-driven insights!
That’s a wrap!
We hope this case study has inspired you with how you can use MonsterInsights to boost your small business marketing efforts.
If you found this case study helpful, be sure to check out:
From Reports to Results: A WooCommerce + MonsterInsights Case Study
Translating Data Into Action: A Travel Blog + MonsterInsights Case Study
32 Growth Marketing Hacks Guaranteed to Grow Your Website
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