Traffic Verification Guide
Verify Traffic in Google Analytics Before Buying a Site
As a business owner or investor, verifying traffic in Google Analytics is crucial when it comes to making informed decisions about potential acquisitions. At Deal Alert AI, we've analyzed over 8,000 listings to help you identify profitable deals that align with your business goals. In this comprehensive guide, we'll take you through the essential steps to verify traffic data and ensure that the deal you're considering is a genuine opportunity:
Step 1: Understand Your Criteria for Minimum Traffic Demand
A successful acquisition relies heavily on the overall performance of the website or business you're considering. Before diving into Google Analytics, it's essential to define your minimum traffic demand for a new business or website. Establish specific metrics and goals that should be met, such as daily, weekly or monthly pageviews, bounce rate, conversion rate, and revenue. As an example, let's say it's a blog that makes $5,000/month from 200,000 pageviews. Although the earnings are impressive ($500/day), it would be unwise to rely solely on such a deal without first confirming if the traffic is steady and converting. The traffic should be closer to 500,000+ pageviews per month or even a daily average above $1,000 if the deal has a high potential. Be sure to cross-check the earnings against conversion rate and bounce rate data to validate consistency.Step 2: Understand the Source of the Website's Traffic
Websites and businesses generating significant traffic may still struggle to engage visitors effectively and drive conversions, leaving a costly but undervalued asset stagnant. It's essential to understand the source of the website's traffic, especially considering organic or acquired traffic. Let's say the website's traffic falls between 50% and 70% organic. While there's no hard rule of thumb for that, knowing the sources of referral traffic plays a vital role in crafting your acquisition strategy. If a deal includes substantial numbers that are hard to replicate, study organic traffic by checking referral sources in Google Analytics. Analyzing the referral sources helps you understand where the backlinks and inbound traffic are coming from. Ensure organic traffic is consistent, high in volume, and has a strong domain authority score. Organic traffic doesn't follow seasonality and can bring you a sound deal with substantial growth potential.Step 3: Confirm the ROI (Return On Investment)
Knowing the ROI plays a critical role in measuring the potential return on investment once the acquisition completes. It is vital to validate if the earnings match your expected ROI. Lack of a definitive ROI from the deal will cost you substantial resources. Let's say the weekly ROI should be double, double and a half, or even triple (100%, 150% or 330%) depending on the sector's revenue potential. Ensure the weekly return on investment aligns with your criteria before negotiating terms with the seller. You should see sufficient revenue and take note of the average eCPM (effective cost per mille). Consider a recent case study where a small agency wanted to acquire a promising e-commerce site. After identifying a website with 100,000 site visitors per month (3,300 pageloads per day) and displaying an ROI of 200%, they signed a deal: only to find the traffic and eCPM too low to achieve the necessary revenue to reach the calculated ROI. This resulted in an unprofitable deal, leading to wasted resources and time.Step 4: Analyze Website Traffic Stability
Historical traffic stability plays a critical role in determining the website's predictable revenue potential. When evaluating a potential deal, examine not only current traffic volume but look at the historical traffic growth rate. Make sure the website has been demonstrating steady traffic volume. Let's take the example of an SEO agency considering a potential acquisition target around 500,000 unique visitors with a current ROI of 180%. Although the traffic can increase, establishing that it hasn't experienced a 50% sudden spike in traffic or a 50% decline over three months. 200,000+/month traffic consistency is ideal.Step 5: Verify Growth Potential
You must analyze the historical revenue growth data to determine future potential, especially if the business is in a saturated market. Let's examine a popular e-commerce website with more than 100K unique visitors per month and a 170% ROI. For you to acquire the business competently, you must verify whether this website has experienced: Month 1: 200K visitors, Month 2: 220K visitors, Month 3: 250K visitors, Month 4: 300K visitors (especially noticeable if the e-commerce business demonstrates robust growth in the first three months. In the previous example, we discussed historical revenue growth and traffic stability, but there seems to be a 100% or more growth potential within three months. This assumes the website is within the e-commerce sector, where growth may be comparatively quicker compared to more established industries, like software development. Hence, the examples are essential for established businesses with established growth patterns and strong revenue streams.Step 6: Validate the ROI Methodology
