Google Analytics helps Experience Project organize the human experience
February 18th, 2009 | Published in Google Analytics
To prepare for the case study on Experience Project, we explored www.experienceproject.com and pored through stories to better understand the user base and intent of the website. What we found was something akin to a directory of human experiences ranging from chronic illnesses to pet ownership. With over two million shared stories on thousands of topics, the website is both informative and addicting.
We sat down with Armen Berjikly of Experience Project to chat about his growing social experience website and usage of Google Analytics. Berjikly recounted a heartfelt story of a close friend diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and how Experience Project was built with the intent to connect people from all walks of life and share stories.
For Experience Project team, Google Analytics has proven to be an effective tool to help decide where and how to spend time, resources, and energy. To help refine the site, the team turned to Google Analytics for a variety of their website goals including:
Learning about Users
Google Analytics has helped Experience Project understand demographic, geographic, and subject matter information about their users. After uncovering search trends, the team created tools for managing personal challenges, goal achievements, and dream interpretations to meet increasing demands of their users.
Optimizing Advertising Revenue
As the site operates as a free service, maximizing advertising revenue is a key focus for Experience Project’s online marketing efforts. Through the Keywords Reports, Experience Project found that a large percentage of its members self-identified as dog and cat owners. Armed with this information, the team not only increased marketing on relevant keywords but also wooed pet-related advertisers with actual traffic and demographic metrics. To the delight of users, new functionality focused on pet ownership was built into the site.
Refining Product Development
Experience Project recently launched a new “Question and Answer” section on the site where users submit questions directly to the community. By using the Content Reports in Google Analytics, management and engineering can easily measure the success of the launch and user engagement. Key performance indicators include metrics on usage, return visits, and time spent on those pages which are all readily available.
By utilizing the growing feature set within Google Analytics, the management and engineering teams are able to make key product decisions and measure success. Simply put by Berjikly, “Google Analytics is easy to use, and it makes us more confident in our decisions.”
To learn more about how Experience Project leveraged Google Analytics, read the full case study.