Measure how content performs - digital guide

When planning an online service or product, you must develop goals and methods of measuring performance and success...

Measuring performance

Performance measurement is the deliberate act of setting and meeting goals for your website or digital presence. This process assesses and checks if programs and services are meeting their desired objectives.

Measuring digital performance involves collecting, reporting, and analysing outcomes and results. This helps improve your website and social media presence.

Find information on how to measure social media and online public engagement:

• use social media - digital guide(opens in a new window)
• set up a public consultation - digital guide(opens in a new window)

Reasons to measure performance

Continuous improvement

If you don't, it won't meet its objectives and you won't meet your user's needs.

The simplest way to improve is to make evidence-based improvements. Do this by:

• looking at your key metrics often
• 'drilling down' into (or analysing) the data.

Benchmark performance

The metrics below will help you benchmark performance. It's based on common metrics across the Victorian government.

Qualitative feedback is also valid

Quantitative data can't measure everything. Learn how to get qualitative feedback in our research user experience digital guide(opens in a new window).

Sharing what you find

A holistic view of all digital activity allows for better decisions and planning. So, sharing it with other departments gives a big picture view of the kinds of services users prefer. This can be for online or face-to-face.

Each department has a representative on the vic.gov.au Publishing Round Table. They meet every month to discuss performance across digital content, with a focus on vic.gov.au. If you have insights to share, contact your department's digital team.

Join our Single Digital Presence community of practice(opens in a new window). Here you can share your own insights and ask questions.

What you must measure

If you're planning a Victorian government website, you must measure:

1. user satisfaction
2. value
3. discoverability

For transactions you must measure:

• completion rate
• cost per transaction

You must also plan for:

• Google Analytics tracking codes
• privacy.

User satisfaction

You want to measure that your online service meets your user's needs. By tracking user satisfaction, you can find out:

• what users think about the service
• which parts cause them problems or friction. Although, you might discover a pain point you can't do anything about.

As a minimum, place a form measuring the helpfulness of your page at the end of every content page. Make sure it's above the footer, and give the option to add a comment.

All Victorian government sites must use a 'Was this page helpful?' feedback survey. Single Digital Presence sites have a Customer satisfaction dashboard(opens in a new window), which allows you to see the trends over time. This dashboard is currently available for all websites on content.vic.gov.au.

You can use your dashboard to support measuring user satisfaction and other key metrics.

You should look at your dashboard at least monthly. If your 'Yes' rating is dropping you should investigate to see how to improve it. Your comments will give you valuable feedback on how to improve and show you what successful content looks like.

For training and support, visit the SDP Community of Practice resources section(opens in a new window).

Value

There are various ways to measure value but people will use content that is valuable to them. At a minimum, you should consider page usage along with user satisfaction. If your page is getting less than 1000 sessions per year, update or retire it. You can leave low-performing pages untouched if they're published for regulatory reasons.

Search results pages are an exception because it's considered an optional transaction.

Use your analytics dashboard to measure page usage. For training and support, visit the SDP Community of Practice resources section.

Discoverability

Discoverability is mostly driven by Search Engine Optimisation. Referral links through other websites, social media and paid campaigns generally make up the rest.

Given this, all web pages and publication landing pages should:

• be created by the owner of the content and be unique so you're not competing against other Victorian government websites. Look for ways to link to content rather than create a new content page if you want to promote something to your audience
• have an identified target keyword so you know what you're trying to rank for on search
• be on the first page (top 8) of Google for your chosen keyword.

Completion rate (or goal conversion)

To calculate your completion rate:

• count the number of completed transactions
• divide it by the total number of transactions, including incomplete or failed ones
• show the result as a percentage.

Measuring your page load times might alert you to issues that don't show up in completion rate stats.

When a transaction completes

A transaction is complete when someone finishes the task that your digital service provides. This includes when a user:

• submits an application
• makes a payment
• makes a booking.

The service should tell the user the transaction is complete with a confirmation or ‘thank you' message.

A user's application doesn't have to be successful for you to consider the transaction complete. For example, you could consider a transaction complete when the user has submitted an unsuccessful application.

You'll improve user completion rates if you design effective error handling. For example, what will your service offer the user if they have to go back a step?

