Do More With Data: Google Launches New Capabilities for Analytics

Google introduces new features to Google Analytics

Google yesterday announced that it is updating its Analytics suiteOpens a new window with four new features designed to help marketers maximize their ROI.

The new features include:

• Smarter insights that use machine learning to identify trends
• Deeper integration with Google Ads
• Customer-centric data measurement
• More granular data controls

In an announcement, Google cites a study that shows marketers currently find it difficult to get a complete view of customers and glean useful insights from their data.

Google’s update to Analytics addresses that by providing marketers with the data, they need to improve ROI and make long-term plans. “To help you get better ROI from your marketing for the long term, we are creating a new, more intelligent Google Analytics that builds on the foundation of the App + Web property we introducedOpens a new window  in beta last year. It has machine learning at its core to automatically surface helpful insights and gives you a complete understanding of your customers across devices and platforms. It is privacy-centric by design, so you can rely on Analytics even as industry changes like restrictions on cookies and identifiers create gaps in your data. The new Google Analytics will give you the essential insights you need to be ready for what is next,” says Vidhya Srinivasan, vice president, measurement, analytics, and buying platforms, Google.

Also read: AI Powered Campaign Management: Microsoft Launches New Features To Its Digital Marketing Center

Smarter Insights Powered by Machine Learning

By applying Google’s advanced machine learning models, the new Analytics can automatically alert marketers to significant trends in their data – like products seeing rising demand because of new customer needs. It even helps anticipate future actions customers may take. For example, it calculates churn probability so marketers can more efficiently invest in retaining customers at a time when marketing budgets are under pressure. Google said that it would continue to add new predictive metrics, like the potential revenue that a brand could earn from a particular group of customers. This allows marketers to create audiences to reach higher-value customers and run analyses to better understand why some customers are likely to spend more than others, so they can take action to improve results.

 

Deeper Integration With Google Ads

The new Analytics gives marketers a more customer-centric measurement, instead of measurement fragmented by device or by platform. It uses multiple identity spaces, including marketer-provided User IDs and unique Google signals from users opted into ads personalization, to provide a more complete view of how customers interact with a business. For example, marketers can see if customers first discover their business from an ad on the web, then later install the app and make purchases there.

Marketers will also get a better understanding of their customers across their entire lifecycle, from acquisition to conversion and retention. This is critical when people’s needs are rapidly changing, and marketers must make real-time decisions to win – and keep – new customers.

 

Also read: The B2B Buyer Journey Becomes More Complex: Study Reveals

Customer-Centric Data

Google Analytics has evolved from measurement fragmented by device or platform to customer-centric measurement.

Again, this change is designed to give marketers a more complete view of how customers interact with a business.

Google Analytics customer-centric measurement uses multiple identity spaces, including marketer-provided User IDs and unique Google signals from users opted into ads personalization.

Now marketers can, for example, see if customers first discovered a business from an ad on the web and later completed a purchase on the business’s app.

Over the long-term, marketers can gain a better understanding of the entire customer lifecycle – from acquisition to conversion and retention.

New Approach To Data Controls

Google Analytics now offers more granular data controls that marketers can use to manage how data is collected and retained.

These controls can also be used to specify how data should be used for advertising.

Marketers can choose when to use customer data to optimize ads and limit data use to measurement only.

Google notes these options can help marketers adapt to a potential future with limited cookies or identifiers.

Getting Started With The New Features

The new features are now a part of the default experience for new properties. The company has said that it will no longer support old versions of Google Analytics. Google advises that marketers create a new ‘Google Analytics 4′ (previously App+Web property) property alongside their existing properties.