How Franchisors Can Use Google Analytics to Drive Franchise Growth

In order to properly develop marketing strategies to capture new franchise prospects, franchisors need to first understand the behavior of their current prospects. Google Analytics is a tool that can help franchisors identify patterns, understand demographics, track content success and see the digital assets (such as portals and social media channels) that are generating inquiries. While many franchisors hire a third-party company to handle data analysis, brands need to understand this data internally as they are the ones who know the brand the best. When it comes to franchise development, Google Analytics is perhaps the most powerful tool in evaluating where to spend dollars and how to create a strategy for growth.

To get started, franchisors need to make sure that the analytics are set-up for conversion tracking, as this will help brands identify a valuable dataset in regards to leads and franchise growth. To do this, franchisors should set-up the Analytics dashboard so that when a user completes a certain action, Google can record that as a goal achieved. For example, a brand can set a goal in analytics for when a user fills out a form on their website, downloads the information package or any other action. These would be considered conversions and are an essential datapoint to build the rest of the development strategy around.

Second, considering the importance of a franchise development website in today's landscape, it is also important to have two separate Google Analytics dashboards set up for the franchise site and the consumer site. 

“The value of a brand’s website is such a critical part of the franchise development process,” said 1851 Franchise publisher Nick Powills. “This is why the URL should be separate from the consumer site — it creates stronger SEO value on the franchise sales side and ensures that ad success can be properly tracked. For example, it has traditionally been very hard to track the results of print advertising, but by adding analytics to the franchise development URL, brands can see the direct conversion results of their marketing spend. Considering the franchise development site is one of the main driver’s of leads nowadays, franchisors need to be investing in its success in every way possible.” 

There are several data points that are being filled everyday by Google Analytics, including age range, gender, interests or behavior. Franchisors have the opportunity to evaluate their website’s performance per demographic, as well as gather valuable information about growth markets, content success and more. In addition, Google Analytics offers real-time tracking of website activity, so brands can accurately and immediately understand data as it comes in. 

“Know your target, know your persona,” said Powills. “So many brands don’t stop to understand who they are looking for and align that target candidate with who is clicking on their website. For example, if the ages 18 to 24 aren’t financially qualified to buy my burger franchise, I need to adjust my marketing strategy and budget to reflect that.”

Brands can also look into time spent on the site by users in order to understand if the people visiting the site are actually staying there. Also, brands can evaluate what the users are doing when they get to the site, whether that be how many pages they are viewing or their browsing activity. Determining if users stay will help show if brands are reaching the right people — those who are actually interested in learning more about the franchise brand and may one day invest.

Google Analytics also offers franchisors target market support. It is incredibly valuable to understand a brand’s top ten geographic markets in terms of user activity and conversion rate as brands can correlate that to the demand in that area. If there is a particular city, state or region responding to messaging, brands should put more focus there. Many brands strive for a localized approach in franchising, and looking at the site’s performance in specific regions through Google Analytics can help with that strategy. Then, franchisors can create a piece of content that explains why this brand is a prime business opportunity in a certain area, promote it on social media, contact validators in the area and generate some PR in that market. 

When it comes to evaluating the success of ad campaigns, Google Analytics allows brands to see activity on a certain day and certain time. For example, if a franchisor ran an ad on Linkedin on a specific day, they will be able to see the resulting impact on their  website that day. Here, franchisors should also evaluate their bounce rate (how often users quickly leave the site). “Your ads may technically be working online, but you may be driving people that are undercapitalized, and you may be wasting marketing dollars on the wrong people,” said Powills.

Beyond this, brands can dive even deeper into referral sources, evaluating the conversion rate of every website that links back to the main site, including Facebook, Twitter, Indeed and others. 

Further, franchisors should make sure to analyze  all of their marketing initiatives collectively in addition to Google Analytics from the franchise development website. Social media pages and a brand’s consumer site are good resources for candidates who may be researching the brand before getting in touch with the franchise development team.

“It is all about taking the data that is available and putting it to work,” said Powills. “In order to successfully get the brand in front of franchise prospects, franchisors need to be smart with where they put their dollars and their messaging. Google Analytics offers a rare and fascinating opportunity to control all of this data in one place. If a brand wants to create the strongest franchise development process possible, the blueprint can be found within Google Analytics.”