08

May

By Dennis R. Mortensen
9 comments
NEW Google Analytics launched at Emetrics SF Today!
Today at Emetrics San Francisco 2007 Brett Crosby and Jeffrey Veen from Google announced the NEW Google Analytics – which they indicated have been a year in the works.

It includes among other things updates on:

  • Discoverability and data in context
  • Customizable dashboards
  • Scheduled email reports
  • Better visualization
  • Improved “segmentation”
Honestly; it looks good!! :-) … and they will definitely move closer to the “paid for tools” side of the industry. However; it looks like it is still a reporting tool based on the same “bucketed” data collection system. I signed up for the new version for this VisualRevenue blog and you can find the first FRESH screenshots below. I will post some more screenshots when they have collected more data and made it available, which I assume is within the next 12 hours, so stay tuned…

  • Mira

    I’ve just realised something is happening around Google Analytics’s house… had an interview by them and they kept asking about Analytics a lot…which is normal but not that much! now I know why… Also I have realised from this interview that Google are particulary interested about linking Analytics users to Adwords users, trying to motivate them to use the right keywords (which is just one step from start using textlinks…:) fair enough, this you can clearly see if you take a tour around the freshly announced Analytics… So this is really getting to go into business…(Ok, we all know this all was about business but till now they tried to hide it a bit…and let the users do what they want…know clearly communicating what you should do: “if you use AdWords to drive traffic to your site…”:) … also they are concentrating very much on these two products.

    Also it seems for me they have realised the users need some education and put the context sensitive help available, as well as how to design better landing pages…also trying to put an online product into context and give tips for users (“if you are considering offline ads and promotions” clickable heat maps are useful). I have to say their PR staff did a pretty good job.

    Actually the graphic tool where you can move freely the highlighted part is very attractive and user-friendly. Honestly the new version of G. Analytics for me is slightly more about creating a more attractive tool and visualising the already available data in a new way than giving more data and a more deeper look but do not want to make a clear statement without using it for a while. Also I have just a small blog registered to G. Analytics therefore probably I won’t be the most adequate user testing its ability to bring more venue.

    For me honestly the opportunity for exporting data into a variety of formats is the most useful novelty in this new Analytics. Thats great, I will definitely use that!

    By the way, this is like Darwinian “survival of the fittest”… with user testing the method of natural selection.

    And me, as being a user, was just wondering – as being apostrophised “the next generation web analytics tool” – how much time it takes for Google to migrate my account to the new Analytics interface… ;)

  • Mira

    sorry I forget some words from one of my sentence and meant to write the opportunity for exporting data into a variety of formats and schedule reports is the most useful novelty in this new Analytics.

  • Mira

    Well, without any notice by email (as it supposed to be) my account was migrated for my new analytics. So ok, took 2 days to migrate my account. (they probably were afraid of…;) This version looks more practical than the previous one! I am still testing…

    Only I found it quite annoying that my visits came from 120 cities, and when I tried out the map overlay function I could just choose showing rowes up to 100, then I exported it to .pdf and the last 20 cities are missing from my list…

    Actually this was one of the first thing I tried and could be useful … but the exporting tools is still needs some improvement.

    Could anybody put the number of visitors and visits on the same chart? I can’t…

  • Anonymous

    I love the new GA interface but the coolest thing I saw so far is the inclusion of “Bounce Rate” in so many standard reports. As Gary Angel says, bounce Rate is a great way to evaluate traffic and serves as a fantastic proxy for conversions. MyBlog

  • Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Paul,

    Gary Angel is in my opinion one of the best, if not the best, analysts out there (and I have only heard the best about his company)

    And I very much agree with him on bounce rate being a great indicator. However; one have to take into consideration; first HOW bounce rate is calculated in the Analytics Package one use (e.g. less than 5 seconds or only ONE page view or something else), secondly whether the “landing” page has a purpose by itself where a “bounce” visit might still be justified as a success.

    Thank you very much for your comment.

    Cheers..

  • Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Mira,

    “Honestly the new version of G. Analytics for me is slightly more about creating a more attractive tool and visualising the already available data in a new way than giving more data and a more deeper look”

    I think you hit the nail on the head!!!

    Nevertheless, I would not discount what they have done and I think they have done it very well – BUT it is just as you say the same data and pretty much the same technology “repackaged”. However; (even though I as paid vendor should bash them all I can… ha ha) – we should agree that visualization is a huge part of doing “data mining”

    Thank you VERY much for the thorough and in depth comments.. It is really appreciated!

  • Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Mira,

    >>Could anybody put the number of visitors and visits on the same chart? I can’t…

    According to my previous knowledge and the one month or so experience with GA2 – this is not something you can do; I (as I know you use IndexTools) assume you are looking for something like the “Custom Report Wizard”; where one can add the metrics needed to do a report. You can do a bit of cross-referencing, but not really compare anything to anything nor something as basic as deciding to trend 3 or 4 similar metrics on the same chart. All that said; I am still really positive about the new GA UI.

    Cheers.. and thank you again for the substantional comments.

  • Kristjan Mar Hauksson

    Looks good, but I still feel that it’s essentially the same tool with a better GIU and couple of add-ons that where desperately missing. I must say that I am still skeptic about the Google ownership.

  • Dennis R. Mortensen

    Hi Kristjan

    Really nice to hear from you. And I do agree with you and think that beyond the tool itself there are questions in regards to the who handles “your” data. I see this attitude expressed from other Agencies as well… so you are not alone.. :-)

    Cheers
    Dennis