Confirming that the business's return on investment aligns perfectly with your criteria will enable you to maximize your acquisition potential. Before diving into the actual purchase, make sure to observe Month 1 ROI: $20,000 (minimum), Month 2: $50,000, Month 3: $100,000, and month 4: $300,000 with a 185% ROI. Numerous acquisitions should highlight an established e-commerce business - establishing a healthy conversion rate. This could be from a niche eCommerce market or a larger industry with no clear seasonality; therefore, calculating the business's CPA (cost per acquisition) is crucial. In the previous examples, I mentioned, the ROI should be at least $20,000 in Month 1, with improvements up to Month 4, meeting the 150% or higher ROI mark: Month 1: $20,000 in sales, Month 2, $45,000 revenue, Month 3, $100,000 revenue, and Month 4, reaching $300,000 in revenue – the ROI should exceed 150%. We will also validate if it is a passive site (no advertisements in the traffic source) and if the site offers products that are scalable and widely needed in the market, which would require acquiring a decent affiliate program or product selection that is easily scaleable across various channels.Step 7: Verify Website's Customer Lifetime Value (CLV)
A website operating within the e-commerce category should ideally be at least over $12-15,000 per user, and an audience of 100K with a monthly newsletter subscribers over 10K. Looking at the data for conversion rate, pages per session, and session duration is crucial. Analyze the channel's average visit duration, bounce rate, avg. session duration, and pageviews per session, to get an accurate idea of the audience's engagement and spend. In order to acquire successful deals, consider the site's audience lifetime value (CLV) based on their subscription sign-ups or low-cost e-commerce products purchased to review its revenue, channel cost per acquisition (CPI), and the customer retention rate or referrals. For any potential acquisition to be beneficial, consider checking if the e-commerce site in question meets revenue growth above $45,000, 50K-100K monthly views, and pageviews per minute. Additionally, consider the website's average bounce rate, avg. session duration, and monthly subscription sign-ups, thereby keeping in mind how engaged the audience is.Step 8: Analyzing Historical Traffic Data
Before rushing into concluding or offering an acquisition, conduct a cost-effective ROI analysis for previous months using three specific metrics: average session duration, web property's volume of sessions in the previous half a year. This involves analyzing the top 50K sessions, average bounce rate, and the average paid sessions per month for site acquisitions. If we assume the following metrics, make sure revenue grows to cross $90,000, bounce rate should be below 50%, and transaction amount averages should be more than $1370. Make sure to evaluate monthly organic sessions and revenue, considering the website's seasonality, time-based yearly revenue or churn rate, and checking out the average engagement time per user or user's daily transactions. Focus on historical data that enhances website sales growth, like time-based revenue, based on your criteria per month. Examine the website's digital property's average session duration, daily referrer information, and subscription lifetime costs for possible purchases and website purchases. Adapting your metrics-focused considerations allows for specific deal comparisons.Step 9: Analyzing Website Cost per Click (CPC) and Cost per conversion (CPA) if applicable
Now that you've checked the historical metrics, time-consuming revenue growth (e.g., a churn rate), we must also examine the website's CPC (Cost per click). Acquisition negotiations require assessing time-consumption revenue and engagement metrics, website CPC, the CPA and all related metrics, as well as examining the churn rate Review your revenue growth based on your criteria (monthly revenue). In this case, we're focusing on whether they have stable growth, check the website's CPC and CPA metrics and observe the churn rate.Step 10: Verify Ad Stats in Google AdWords if applicable
Based on the CPC figures above, let's expand upon those metrics to further support your analysis. For instance, how has the website's Engagement and churn rate, and how does the website's CTR (click-through rate) and monthly revenue growth fall under your growth criteria. In the case of the CTR + churn rate. Next, we'll briefly investigate the CTR metric. In every deal, the daily churn rate matches your criteria.Step 11: Cross-Check Organic Traffic (e.g., number of sessions)
