The company Saint Gobain needed to unify web analytics and measurement across dozens of websites containing building material calculators, e-shops and content and educational websites for individual brands and divisions – Weber, Isover and Rigips.
They were looking for a solution that would allow them to target marketing campaigns and activities simply to customers and visitors across this ecosystem, and that would allow them to plan, manage and evaluate performance and brand marketing campaigns. All this with the quality and robustness suitable for a global player and leader in the building products market such as Saint Gobain is. On behalf of Saint Gobain, we speak with Tomas Cech, who obtains the company’s digital marketing (Director of Online Marketing).
The entire project, including the preparation of the terms of reference and the definition of the scope of the project, took approximately half a year.
One of the biggest challenges was the coordination of individual developers. In a company this large with multiple websites, developers come from different countries, companies with different task assignment systems, and of course they have different web analytics knowledge and practices.
Marek Cech
Solution
We offered a workable solution and methodology to keep a unified measurement on individual projects, enabling centralized marketing management across divisions.
Thanks to the cooperation with the parent company, the Czech division of Saint Gobain took advantage of the advanced features of Google Analytics 360 – a paid version of Google Analytics. The biggest advantage is the ability to set up a so-called Roll-Up property to facilitate the connection of data from multiple sites.
It also uses the function of speeding up the loading of less standard reports (e.g. using secondary dimensions or longer time periods) and the possibility of using multiple custom dimensions to accurately distinguish individual user behavior (identifying users across portals, behavioral information). Such a complex project included, of course, training the marketing department and providing service and guarantees for the services delivered.
Challenge – calculator measurements to EEC
In the initial tender documentation, a lot of attention was paid to setting up measurement calculators – the so-called step guides that guide users through the selection of individual building materials.
It is not an e-shop, but a guide – it adapts to the user according to the selected items. The biggest challenge here was to create a unified measurement system that would stand up to more complex calculators and allow for quick analysis and insight into the collected data. The data is collected in order to reveal weak points of individual applications, but also to discover strong points.
Technically, as much of the measurement as possible has been adapted to EEC (Enhanced Ecommerce) measurement standards, which most online specialists are familiar with, eliminating the need for complex training. During the implementation, there was also close collaboration with the PPC and SEO specialist to properly link all accounts and send the right data to them.
Future development
The solution is tailored to the customer’s needs and from the beginning it foresees future development and addition of other websites to the existing system. Due to the number of technologies and content management systems used, the solution was designed from the beginning through the data layer. In this case, the developers guarantee the consistency of the data sent to the data layer, from where it is then taken over to other systems (Google Analytics, advertising systems, mail systems, etc.).
Results
The main outputs include:
- well set up Google Analytics accounts and Google Tag Manager containers with consistent data across the company’s web projects
- a clear measurement methodology that is applied across the company’s sites
- clear and automated reporting of metrics and marketing KPIs that enables performance management of marketing
- refined targeting of PPC campaigns and more detailed reporting based on the data collected
- monitoring and quick detection of measurement failures and their correction
The outputs are now being used to accurately segment customers, target campaigns more precisely, evaluate campaigns in detail and make campaigns more effective, and thereby maximizing marketing profit.
What does Tomáš Čech say about the results?
When my team started working on complex digital activity management, the main problem we faced in the beginning was the chaotic setup of website measurement. The main disadvantage I saw was that we were looking at each site separately, rather than measuring the performance of individual sites across the entire ecosystem. For a global company, the set methodology and perfect documentation in English proved to be a key output and we are already in talks to implement the methodology in other countries.
He adds:
I can already see that we have saved dozens of hours per month spent on reporting on inconsistently measured websites that we used to do for calculating marketing KPIs. At the same time, by measuring site performance comprehensively and correctly, we are saving tens of thousands per month in campaign management and optimization. What I also really appreciate about working with Archetix is their working approach, where I perceive that on the other side is not just a paid agency, but a partner who is actually trying to move our project and the whole business forward. It is a real cooperation.
For a global company, the set methodology and perfect documentation in English proved to be a key output and we are already discussing the implementation of the methodology in other countries.
Used products from web analytics
- Cross-domain measurement – Set up measurement across multiple domains to detect user movement between projects.
- Analytics on the web ecosystem – Deploy measurements to different web platforms across the ecosystem and unify measurements.
- GA and GTM documentation – Preparation of documentation for setting up Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager – here in English.
