Google Analytics Report

2019
 PART ONE – July 2018 / August 2018 Monthly Comparison

Product Sales

Observation: The monthly e-commerce

overview report for July and August 2018
reveals that the total product revenue for July
is $126,495.63 and $107,854.22 for August.
This indicates a 17.23% drop in total revenue
from July 2018 to August 2018. Interestingly,
there are no observable trends or patterns in the
large majority of the months’ days; apart from
one “outlier” July day with an unusually large
reported revenue income.

The abnormal spike in revenue

reported on the 26th July 2018 can be traced to
impressive sales generated for three items (see
right). However, zero revenue is reported for
these same three items during the month of August. This should be viewed as highly unusual activity, especially as all these
products were successful in bringing in some form of revenue during the prior months of April, May, and June 2018. It is
highly unfathomable that the YouTube 3 Lines Tee Grey, which generated roughly $3000 in April, $850 in May, and $260
in June, was somehow able to rake in $20,000 in sales during July and then followed with zero revenue in August. Most
likely, this abnormal activity is the result of payment tracking errors or failure to accurately capture the true e-commerce
data.

Channel Performance Data

Observation: Social media represents the fourth most popular source of customer
traffic and acquisitions for both July 2018 and August 2018 in totality. YouTube
serves as the dominator of this category, boasting 90.49% of all July social media
acquisitions. However, a significant drop in YouTube’s user acquisition
performance is evident in August 2018 with only 78.39% of all social media
acquisitions.
This noticeable decrease in YouTube’s acquisition figures could
possibly be the result of a decreasing or re-shifted focus. That is, the marketing or
campaigning efforts initially driving YouTube user acquisition are now being
redirected from this social media channel to elsewhere. Why? Despite having more than 6,000 users acquired via the YouTube platform in July 2018, the average session duration is reported to be roughly one minute,
and the e-commerce conversion rate and transactions rate reports zero transactional or revenue benefits. Upon further investigation of YouTube’s user acquisition performance, we also discover that in July 2018
results were also a continuous drop from the results of the prior month, June 2018 (see below). Similarly, for June 2018, YouTube’s user acquisition generated a poor e-commerce conversion and transaction rate (see
below.)
 YouTube’s user acquisition history, while the number of users recruited is appreciable, the conversion to business transaction is direly poor. It is likely that acquisition efforts were redirected from the
social media channel to the top three performing channels – organic search, direct search, and referral – where the average session duration is much longer than that of social media’s and where the e-commerce
conversion rate is much more lucrative and attractive business-wise. This can be further evidenced by the observation where the statistics and figures for all three aforementioned acquisition channels exhibit small
increases in August 2018 in comparison to July.

Acquisition and Behavioral Data

Observation: The figures reporting customer referrals to the

Google Merchandise Store from the top performing extension
websites – such as Googleplex, Google Search Engine, and
Google Analytics – remain quite stable between July 2018 and
August 2018. However, despite YouTube being the second most
popular trafficker or source of referred users, a dramatic reduction
is evident in the reported number of acquired users between July
and August 2018.

As touched on during the previous section, this steady

decline in YouTube’s user acquisition figures may indicate that
campaigning/marketing efforts are being redirected away from
YouTube. With a consistently poor average session duration, the
lowest of session rates, the highest bounce rate out of all sources,
and little to no effects on translating acquisitions to transactions –
despite the appreciable number of acquired users – it is highly
plausible that acquisition efforts were also redirected to the more
responsive sources. This is

further evidenced by the increases in performance of the other

referrals’ sources.

E-Commerce
In examining the July and August 2018 results of order coupon utilization by users on the Google Merchandise Store, no discernible patterns or trends emerge from the five coupon categories presented (see below).
This can be attributed to the fact that coupon implementation is not a consistent strategy; for instance, coupons will not be handed out in regular, consistent time intervals and they will not always represent the same
discount every time for every customer.

