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How to Segment Brand Terms in Analytics

Google have a useful trick available to split your brand traffic from the rest of your search traffic.

Why would I want to segment brand terms in Analytics?

It’s all to do with behaviour.

When someone searches for your brand they tend to act in a different way than if they were searching for one of your services.

You will regularly see CTRs (click through rates) of 30% or higher on a brand name term whereas you are unlikely to get above 10% on a non-brand term. Therefore, as much as they are both a valuable part of your funnel you need to analyse them separately.

What is a brand term and what is not a brand term?

If you live in Oxford and search for “restaurants in Oxford”, you are showing the intent to book a restaurant in that location but have not decided which one. This is a non-brand search.

On the other hand, if you were to search for “Bloggs’ Restaurant Oxford”, you have most likely already decided what restaurant to go to and need to find the contact details. This is a brand search.

Each of these searches will, without doubt, result in different behaviour on the site.

How do I get set up in Analytics?

If you go to the Admin section of Google Analytics and look under the View Settings there is a section for Channel Settings under which you will find a section for managing brand terms.

What terms should I add to Analytics?

All variations of your Brand Name should be added here, including misspellings. Be careful with less specific terms, though. We have used Tillison on its own, as it’s a fairly rare name. However, if your company is “McDonald’s Butchers” you may be better off avoiding using “McDonald’s” on its own.

For example, our terms included:
tillisonconsulting
tillison consulting
tillson consulting

Segment Brand Terms in Analytics
Segment Brand Terms in Analytics – Channel Report

Don’t worry about pluralisation of capitalisation, as Google will automatically do this for you.

When setting up for the first time, you will be asked if you want to add brand search to your channel settings. We suggest the answer is YES.

Does Analytics automatically assign brand terms from both paid and organic traffic?

The short answer is no. Google will make suggestions to you in Analytics for terms it assumes are brand names. Brand channels will need to be set up if you wish to see them in the standard acquisition reports. In theory, you can set up an Organic Brand channel to show organic brand searches for your site, unfortunately, due to encryption by Google we get little to no data from this. I set up an organic brand channel 9 months ago but have yet to receive any data for this.

Analysing Data

Now, if we look at the Channel Report, under All Traffic in the Acquisition section, we get the following for Tillison Consulting:

Channel Report, All Traffic in Acquisition Section
Channel Report, All Traffic in Acquisition Section

This shows vastly improved stats for our Brand Term visitors, than those from normal search terms.

Google Analytics Training for Beginners

Still feeling bamboozled after reading this post, or with Google Analytics in general? It is not surprising, there is so much to learn to make sure that you get the best from Google Analytics. Our experienced Analytics Specialists can provide Google Analytics Training for Beginners to work with you to cut through the jargon and focus on what matters most to you, your website and your data.

Do you have any further questions about How to Segment Brand Terms in Analytics? Let us know in the comments, or click below to speak with one of our specialists and find out more about our Google Analytics training courses.Speak with a SpecialistLearn Analytics with a Pro

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