What’s happening in Marketing
Phase 2 of the web redesign project reached a milestone in December by completing all of the undergraduate major pages. The graduate program landing pages are in progress and are expected to be published by mid-February.
The web team is also working on support services pages, with priority given to highly trafficked pages as determined by Google analytics.
Members of the web team meet regularly with Undergraduate Admissions and Graduate Studies to review web traffic, evaluate campaign and direct mail performance, and discuss potential improvements to the sites.
The primary analytics looked at include:
Pageviews: Total number of times a page has been viewed
Unique Pageviews: Number of times a page was viewed by a specific IP address
Time on Page: Average amount of time spent viewing a specific page or screen
Much of our digital marketing efforts have pushed web viewers to specific program pages rather than more general pages such as the MSUM homepage. Here’s a snapshot of web traffic comparing Oct. 1, 2016-Dec. 31, 2016 to Oct. 1, 2017-Dec. 31, 2017.
| Page | Pageviews | Unique Pageviews | Time on Page |
| /graduate/programs | +10% | +17% | +4% |
| /visit | -3.8% | -3.9% | -30.2% |
| /apply | +.7% | -.8% | -4.4% |
Much of our digital marketing efforts have been promoting specific programs, with ads directing users to specific URLs. Traffic on all landing pages are up, but one of the most promising measures is the increase in traffic on the application pages (/admission-application) for the graduate programs.
| Page | Pageviews | Unique Pageviews | Time on Page |
| /special-education | +543.4% | +507.4% | +35.1% |
| /EdD-educational-leadership | +244.7% | +242.8% | -14.2% |
| /mba | +193.6% | +182.7% | +.08% |
| /teaching-english | +128.3% | +107.6% | -17.7% |
| /mba-healthcare | +110.0% | +103.2% | +1.5% |
| /educational-leadership | +107.6% | +121.5% | -26.9% |
| /curriculum-instruction | +95.7% | +73.0% | +13.2% |
| /school-psychology | +76.8% | +61.7% | +14.1% |
| /slp | +26.0% | +17.1% | +5.7% |
| /mha | +99.0% | +98.3% | +21.3% |
| /counseling-student-affairs | +48.0% | +33.4% | +44.4% |
| /accounting-finance | -14.2% | -12.6% | +101.1% |
| /nursing | -15.3% | -3.0% | -12.0% |
If you or your department are interested in reviewing web analytics, please contact marketingteam@mnstate.edu and we’ll set up a time to review your site(s).