In looking at the coupon activity for the Google Merchandise Store in July and August 2018, we are able to spot that $30,169.94 of July’s total product revenue was subjected to discounted shipping via a
coupon code. The same coupon code was likely not applicable by the time it reached August 2018, accounting for the $0 revenue relating to the coupon codes. Similarly, $112.17 of July’s revenue depended on a
Summer Sale coupon, which possibly expired or became unusable by the beginning of August. Once again, this would account for the $0 related revenue.

All in all, this report demonstrates that the offering of coupon codes can have an distinguishable effect on the total revenues from Google’s web e-commerce store and its in-app transactions. With
couponed orders being an inconsistent, unpredictable, and scattered transaction marketing strategy, it creates room for volatile results on the overall e-commerce performance. Perhaps it can be said that the use of
order coupon codes can be strategically implemented or integrated into consumer shopping baskets to manipulate end-sales, ultimately affecting monthly sales performance.
 July 2018 / August 2018 Monthly Comparison
PART TWO – Female Products and Campaign
Our Audience

A report generated for the gender demographic from 1 st March 2019 to 31st May 2019 reveals that approximately one third of Google Merchandise Store’s user demographic are female (33.19%). A closer
inspection of this specific gender demographic spotlights, the domineering age range for our female website demographic is the 25 to 34-year-old category (49.89%) (see above).
Therefore, to kick start initial efforts to expand the website’s female userbase, it is recommended that campaigning efforts or communication mainly focus on appealing to this dominating age group
of females, rather than all females as the general target audience. In this way, the specifics interests and trends of this female age group can be targeted and elevated to our advantage.

Paid Keywords

March 2019 April 2019 May 2019

Investigating the top paid keywords searched by female users during the individual months of March 2019, April 2019, May 2019, we are able to see that Google branded merchandise is unsurprisingly the primary
prerogative (see above). Moreover, in viewing the individual monthly reports, we are able to see that the types of Google-branded merchandise most-often specifically searched for include apparel/clothing, “swag”
and bags.

“Google Merchandise Store” remains as the top paid keywords for all three months; however, with this we are unable to get the specifics of what customers may be looking for or what specific merchandise they
are expecting to find on the webstore. Simply, with an additional exploration of the product performance by category for March 2019, April 2019, and May 2019, we can generalise that Apparel remains the most
sought-after product category (for both genders) with other product categories trailing loosely behind.
 March 2019 April 2019 May 2019

Channels

The above left snapshot represents the aggregated figures regarding the acquisition of female website users between the 1 st March 2019 to 31st May 2019 (see right). With this, we are able to see that a large fraction
– more than half – of female users acquired discover the Google Merchandise Store via an organic search. Following in second and third place, very scantily, is by referral at 16.14% and by direct search at 13.50%.
With such a large gap between the first and second most popular channels of female user acquisition – this may serve as an area of interest in our campaign to increase female traction.
As Organic Search is proving to be doing quite well, it may be beneficial to share campaigning focus and efforts with a different channel. That is, for the sake of our campaign to increase the female
userbase and activity from our specific target market, Referral seems to be the next most attractive channels of acquisition. As depicted in the top right snapshot above, Googleplex and Google Analytics are
attractive sources of referred users.

Recommendations

 Use long-tail paid keywords about products of interest to our existing 24-35-year old female audience, with constantly new content to stay relevant and updated. Such keywords should primarily
focus on Google Merchandise Store women’s apparel (shirts, sweaters, etc.) and bags. (Keyword + Content strategy)

 A hybrid coupon code referral system from Google-related websites, Googleplex and/or Google Analytics, to further drive female interest and purchasing activity. A referral with coupon system for
something in return (e.g. free shipping) can grab female interest even further.

 With our chosen target audience (i.e. 24 to 35-year-old females) being relatively young, a flash/discount sale or a student sale on women’s bags, apparel, and accessories may spark interest in the
Google Mercndise Store.