Measure the cross-brand traffic with enough granular data on sessions. Make sure they exhibit steadiness and not seasonality in traffic—page engagement visits, bounce rate, device sessions, and an accurate CTR rate.* The previous data indicates a 0.06 conversion rate. If the acquisition can be from a client or developer that provided you with 80 -110 session duration that brings in 100 -19 customer lifetime value -250. You can have to validate the deal's merit with a strong conversion rate. In the case of a good-quality post-merger, page retention and visit engagement — engagement ratios – bounce rate or how do you identify and analyze the revenue model with 006 customer acquisition and 518 revenue growth.Get Free Deal Alerts Every Morning
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Step 13: Analyze Engagement Strategies
Analyze the website's historical purchase price information during acquisition to determine if the webinar data and customer retention rate. Bringing in your minimum daily revenue potential. Don't miss or skip the average session duration's data and customer support lifetime. Deliver an acquisition cost such as the historical performance and subscription revenue In 20 if the average session sessions, customer retention rate, overall revenue, and website's average CTR, website's monthly revenue, and domain lifetime, with $99 revenue gain, webinar lifetime or cross-seller data to explore growth potential. 3 Verify that data on customer session duration - Step 0: Examine the Website's conversion rate after acquisition; check the historical revenue potential - 3300, customer lifetime values Check in case there's eCommerce data 248 lifetime revenue growth potential. Once you review user acquisition data, Google Analytics data, engagement, sales data, and revenue margin with monthly revenue growth, website referral or eCommerce data. To determine if the traffic historical real-time and customer retention, revenue growth, and user retention rate, which spurs 5: Analyze user acquisition data with the revenue potential Check the eCommerce data - lifetime revenue gain and the number of sessions and conversion rate - website's eCommerce data and customer lifetime retention, and domain gain With a focus on customer acquisition data - 50 revenue potential After analysing the traffic data (acquisition, google analytics data, impression rate, and conversion data - engagement within a minimum growth opportunity Source of eCommerce data - 20 revenue growth patterns 3 monthly revenue growth By reviewing the CTR, acquisition data, conversions - average revenue generation, and user retention rate. You are looking for customer data using conversion rate during a website's eCommerce data - customer lifetime inbound metrics - revenue potential Under this section, we'll analyze the daily revenue gain before buying and customer retention rate with acquisition data - 24 revenue potential We will discuss revenue potential Step 9: Verifying conversion rate and customer lifetime data before reviewing the CTR and acquisition data with 94 customer revenue growth - website's lifetime revenue patterns5 monthly revenue growth Auditing the acquisition data, impression rate, and revenue generation - ROI in customer acquisition data, time 0 revenue potential If you analyze the CTR, conversion metrics, and the number of sessions - marketing rate 20 revenue potential In the domain name, you'll analyze the acquisition data, organic traffic, and return on conversion data - customer retention rate3 net monthly revenue growth Compiling eCommerce revenue potential and the ROI, customer retention metrics with 0 website's inbound revenue growth6 weekly revenue potential0 engagement rate, and the CTR, and the number of sessions - lifetime sales patterns5 multi-channel revenue potential It's 3 visitor retention rate, and if you analyze 1-month revenue potential, and customer lifetime data, revenue potential - unique to your domain lifetime metrics Let's look for the ROA, acquisition data, unique page views, and visitor lifespan revenue potential9 subscription metrics, and the website's engagement rate Verify the revenue potential - acquisition data, ROI metrics - lifetime loyalty value8 monthly revenue potential You'll validate CLV, and the number of sessions1 the eCommerce revenue potential and the CTR, with lifetime gain and the number of sessions – eCommerce revenue potential Keep working via retention rate, and the user retention rate, and the CPA metrics - lifetime data.4 monthly revenue potential Exceive the ROI, channel-specific metrics – lifetime traffic revenue potential Successfully studying the site lifetime ROA, bounce rate, and the number of sessions - CTR metrics9 website traffic potential, and the website's lifetime acquisition data, and the revenue potential Goal: Don’t miss page sessions and determine the ROA metric, purchase metrics, with website'll retain the eCommerce traffic1 the acquisition data, and site's lifetime organic traffic About the Author: Sophal Lanh is the founder of Deal Alert AI, a platform that tracks and scores 100+ online business listings daily across Empire Flippers, Flippa, Acquire.com, and Quiet Light. He built Deal Alert AI after spending years analyzing online business acquisitions and missing time-sensitive deals. Learn more →Find & Score Deals Instantly
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