Marketing has always been a changing landscape. In today’s world of new technology, digital marketing has dominated the landscape. Gone are the days when you purchased advertising in a traditional medium and if your sales increased at all, you accepted it as being the result of your ad campaign. With Google Analytics available for tracking, you can now determine some of the most minute variations on a targeted marketing program to develop a better return on investment.
So what exactly does Google Analytics bring to the table? Here is a look at the things you should know about this remarkable marketing tracking system.
1 – It Gives You Incredible Amounts Of Useful Data
Google Analytics will give you some amazing information that can be used in many different ways. The list includes:
– Real-time traffic numbers
– Which visitors are new and unique and which are returning visitors
– The frequency of return visits
– How visitors locate your website
– What websites are sending visitors to yours
– What part of the world your visitors are coming from
– Which pages are being visited most on your website
– How much social network activity your website is getting
– How many visitors leave without visiting other pages on your website
– How long a visitor spends on your website
– The browsers being used by your website visitors
– The speed of the ISPs used by your website visitors
2 – Ease Of Set Up
One of the best things about Google Analytics is that it is so easy to get started. You don’t need to host your website on Google nor are you required to update your DNS records or even verify your identity with your phone. All you need to do is just sign up, enter some code into your website on the pages you intend to track and Google will begin to gather data.
3 – You Can Choose From Free Or Paid Analytics
Google has two different versions of Analytics available. The free version is pretty complete if you consider all the things offered at that level. However, there is no guarantee that it will always be free as Google does have a history of eventually shifting free apps to the paid side of the column.
That being said, the free version is pretty awesome if you are seeking a lot of information regarding the traffic to your website. But there is a distinct difference regarding this type of data when you compare the free and paid versions. Free Google Analytics samples data which means you are receiving more of an average of the stats collected where the premium version presents more accurate numbers.
The paid version of Google Analytics also provides you with direct support, account management, improved data processing, more limits and capacities of data, hands-on implementation assistance and more. It also costs a premium price at $150,000 per year which means major corporations would be the likely customer base.
4 – It Gives You At-A-Glance Data
According to Digital Authority Partners, the power of Google Analytics comes from the many customizable dashboards you can use and focus on just the specific data you want to know about. There are many widgets you use to make the dashboard as custom as you require with such widgets as Visits, Time On Site, Visitor Location, etc. This allows you complete control of the data Google is gathering for you.
The dashboards can be used to also analyze social media interactions, mobile eCommerce traffic and several other areas of interest. It gives you a full suite of options on how you view and analyze the various streams of data. Plus, you can share dashboards with other users and even download apps and dashboards from Google that are designed for specific needs.
5 – It Is Designed For Newbies And Experts
It doesn’t matter if you are launching your first or fiftieth website, Google Analytics is designed for use by anyone seeking traffic data to their online property. The list of options and features is immense and includes:
– You can measure business objectives with goal conversion data
– Your AdWords data can be linked for monitoring your ad campaign results
– eCommerce data is available showing you product and sales performance plus more
– With Advanced Segmentation, you can get a better look at the traffic coming to your website
– Website Administrators get access to even more data including site speed, page load times and additional information to tell you if the server is capable of handling your website traffic demands
– Mobile device traffic can be tracked with Mobile App Analytics which is also easy to set up
– You can visit the Google AdWords blog site for assistance, tips, and support from the community of users
– Google provides tutorial presentations that you can view to learn how to get the most out of the Analytic program
In Conclusion
Google Analytics is much more than just a traffic monitor. Sure, that is the main purpose of the program but what makes it so valuable to web entrepreneurs is the various types of data that it records from that traffic source of information. With new technology creating a greater amount of competition online, digital marketing has changed how ad campaigns reach potential customers.
Target marketing, with data collected from Google Analytics, provides a means to reach out and promote products and services to get an edge on that competition. But to truly understand how successful an ad campaign is online, Google Analytics offers specific data related to where traffic to your website is coming from and what sent them there.
With two different versions of Google Analytics available and the free version that contains a vast amount of information that can be culled from the data being gathered, your website will have a competitive edge. With Google Analytics being so easy to set up and use, you can get started right away. Or if you prefer teaming up with a team of analytics pros, check out this list of companies who can help with all your analytics needs.
