What you didn't know about Google Analytics
Our in-house SEM specialist attended the National Google Analytics Conference in Sydney last week. She talks about her experience here.
Day One: Google Analytics Master Class
The 3rd Google Analytics User Conference is finally here! PPC and Analytics gurus around Australia have been looking forward to this annual sell-out event all year. This two day event got off to a flying start with key speakers diving straight into the technical details of latest Google Analytics capabilities and upcoming technology to maximise data gathering, arranging and interpreting.
At The Brand Agency we love satisfying our need/want for the latest web analytics strategies to maximise our ability to extract ‘actionable insights’ out of this big sphere of numbers called ‘big data’.
The industry focus of website analytics has been shifting for some time now to a ‘customer centric’ view where demographics, interests and behaviours are taken into stronger consideration when working to understand online audiences. Tracking movement of one user between various devices is one of the biggest challenges marketers need to overcome. While a foolproof solution is still years away, there are tools and strategies that Google have shared with us today to take one step closer to seeing users as ‘real people’.
Debby wearing Google Glass
Day Two: Google Analytics User Conference
Wow, what an inspiring list of industry experts at the Google Analytics Conference today! From Google Product Managers to Analytics Evangelists (yes, that is a real job title at Google!) we were incredibly lucky to have access to such leaders from all over the globe.
Did you know, “The average Australian will check their phone 150 times a day and spend 162 minutes looking at their mobile device each day.” - Wendy Glasgow
A key focus point today was the notion that “analytics is a process, not a project”. By integrating existing online and offline data into Google Analytics ‘big data’ can start to be organised and managed in order to action change for improvement and enhancement.
A panel discussion at the 2014 Analytics Conference
Some of our favourite Google Analytics features:
Data Import
Make links between offline marketing efforts and online actions.
User ID
Identify users as they move across multiple devices.
Demographic data
Build audience profiles and get to know who your audience is. Use the information to build future campaigns or tweak the website to give the audience what they want.
Custom attribution models
Insights into actions taken during the research phases of a product and how the users got to the website at each stage.
Ultimately, each analytics account should be planned and configured specifically for the client's business objectives. There is no cookie cutter for an effective Google Analytics setup. We're looking forward to next year's Google Analytics User Conference already, and in the meantime will be very busy implementing some exciting new custom plans available through the latest Google Analytics features. If you want to learn more about these features for Google Analytics, please contact your Account Director.