Google Analytics Page Value - Help please

[halloranc]

Hi,

I am trying to understand Page Value in relation to our site a bit better and hope someone can help.

My understanding is that the equation for Page Value is - (transaction revenue + goal value) / unique pageviews.

Our website is non-transactional, however the page view values I see are not simply goal value / unique pageviews.

How is Google Analytics calculating Page Value for a site with no transactional revenue? Also can we assign or change this?

Thanks!

[SorinaDascalu]

If you are seeing something different then zero next to the Page Value it means that even if you have a non-transactional website, someone set up a Goal value in Google Analytics. 
Google Analytics doesn't assign any monetary value by default. Check your Goals declaration to discover the ones that were set up by somebody in your team with monetary value.

[halloranc]

Hi Sorina,

Thanks. We do have a goal value and that is set. However the equation for page value is Transaction revenue + total goal Value / unique pageviews.

So I know that our goal value is 10 but where is Google Analytics getting the total goal value from? I don't think it can be conversion off the actual page itself and also is Google assigning anything for transaction revenue?

Thanks

[SorinaDascalu]

Casey,

In your case the transaction value is 0 (zero). You only have the goal value.
The Total Goal Value is the number of goal competitions multiplied by the goal value. So if you have 20 goal competitions for your goal that is set up with the $10 value, then you have a total goal value of 20 x $10 = $200.

As for page value:
Let's say a visitor visits 5 different pages of your website when he completes the Goal you set up as having $10 value.
That means Google Analytics will assign to each of these pages a $10/5 = $2 value for this visit.

Please note the above example is just a simple one I thought will help you better understand the concept.

[halloranc]

Thanks again Sorina,

Simple is best :). Here is a real example I have from Google Analytics-

Over a period of 6 days we had 123 goals (the value of this goal is set at $100). That is site wide.

Over the same period a specific page had 2,345 Unique Pageviews.

Google is giving me a page value (for that specific page) of $2.47.

However the equation of Total Goal Value / Unique Pageviews gives me a page value of $5.25 (123,000 / 2,345).

Am I doing something totally wrong or is Google adding some other number into this equation?

Thanks

[SorinaDascalu]

Casey, here is the exact quote from Google Analytics' blog on the Page Value topic:

Now there are a couple of things to be aware of. The calculation does not include all transaction and goal revenue for the entire visit. It’s only the goal conversions and transactions that happen after the page is viewed, not before the page is viewed. 
Source: http://analytics.blogspot.ro/2012/07/understanding-and-using-page-value.html

So in your case the number of Unique Page Views you have, 2345 - also includes Page Views that happened after the goal was completed, and these are not taken into consideration when calculating the Page Value.

Let me give you an example: someone lands on your website on an internal page, completes the Goal without going to your homepage and after the goal is completed he is redirected to the homepage.

The visit to the homepage is taken into consideration for the "Unique Page Views" metrics, but is not taken into consideration in the unique page views used when calculating the Page Value.