PART THREE – Remarketing Campaign

 Remarketing Strategy 1

Target Audience:
Returning customers who exited the Google Merchandise Store from the /basket.html page.
As illustrated in the report snippet above, roughly 9% of returning customers in the period of 19 th May 2019 to 19th June 2019 left the Google Merchandise Store after putting products into their
shopping baskets and subsequently viewing the basket page. By targeting this audience, we can attempt to reverse the basket abandonment tide which sits at 68.01% for returning users in the
aforementioned period.

The Strategy:
Rather than reaching out to the target audience via social media channels a few days or weeks after interaction with the Google Merchandise Store, the remarketing campaign should follow up on
customers and their shopping cart status immediately. That is, at least within hours of website interaction and bouncing to make an efficient attempt at increasing conversion rates. The remarketing
campaign should not be a one-off affair. Rather, for remarketing, two or three exposures should be made to increase the customer recapture rate.
Furthermore, rather than sending out the same message over and over, ideally a progression of messages will be used (e.g. abandoned cart reminder  request to finish purchase reminder 
discount offer to encourage completion of purchase.) If one message is sent out in roughly 3-day intervals, two message campaigns will take 1 week while 3 message campaigns will take around 10
days. Once all the scheduled attempts at recapture fail for the customer, the customer and attempt at remarketing is then expired. If a customer chooses to make a purchase with the second message,
the remarketing effort can also be expired then.

Remarketing Strategy 2

Target Audience:
Returning customers who make up the 32.90% of the customer base that have viewed internal promotions occurring in the period 19 th May 2019 to 19th June 2019.
Despite that there are an appreciable number of views per internal promotion, as shown above, there is a poor translation of those numbers into internal promotion clicks and consequent transactions.
By targeting this audience, hopefully we can gain more traction and interest in the internal promotional campaigns by reminding existing consumers.

The Strategy:
 The expiration time of the audience list or cookie window should be until the end of the internal promotions campaign for the products/product categories in question. If it has been decided that the
internal promotion campaigns will go on for an extensive period of time, the frequency of the audience viewing the remarketing advertisement should be reduced to avoid irritating customers. That is,
if the internal promotions campaign is one month long, the frequency of the remarketing advertisement should be at most, once a week. If the internal promotions campaign is two weeks long, the
remarketing advertisement should be at twice in a week at most to avoid overwhelming the customer with the same content. However, if this remarketing strategy is unsuccessful in recapturing a
potential customer after the internal promotion campaign is over or after one month of the remarketing campaign (if the campaign is longer than a month), the audience list should be expired.

Remarketing Strategy 3

Target Audience:
Customers who left the Google Merchandise Store without exerting site search efforts and left/bounced from the webstore without making a purchase.
As illustrated in the above, returning visitors who do not conduct a website search make up 32.10% of the users acquired within the period of 19th May 2019 to 19th June 2019. Moreover, of the
32.10% of total sessions, 36.93% of them bounce from the webstore. Despite the highest average session duration of over 4 minutes from consumers, only 43 transactions were completed in the given
period, resulting in an e-commerce rate of 0.18%. Although this conversion rate surpasses that of new visitors who do not conduct a site search, the conversion rate has much more room for growth.

The Strategy:
The attempt at remarketing towards the chosen target audience for this strategy should expire after a minimum of two weeks but less than one month. Given this time period, ideally remarketing
messages will reach customers once or twice per week; any more than this may result in annoying the consumer and/or over asserting the remarketing communications. If the consumers do not
respond to the remarketing messages after the length of the campaign, the audience list must be expired until reaching the following month (where the next list of bounced-without-search users can be
remarketed towards.)

