Monday, 7 April 2014

To maximize marketing investment and return, advertisers need insights into the effectiveness of their ads. However, gaining such insights is often overly cumbersome. This is why we’re pleased to announce that in the coming weeks, the Google Analytics and AdWords account linking process is becoming even more streamlined, making it easier for advertisers to quickly gain rich insights. The new linking process allows you to link multiple AdWords accounts all at once. This enables more tightly controlled linking access for each Google Analytics property. 

Enable Bulk AdWords Account Linking
Many Google Analytics users have multiple AdWords accounts. Until now, each AdWords account had to be individually linked. The new account linking wizard allows you to select any of the AdWords accounts in which you have Administrative access. The following screenshot shows what the wizard looks like for a user who has access to an AdWords MCC containing many AdWords accounts. Note that you can select multiple accounts:

Discover Unlinked Accounts
Many users want to quickly find unlinked AdWords accounts and link to them, and the new wizard makes this easy. A quick glance at the AdWords account list in the screenshot above shows which accounts are and aren’t linked. To link additional accounts, just mark the “X” in front of each account, and then continue.


Gain More Granular Control
With this launch, linking to AdWords now takes place at the Analytics property level instead of the account level. This is a benefit for those with many properties in a single Analytics account; if you have different teams of people managing each property, you no longer need to give them access to the full Analytics account in order to link to AdWords. Now, you can simply give that team access to only the appropriate property, and they can manage AdWords links. All it takes is property-level Edit permission to create and update AdWords links. This is another Analytics feature enabling large-scale Analytics customers to better control access to their Analytics accounts.

Visit The New AdWords Linking Section
Once the new linking process has launched to your account, you’ll be able to see all these features. Log in to your Analytics account, click the Admin button in the header, and you’ll see a new AdWords Linking section in the Property column:


These great new features are rolling out now and should fully launch to everyone in the coming weeks. Here’s what one of our users had to say:

"The linking process is now a lot more straightforward as I do not need to toggle between 2 different interfaces. Everything can be done in GA. In addition, all of the accounts that I manage are automatically listed in the interface so I do not need to look for them. This is a vast improvement from the previous experience." Sam Chew, Digital Manager, Air Asia

Log into your Analytics account soon to update your AdWords account links and gain rich marketing insights.

Posted by Dan Fielder and Matt Matyas, Google Analytics Team

Wednesday, 2 April 2014

Universal Analytics is the re-imagining of Google Analytics for today’s multi-screen, multi-device world and all the measurement challenges that come with it. Since we launched UA in beta, we’ve seen some exciting use cases. Today we’re happy to finally announce: Universal Analytics is out of beta and everyone can use it with the same robust set of features you’re used to with classic Analytics!


Feature parity with Classic Analytics, new reports, better user-centric analysis
When we first introduced Universal Analytics and ran the beta trial, the number one request from our testers was for full access to all Google Analytics features and tools. Bringing Universal Analytics out of beta means that all the features, reports, and tools of Classic Analytics are now available in the product, including Remarketing and Audience reporting.

We’re also gradually rolling out the User ID feature to help you better understand your customers’ full journey. This feature shows anonymous engagement activity across different screens and visits to your site to provide a more user-centric view of your traffic, and help you build a more tailored experience for your customers as well. It will also enable new Cross Device reporting that shows how your users are interacting with your business across multiple devices. 

Additionally, Universal Analytics is also now covered by our Premium service-level agreement, which means that same level of service and additional product features Premium users have come to expect will stay the same when their accounts upgrade to Universal Analytics.

New Cross-Device Reports in GA let you see the full customer journey (click image for full-size).

Time Zone Based Processing: Fresher, more timely data
Today, all properties are processed in Pacific Standard Time. If you’re in a different time zone, this can create a lag in the data you see in your reports. With time zone based processing, you’ll see fresher data in your reports in a more timely manner.

Updates to the Measurement Protocol: User Agent / IP Override 
A top developer request, this feature allows developers to proxy data from devices and intranets, through internal servers, and finally onto Google Analytics. To support this, we added two fields to set the IP address and User Agent directly in the Measurement Protocol. With these features, we are also announcing the deprecation of the legacy mobile snippets. Users should update their code to use the Measurement Protocol. 

Our early Universal Analytics adopters have already seen some great results. This case study highlights some of the inspired ways our Certified Partner InfoTrust LLC has helped Beckfield College unlock the full capabilities of Universal Analytics including the use of Remarketing and Audience Reporting:

"Once we saw more than 25% of visits to Beckfield College's website were coming from a mobile device, we migrated them to Universal Analytics with plans on leveraging its cross-device tracking capabilities, and better understanding the full visitor journey across devices." -- James Love, InfoTrust LLC

If you use Google Analytics today, get started with Universal Analytics by upgrading your account. Learn more about the process in the Universal Analytics Upgrade Center, including auto-upgrade process, and timeline. 

If you are new to Google Analytics, learn more about Universal Analytics in the Help Center. 

We’ll share more creative implementations, case studies, and Universal Analytics resources in the coming months that we hope will inspire you to continue to grow your business with the insights you gain using Google Analytics. 

Posted by Nick Mihailovski, Product Manager, Google Analytics

Tuesday, 1 April 2014

The world of digital analytics changes fast. From Attribution Modeling to Universal Analytics. From App Analytics to Remarketing. From Tag Management to Audience Reporting. We’re constantly trying to help analysts and marketers measure their business and make better decisions. But sometimes we ignore alternative ways to make business decisions.

That’s why we’re excited to introduce our next Analytics Academy course: Data-less Decision Making.



In this four-unit course, we’ll present some of the most popular ways to avoid using data when making business decisions.  We’ll cover everything from mystical tools, like crystal balls and divining rods, to traditional data-avoidance techniques, like coin flipping. You’ll find that once you adopt these methods you’ll be able to make hundreds, and maybe thousands, of decisions a day!

Still wondering if this course is right for you? Check out our FAQ for more information.

We hope you enjoy the course!

Posted by the Google Analytics Education Team