The eternal battle: Members vs Guests

[Dakis]

We build communities for people that want to get involved in them, that is our Members.

But, in reality, how much interest does a community draw from non-members? Or should I say "people that are not logged in" , as someone may be visiting the community as a guest, but may still have an account. Although I think with the cookies and all, most people are logged in when accessing a community if they have an account.

So I did an interesting search at my google analytics and this is what I came up with for 2,5 months in 2013:

VISITS:

Members 13 %
Guests 87%



PAGES PER VISIT:

Members 14
Guests 4

and therefore:

PAGEVIEWS:

Members 32%
Guests 68%

Thoughts?

 

[ProCom]

@Dakis this is a very interesting topic for me, sorry there haven't been any replies.

I personally build for both "members" and "guests". Members help build the community, but generally it's the guests that click ads and pay the bills.

A big question for you: how did you segment members vs. guests in google analytics?

 

[Dakis]

In vBulletin there was some sort of plugin I think (or some code manipulation or some VBseo magic) that did that.

In xenForo I don't have that anymore

I mean I do get some sort of segmentation but 90% is "unset", look:

I'm not sure if there is a way in xenForo to do this, if there is it would be great if someone shared it!

 

[Jaxel]

I am personally a believer in leaving websites open to guests. Nothing pisses me off more when someone links me to a website, only to find out that I can't even view the content without registering first.

The worst is when people are asking for support... I don't want to register on your website.

 

[Dakis]

I completely agree with you jaxel. I always have my site available for guests. The issue here is if there is a way to track analytics segmented in guests and members.

 

[Jaxel]

I'm not sure if there is a way in xenForo to do this, if there is it would be great if someone shared it!

Add to the template "google_analytics":

_gaq.push(["_setCustomVar", 1, "Registered", "{xen:if $visitor.user_id, 'member', 'guest'}", 1]);

Then in google analytics go to Audience > Custom > User Defined. From there click on the segments bar (its the bar right below the sub-nav which has "customize | email | etc" on it).

Click on "create new segment". Then click on Advanced > Conditions. Here, you can create custom conditions that put visitors into this new segment. Name this segment "Members", and on the custom condition pane, make it look like this:

Custom Variable (Key 1) > exactly matches > Registered
AND
Custom Variable (Value 1) > exactly matches > member

Then make one similar to this for "Guests".

 

[Dakis]

That's awesome! Thanks I'll try it !

 

[Dakis]

Just a question @Jaxel , for the guests part, which custom variables do we use (do we just use key 2 and value 2), and how do we call their values in both cases?

 

[=MGN=RedEagle]

In vBulletin there was some sort of plugin I think (or some code manipulation or some VBseo magic) that did that.

In xenForo I don't have that anymore

I mean I do get some sort of segmentation but 90% is "unset", look:

View attachment 62987

I'm not sure if there is a way in xenForo to do this, if there is it would be great if someone shared it!

How did you setup GA so it would show you that?

We build communities for people that want to get involved in them, that is our Members.

But, in reality, how much interest does a community draw from non-members? Or should I say "people that are not logged in" , as someone may be visiting the community as a guest, but may still have an account. Although I think with the cookies and all, most people are logged in when accessing a community if they have an account.

So I did an interesting search at my google analytics and this is what I came up with for 2,5 months in 2013:

VISITS:

Members 13 %
Guests 87%



PAGES PER VISIT:

Members 14
Guests 4

and therefore:

PAGEVIEWS:

Members 32%
Guests 68%

Thoughts?

Less SEO, more social traffic. I have been having almost as many members online as guests when I check.

 

[Jaxel]

Just a question @Jaxel , for the guests part, which custom variables do we use (do we just use key 2 and value 2), and how do we call their values in both cases?

They all use key/value 1... thats the first number in the setCustomVar line.

 

[Dakis]

So what do we put in the values? "Guest" in both? or "Unregistered" and "guest"

 

[Jaxel]

So what do we put in the values? "Guest" in both? or "Unregistered" and "guest"

Custom Variable (Key 1) > exactly matches > Registered
AND
Custom Variable (Value 1) > exactly matches > guest

 

[Dakis]

Thanks a lot I'm not very proficient with analytics

I'll post results here after a few days we'll see how we go!

 

[Dakis]

How did you setup GA so it would show you that?


Less SEO, more social traffic. I have been having almost as many members online as guests when I check.

I didn't do anything special, it just shows up. I'll see what happens after the changes I made now according to Jaxel's suggestions.

I always have more guests online than members.

 

[Dakis]

I put the extra line of code in the analytics template inside the function, like so:

<xen:if is="{$xenOptions.googleAnalyticsWebPropertyId}"><script>

    var _gaq = [['_setAccount', '{$xenOptions.googleAnalyticsWebPropertyId}'], ['_trackPageview']];
    !function(d, t)
    {
        var g = d.createElement(t),
            s = d.getElementsByTagName(t)[0];   
        g.async = true;
        g.src = ('https:' == d.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
        s.parentNode.insertBefore(g, s);
        _gaq.push(["_setCustomVar", 1, "Registered", "{xen:if $visitor.user_id, 'member', 'guest'}", 1]);

    }
    (document, 'script');

    </script><xen:comment><!--Adapted from http://mathiasbynens.be/notes/async-analytics-snippet--></xen:comment></xen:if>

I hope this is correct!

 

[ProCom]

Wow I'm really glad I bumped this topic!

@Dakis , as a "thank you", if you get it working, could you post a "how to track guests vs. members in GA for Dummies" step by step process?

 

[Dakis]

Yep will do no worries.

It's probably early after I did the changes but it doesn't look like it's working so far.

 

[Jaxel]

http://xenforo.com/community/resources/differentiating-members-and-guests-in-google-analytics.2648/

 

[Moshe1010]

Whatever drastically changed the ratio for me was to limit guests to view up to 10 threads before limiting their access and require them to register.

 

[cdub]

Whatever drastically changed the ratio for me was to limit guests to view up to 10 threads before limiting their access and require them to register.

Did that scare people away and cause people not to use the site? Did it have a negative affect on usage?