What's a visit worth?

What is the average value of a visit from a certain website worth to you? Can you, for instance, measure the average value of a visit to your site from someone who clicks on your AdWords ad as compared to someone who gets to your website by typing your URL directly into their browser? (See google[cpc] versus direct[none] in the image below - click to enlarge.)

The answer can be found in the sometimes overlooked $/Visits column found in the Google Analytics conversion reports, including Campaign Conversion, Source Conversion, Overall Keyword Conversion and CPC vs Organic Conversion. In fact, because this metric is found in so many reports, you can compare per-visit values for organic search referrals, paid keywords, CPC campaigns -- and almost anything else you can think of. It's a great comparison metric that can help you shift your marketing budget to high-performing traffic sources and keywords.





To calculate $/Visits, Google Analytics adds and averages the total "revenue" from your conversions. This revenue might be from e-commerce sales or from static values that you assign to non-ecommerce goals. Thus, as with any endeavor, goals and goal values are necessary. You'll need to set them up in order to see metrics such as $/Visits as well as ROI and RPC (Revenue per Click), which you'll find indispensable for optimizing your keyword buys.

To learn how to set up goals, take a look at the Help Center article "How do I set up goals?"


Posted by Alden DeSoto, Google Analytics Team