The Google Analytics team just made a big announcement at the Certified Partner summit – a major overhaul of the Google Analytics platform that they are currently developing and testing. It encompasses four major areas:
1. A new measurement protocol
Instead of the traditional Google Analytics tracking code, data will be sent to Google Analytics through an API, which will reduce the GA cookie size, but more importantly, allow users to send data to Google Analytics from a variety of platforms across the web, not just websites and mobile apps but even POS systems, kiosks, game systems, anything that’s connected to the Internet.
2. User ID control
To track users across multiple devices, the new measurement protocol will allow GA users to append their own unique ID to current GA data. For example, let’s say someone logs in to a website from their tablet – if you pass that information to GA, then the next time that person logs into a website from their laptop, those two visits are tied into 1 visitor. Therefore, if someone clicks on a paid search ad from their smartphone, logs in, then later logs in from their desktop PC and makes a purchase, that purchase will be tied back to paid search.
3. “Hits” from offline systems
The new tracking protocol will allow marketers to send “hits” from their offline CRM systems. Therefore, if a potential customer submits a lead from your website but eventually makes a purchase offline, those two can be tied together. For example, let’s say a prospect submits a brochure request from your website after clicking on an email campaign, then 30 days later, that person visits your store and makes a purchase. When that person’s status is updated in the CRM system to reflect the purchase, the CRM system can send an Event Tracking call to GA, and you can see that someone from an email campaign made a purchase offline.
4. Data import and joining
By linking unique ID information (as outlined above) with existing data in CMS or CRM systems, one can create “custom dimensions” that can be used to segment the data in GA. This can be done through a CSV upload of data from your existing CMS or CRM systems. For example, if you tie unique ID’s to gender, you can see if there is a difference in how women and men use your website, or if people with families have different purchase behavior from those without families.
All these features are currently in limited pilot testing, and some of these features will start rolling out in the first quarter of 2013.
As a Google Analytics Certified Partner, Endai specializes in configuring, managing and analyzing the data you need to get the most out of your website. If you have any Google Analytics issues that need solving, please contact us using the form on the right