When a transaction fails

This is when a user gives up before reaching a defined end page (or ‘confirmation page'). This includes when a user abandons the service from an error page.

Configure your service to measure the completion rate

To make it easier to analyse user behaviour, give each step in your service a unique URL. This will help you identify each in your analytics tool.

This becomes more important when you allow people to maintain their transaction state across multiple devices. They might choose to continue from another device.

Measure from the start of a transaction

Most services will have a start page, which should be the only way to access the service. You should only consider a transaction to have started when the user proceeds from your service's start page.

Make sure users can't bypass the start page via links or search engine results.

Know when a service ends

Services often have multiple end points. You must have the right end pages for each of them.

For example:

• one for those who are eligible (that tells them what to do next)
• one for those who are not eligible (that suggests other forms of support)

When a user reaches one of these end pages, you must consider the transaction to have finished.

Counting users who 'save and return'

If your service allows users to resume a transaction later, match the transaction starts to the correct completions.

For example, Google Analytics lets you track the number of times a user returns to complete a transaction.

Cost per transaction

This is the cost each time a user completes the task your service provides. The gov.uk(opens in a new window) site has advice on measuring cost per transaction(opens in a new window).

Calculating your service's cost per transaction allows you to:

• measure how cost-efficient your service is
• use your results to change the service and make it more cost-efficient.

Don't assume that moving users online is cheaper. You must consider the full cost of a transaction across all your service channels.

Some transactions might take seconds online but take several weeks to complete offline. Transaction stages could include:

1. receiving grant application online
2. transferring application offline
3. assessing application
4. interviewing applicant
5. notifying applicant of outcome.

Google Analytics tracking codes

Your website must use our Google Tag Manager(opens in a new window).

Sign up for the Google Analytics 360 government contract(opens in a new window) to get the most from your analytics. Contact analytics.team@dpc.vic.gov.au to find out how to report into our analytics account.

Privacy

You must follow the Privacy and Data Protection Act 2014(opens in a new window). Refer to the protect privacy - digital guide(opens in a new window) for more information.

How to measure performance

You should have specific measures that relate to your objectives. Use these as a guide:

Relevance

Consider your goals for the website and ask if it's:

• findable
• accessible
• usable.

Findable

Once the user perceives the product as valuable (offline), could they find it:

• via a search engine, like google?
• in a quick and easy way?

Accessible

After the user finds the product or service, was there anything that prevented them from accessing it? For example, the technology, the language, etc?

Usable

After the user accessed product or service, could they complete their task? Was it done in a quick and easy way?

Successful content

Measuring the success of informational digital products or services can be difficult.

Try combining a range of metrics and collecting user feedback. This will help you discover if your content helps users do what they need to do. If not, why not? And can you act on this feedback?

Use the below to measure the relevance and success of your digital content.

You can track digital marketing campaigns by using UTM (Urchin Tracking Monitor) parameters(opens in a new window). You can see how much site traffic originates from your campaign. A digital marketing campaign can include:

• paid social media campaigns
• paid search campaigns
• newsletters.

UTM parameters add tags to a URL. Google Analytics can then track whenever a user clicks the URL. This allows you to see where web traffic is coming from, including:

• source
• medium name
• campaign name
• term (AdWords and display advertising keywords) content.

To generate a tag, use our campaign URL generator(opens in a new window)

Successful transactions

Measuring transactions will help you understand if you're meeting your users' needs. A ‘transaction' is when a user completes a task. This can include:

• making a payment
• submitting a form
• downloading a document.

Transactions can also be one of many smaller transactions. For example, with a case management activity.

Use the table to decide the mix of metrics, categories, and measurement tools you need.

Once you decide what to measure, you'll need to decide what success looks like. For example, if users abandon a particular step of a multi-part form, something is wrong. You'll need to research the user experience to find out what.

The same applies if you notice a high number of user errors. Decide how many user errors warrant an investigation.

Use the below to measure if digital (or online) transactions are successful.

You can also use metrics to see if people are finding what they're looking for.

Metrics to use can include:

• frequency of search requests
• search result click-throughs
• search result click-through order (to determine the accuracy and relevancy of search results)
• analysis of search terms.