It has by now become a tradition for Google to announce new features of it analytics solution during the popular eMetrics events. The company announced its entry into enterprise web analytics during last year’s eMetrics show in DC, when it launched Advanced Segments and its API. This year’s eMetrics show in DC was no different, when Google announced some of its most exciting features yet. Here’s a summary of new exciting features that you can now find in Google Analytics.
Analytics Intelligence
Ever wondered how to navigate through the mountains of data and make sense of them? What do changes in trends mean to your business? Whether you should be concerned about them or not? What if the analytics solution automatically gave you clues about important changes to your site based on past performance and statistical model? Enter Analytics Intelligence. This exciting new functionality automatically alerts you of important site changes based on 11 dimensions and 18 metrics. With this feature, making sense of trend changes becomes an easier task than ever before. Spend less time analyzing data and more time improving your web site.
Customizable Alerts
Although Analytics Intelligence is a great start, web analytics practitioners still know their business better than Google Analytics ever will. The new version of Google Analytics also lets you set customizable alerts based on events that are important to your specific needs. For example, you can create alerts if your social media traffic varies more than usual.
Custom Variables
In our opinion this is the most exciting new feature in Google Analytics. The new version of Google Analytics now lets customers send custom data points to Google to be analyzed as extra dimensions within their analytics account. Want to track additional data per page such as author, category, topic, genre, etc.? You can with Custom Variable. The new version lets you pass up to 5 simultaneous custom variables, with full control of their scope, including whether the variables are set at the page, session or visitor levels.
Extended & Threshold Goals
One of the primary reasons for using multiple profiles was a way to work around the 4 goals/profile limit. The new version of Google Analytics now supports up to 20 goals, with the ability to classify them in goal sets. Additionally, you can now create threshold goals: goals that are set based on engagement thresholds such as the amount of time spent on site or number of page views per session. This is particularly a welcome addition for media sites that need to use engagement thresholds as goals.
Advanced Table Filtering
This feature gives you more control in terms of how you want to filter your data. Example includes the ability to filter data based on multiple dimensions or metrics thresholds such as bounce rate figures.
Expanded Mobile Tracking
As more people use their mobile phones to browse the internet, there’s a growing need to track mobile usage of web site. This feature is welcome news for mobile marketers and site managers who need to better understand their visitor experience.
Unique Visitor Metrics
These new metrics provide a more comprehensive view of the dimensions reported in Google Analytics such as referring sources. Want to know how many unique visitors your various campaigns and marketing programs are generating? This is the answer.
Congratulations to the team at Google for coming up with another impressive release. This release further solidifies Google’s place as an enterprise web analytics solution.
