Google Analytics – Top 5 Things You Can Now Do!

March 10, 2009
by Latitude

1- Motion Charts

They allow you to visualise your trends over time. This is a fantastic tool which I have not seen in any other analytics tool or at least not as well done. You can see the bubbles or bars change size, colour and position based on the metrics that were happening in that particular time period. You can then add trials to it to get a visual trend of how a particular keyword or marketing campaign performed. Great tool for spotting spikes and inconsistencies you would not see just by looking at static tables of data.

2- Customising Code

Customising Code in Google Analytics could not be easier. Google Analytics is seen as a basic entry level analytics package but it has grown beyond this over the last 3 or 4 months. Code can be customised to exclude organic keywords (such as people typing the URL directly into a search engine) and to add your own search engine. All great features I have not seen on many free/low cost analytics packages.

3- Segmentation

Segmentation is a common feature found in most analytics packages but Google Analytics has a neat ‘Test Segment’ feature which allows you to quickly see how many results you will get from your segment and breaks it down by each part. This makes the whole segment building process quick, easy and actually more interesting as you can play with different figures to get the results you want without having to render the whole report each time.

4- Custom Reports

They are actually one of Google Analytics weaker features compared to that of its competitors but still a massively powerful tool. Easy, simple and best of all drag and drop! It grays out metrics or dimensions that are not applicable as you build the report so you are not left with invalid reports or warnings.

5- Filters

Filters can be applied to profiles and this is such a great idea and here’s why. One common request by clients is to split out the data by sub directories or by users. In most tools this can only be done through building a segment which does not offer the best way of running isolated reports or limiting users access. Using filters (which are immensely powerful in its own right) and applying them to duplicate profiles in Google Analytics, you can run truly isolated reports and even limit user’s access to the data they see. You then have a master profile where you can run reports on all the data giving you the best of both worlds.

Overall the tool has improved greatly over time and I can only see Google improving it further, especially with the recent release of the Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GA-IQ) exam which shows that they are putting time and resources into Analytics – and we all know that when Google do this, it only means one thing! Analytics is the next big thing…