PART FOUR – Page Optimization

/Home
Currently, the Google Merchandise Store home page takes an average
loading time of 4.49 seconds and exhibits a page speed score of 63 for
the period of 19th March 2019 to 19th June 2019. Optimization of the
home page loading speed is key, considering that the long loading time
for the home page is highly likely a large contributor to the alarmingly
high bounce rate of 40.18% and exit rate of 32.54%. Improvements in the home page’s loading speed are likely to see improvements or a decrease in bounce rate and exit rate, as:

 Internet service testing and reviewing website, Skilled, discovered in 2017 that 79% of customers who are dissatisfied with a website’s performance are not likely to utilize the same e-commerce website or
service again. Moreover, 64% of smartphone customers expected a website to load in 4 seconds or less, while 47% of online customers expected web pages to load in 2 seconds or less. Simply put, the
faster the loading speed of the website, the happier your visitors are and less likely they are to bounce from the website without any activity. In other words, optimizing the loading page for the starting
point of the Google Merchandise Store can lead to noticeable improvements in customer reception and impression, experience, conversion rates, and sales revenue.
 A study by Akamai, the leading content media delivery network services provider for media and software delivery, reported that a shocking 75% of online shoppers who experience page loading issues
leave and will not return to the website. With this, we are able to conclude that loading speed is a key factor in establishing brand credibility and establishing interactions with the webpage.
 With Google being a multinational technology company, specializing in internet-related services and products, slow page loading and an interruptive Google Merchandise Store shopping experience may
lead customers to have frustrating associations with the technology powerhouse’s brand name. Therefore, home page optimization is essential in order to minimize customers bouncing off from the
starting page.

/Basket

 With 34.62% bouncing from the basket page and 23.71% of website users exiting after viewing the page (see above), implementing good practices to diminish the basket abandonment rate is an absolute
priority for the Google Merchandise Store to increase revenues and conversions.

 Shopping cart abandonments are a major issue for e-commerce sites. Customers frequently abandon their shopping carts and baskets because they were simply “browsing”, but the most likely scenario
behind the relatively high bounce % and exit % are that customers:
o Run out of time or the page does not load
o Do not want to have to make an account on the website
o The payment process is too complicated with tedious information entry
o Their preferred payment is not available

 The Basket page must be optimized as even recovering a few of these sales can make a significant difference to the Google Merchandise Store business and give the website the revenue needed to succeed
and grow.
/aSearch.html

The Google Merchandise Store’s search page exhibits a concerningly high bounce rate of 49.59% for the period, 19 th March 2019 to 19th June 2019. With e-commerce navigation being a critical component when
you have a lot of categories, variably products, or products with numerous options, webpage optimization also becomes a significant area of focus. Nothing is more frustrating and maddening than a cumbersome
menu; the quicker customers are able to search and find what they want, the quicker you are able to move them all the way through to the purchasing process. Therefore, the search page must improve in its user
friendliness because:
  Many customers tend to skip the navigation menu altogether and simply rely on the search page / faceted search page to drill through product listings. If an e-commerce website’s search functions are
poorly designed and cannot facilitate the customer’s needs, it may drive them away from the website. With faceted search getting complicated quickly, the aforementioned reasons may be a key driver
behind the high bounce rate behind Google Merchandise Store’s high bounce rate.
 Poor website navigation means taking a longer time to find a specific product and difficulty in discovering new products. A top practice would be to utilize a filtering system to help customers easily find a
type of item – e.g. by category, colour, size, cost, sale, etc. Breadcrumbs could also be implemented based on both product hierarchies (where they fit within a range) and a customer’s history (where they
have previously visited on the website.) Currently, the Google Merchandise Store is lacking in providing such functions.

Category Pages

Surprisingly, category pages represent 5 of the topmost visited pages in the period of 19th March 2019 to 19th June 2019. Despite the respectable number of entrances garnered on each of the pages, such as
/apparel/mens/mens+t+shirts, each of the category pages also exhibit relatively high bounce rates. With such a large fraction of customers leaving the page without any interaction with the products, we can also
assume that this will negatively impact on the basket-to-detail rate of any items within those categories.

 Category pages can be tricky in that too little content makes the page look thin, whereas too much content can confuse the consumer. Therefore, category pages must have the right amount of content in
order to appeal to customers and entice them with the item, thus improving the basket-to-detail rate.

