Conversion rates and SSL

[UpYouGo]

I supply managing and consulting marketing services to medium size travelling company with new website.

We deployed G-Analytics code all over the dynamic site.

The site users can purchase online tickets via SSL secured form.
The next page in the conversion funnel is 'Thank-you-page 'and has address similar to :
https://ssl.domain.coml/index.php

I've set the page full URL address in the Analytics as Exact match Goal type.

20,000 page views later, the client real conversion rate is less then 1% but according to Analytics Goal it's more like 10%.

I assumed the SSL address is the problem for Analytics, so to solve the gap I've asked the webmaster to change the Thank-you-page address to something simple like: http://www.domain.coml/thankyou.html.


The stubborn webmaster claims it's necessary to reply the user with SSL based page after he submitted the credit card details in the secure form.

He suggest to reply with the original address and then to redirect the user (by 301 for example) to the desired simple SSL-free address.

I'm afraid this solution will generate misleading Analytics results because many will exit the page before the redirect completes…

I'm not a web developer but I know that after the secure form there's no need for SSL.

The web server is dedicated Apache with mod rewrite enable.
.
Any ideas how to solve the problem ?

[beu]

You'll need to setup GA for this:
http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55528

also note:
"Redirects in landing pages can often obstruct the Google Analytics code from launching and properly identifying the visit as coming from a paid search campaign. For example, if your ad leads to mydomain.com/index.html, but you've created a 301, 302, or JavaScript redirect from that URL to mydomain.com/page2.html, the campaign information that was originally appended to the landing page will be lost upon redirection."

http://www.google.com/support/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55610

[UpYouGo]

Thanks for the reply!

The site main goals is to generate online purchasing and leads and because they share almost the same funnel except the last form and thank-you pages, so I don't know if e-commerce GA option is better then Ecaxt match Goal option.

Can you explain the difference between the two options ?

[beu]

Sure and welcome to SEW by the way!

Just saying that if you want to track https pages with Google Analytics you'll need to set up Google Analytics to do so.

As far as the 301 GA won't track because there is no analytics code in a 301 or 302 redirect. This will also require special settings.

[UpYouGo]

I forgot about the ecommerce. I did choose the ecommerce site option few days ago...but it didn't helped.

(I didn't specified a funnel for the Goal)

Anyway-I wrote the description of the goal process, maybe it will add some clarity:

Phase one (where all of pages is none-mandatory or optional for the goal)
Home page or inner search or products groups
Various URL's

Phase two (mandatory in the flow)
The specific product page
URL example:
http://www.example.com/?mode=productinfo&id=1234567890

Phase three (mandatory in the flow)
The Secure CC transaction form
URL example:
https://ssl.example.com/?mode=order& productinfo=1234567890

Phase four (mandatory in the flow)
The 'thank you page'
URL example:
https://ssl.example.com/index.php

How do think I should do to solve it?


BTW
GA and AW support really sucks imo :mad:-they keep sending links as their main answers even if it's clear it wouldn't help.
Maybe the helpdesk manager forget that we know something about searching…