 By optimizing category pages and being selective with the content displayed, the customer’s experience can be enriched. The right level of product information is required for customers who already have
an idea of what they want to buy, but also cater to customers who require every last bit of product detail information. By optimizing the page to layer the information (e.g. cost, make, colour, model, etc.),
both types of customers can be catered to.

 As the basket-to-detail rate has a lot in common with the issue of page bouncing and consequently, the cause of cart abandonment, we can predict that an improvement in a customer’s experience and
interaction with product pages will lead to an overall improvement in purchases made and transactions completed.

PART FIVE – Sales Funnel Optimization

 Observation 1
 An extremely poor session-to-transaction rate of 0.0012% for the period of 19th March 2019 to 19th June 2019. (215,133 total sessions to 272 sessions completed with transactions.)
 Moreover, the above shopping behaviour analysis reveals a concerningly high basket abandonment rate of 25.44% and check-out abandonment rate of 95.38%.

o Recommendation: Make Google Merchandise Store easy to purchase from.

 Eliminate unnecessary steps or fields in the checkout process that could dissuade a customer from converting and break up the checkout page into bite-sized pieces. As the checkout
process can get very tedious, simplifying the process allows the user to absorb all the information needed to be completed without getting overwhelmed. A visual process indicator may
be useful in helping the customer see how far they are from completion.

 Timers should not be implemented to pressure customers into making a purchase, nor should it require them to restart the purchasing process. Whenever possible, enabling the auto-
complete capability is beneficial in helping to reduce the time required by customers to complete a purchase. Moreover, it helps to reduce the number of fields or amount of information
a user has to manually enter at the purchase point.

 Improving the mobile user experience and responsive design ensures that customers on their desktops, laptops, and smartphones alike will have an enjoyable and pleasant shopping
experience wherever they are. By implementing a responsive design, the Google Merchandise Store can automatically adjust itself to any screen size. This in turn translates to a seamless
and simple user experience.

Observation 2
 80.33% of new users exhibit zero shopping activity whilst 71.76% of returning users do not exhibit any shopping activity. This entails a very poor number of shoppers are actually interacting and looking
at merchandise on the Google Merchandise Store.

o Recommendation: Entice your customers.

 As we are looking to increase customer interaction and activity within the Google Merchandise Store, we cannot ignore the potential of implementing opt-in offers. That is, prompts
which encourage customers to sign up for newsletters, mailing lists, or loyalty programs. Through this strategy, perhaps customers interested in making a purchase can be tempted with
free or discounted products and service from time to time. Even if the Google Merchandise Store cannot offer free apparel or bags, it is just as easy to give away small promotional
products, free shipping, two-for-one offers, and other reward-based incentives. Such strategies can favourably boost how customers perceive and actively look for the Google brand.
Consequently, it can result in higher activity and sales.

 Efforts should also be made to lessen the loading time for all pages where possible. When a user has to wait more than two three seconds for a page to load, it can contribute to an
incredibly poor and frustrating user experience. Improvements in loading time for webpages may see an improvement in shopping activity as more people who initially bounced from
slow loading are retained.
 Perhaps a loading message with a timer or other indication of loading progress can be implemented as customers are more likely to stick around and wait if they know precisely
how long they need to wait.

 The alarmingly high rate of customers exhibiting zero shopping behaviour may also be linked to the presentation design of the website. Some key strategies to improve the accessibility
and customer engagement of the Google Merchandise Store is to:
 Focus on a simply and intuitive design.
 Embed various forms of content for the customer – not just text. (e.g. Video is attention-grabbing and is incredibly engaging.)
 Spice up the website design with engaging colours, images, and headings to make certain areas more prominent.

Observation 3

 Shopping abandonment is one of the biggest issues for many e-commerce businesses and the Google Merchandise Store is no exception. With the basket abandonment rate for new and returning shoppers
in the 78.42% and 70.91% respectively, and the check-out abandonment rate for new and returning shoppers 93.65% and 96.70% respectively, this indicates that action must be taken to remove any
friction that keeps potential buyers from completing their purchase orders.

o Recommendation:

 Implement a check-out process featuring as few steps and few distractions as required. Information overload or cramming all required fields into one page
cannot benefit from a lower abandonment rate.

 If possible, allow users to log in with their Google accounts or Facebook account, rather than a new profile for the Google Merchandise Store specifically.
Making a guest check-out is another option as there is an increasing population of individuals who are hesitant in sharing personal information with data-
gathering third parties such as Google.

 The Google Merchandise Store should also make it simply for customers to switch back and forth between their shopping carts and the shopping experience.
If switches have to be continuously made, back and forth, it is highly likely that the shopping experience and shopping basket will be abandoned sooner or
later.

PART SIX – EU Webstore

Audience
A report for the audience geolocation for
the period of 1st January 2019 to 19th
June 2019 reveals that Europe boasts
being the second largest source
continent for user acquisition (see right.)
While this is attractive upon
first glance, with a closer inspection of
the given report we find that the
European userbase only makes up
roughly 1/5 of the total users acquired in
given the period. More so, the users
acquired from Europe cannot even
match half of the users acquired from
the Americas region in the same timeframe.

The aforementioned acquisition numbers combined with Europe having:

 the second highest bounce rate out of all the continents, just shy of Africa, at 56.47%, and;
 the poorest average session duration of 1 minute 34 seconds out of all the continents, and;
 an e-commerce rate of 0.01% despite 1/5 of users stemming from the European continent, do not make for a good foundation for the proposed EU Webstore.

Behaviour

The report above exposes the behavioral & conversion information regarding the top three continents of user acquisition for the period of 1 st January 2019 to 19th June 2019. With this report we are able to spotlight
the abysmal transaction rates for both new & returning visitors located in Europe, and consequently, the poor revenue income and poor e-commerce conversion rate.

Despite having near 60,000 new visitors during the given period, only 4 transactions were completed, therefore sporting an e-commerce rate of less than 0.01%. It is not significantly better for returning
European customers, where 5 transaction were completed despite having over 11,000 visitors return to the Google Merchandise Store. While the Americas have more than double the number of new visitors as
Europe, the Americas boasts an e-commerce conversion rate twentyfold larger than that of its European counterpart. Similarly, while the Americas have more than triple the number of returning visitors as Europe,
the Americas sports an e-commerce conversion rate sevenfold larger.

Given such a poor financial and transactional performance from Europe despite being the second largest source continent of potential customers, combined with the poorest customer activity as depicted
by the highest bounce rate of all continents (57.98%), it is difficult to encourage the establishment of an EU Webstore. Perhaps the figures and statistics so far indicate that while the userbase is there, they are
simply not interested in the products and service.
Popular Products
Exploring the sales performance for each product category offered by the Google Merchandise Store, specifically shedding light on European customers, we can see that only 1.57% of the total product revenue
stems from Europe. With Apparel swiping first place as the most popular product category of choice at 86.97% of product revenue, but only consisting of 12 unique purchases, the launch of an EU specific
webstore cannot be justified.

In observing the internal promotions data for the same time period, we are able to get a further insight to which internal campaigning efforts our European customers have been exposed to. Shockingly, even though
roughly 34,000 potential customers have viewed five different internal campaigns, with varying results in internal promotion clicks, the internal campaigning efforts are not being translated to satisfactory results.
Despite the appreciable number of views, only 1 transaction is reported to have been made out of all five campaigns. Therefore, the internal promotions data reveals that, simply put, there is not enough interest nor
positive revenue performance from European customers yet to justify allocating money, time, and efforts into opening a EU webstore. The interest is simply not there.

Conclusion
Considering the audience data, behavioral data, and product data above, the launch of an EU specific webstore is highly unrecommended. Although the acquisition figures may justify such a project on the surface,
a more detailed exploration of the European customer base indicates that such a website will not have enough customer traction to make appreciate revenue and survive.