If you’re a data nerd like me, you get excited about updates to your favorite analytics platform. In fact, you might even tune in to the live stream of the Google 2016 Summit in Silicon Valley and invite your neighboring data nerds (shout out to my Well Done digital strategy comrades, Abby and Turner) to join you.
The mid-May summit introduced us to the new Google Analytics 360 Suite. This group of products will give marketers access to a bevy of data the likes of which we haven’t seen before. And as a certified Google Partner, Well Done is here to help you understand how it all works—and how you can put it to work for your business or organization.
Here’s the breakdown:
GOOGLE Analytics 360
This is the core of Google’s new 360 Suite. Analytics 360 (formerly Analytics Premium) will empower marketers by connecting data from your website to apps, internet-connected devices, and even offline sources. Using information from this new product, we’ll be able to help you remarket a product to someone who recently abandoned their cart, or to offer a promotional sale to someone who purchased a similar product from you before.
Here’s a sample of a customer journey from Google’s product sheet:
Tag Manager 360
It is well known in our development department that Tag Manager was a headache. Tag Manager 360 promises to “streamline tag management” while allowing for easier error checking and tag loading. This improved product will also make it easier to adjust tags on the fly and is equipped to support a variety of third-party provider tags (Turn, Dstillery, Criteo, Crazy Egg, and more).
As proof of the power behind this product, Google unveiled a case study detailing how Dominos used Tag Manager 360 to save more than 80% year over year in ad serving and operations costs, while also boosting monthly revenue by 6%.
Optimize 360 (beta)
Google is entering the optimization game. They’ve launched a beta version of their new product, Optimize 360, which offers the ability to test different variations of your site and to pair customer behavior with your real-time analytics to determine what’s working and what isn’t.
You can then use what you’ve learned to tailor experiences for users based on “who referred them to you, how they’re behaving in real-time, or what device they’re using.” Personalizing content, with the help of what you learn through Optimize 360, will help you improve user experience and earn more conversions.
Data Studio 360 (BETA)
Google is moving toward a more intuitive reporting process. With their new product, Data Studio 360, they’ll allow data analysts to create client-ready reports from directly within their Google Analytics dashboards. The reporting process will be faster, easier to use, less prone to error, and easier to share internally and with clients. Here’s a sample Google Data Studio report:
Attribution 360
One of the most challenging aspects of marketing is determining a return on investment for each dollar spent. Attribution 360 (formerly Adometry) is aimed at doing just that by helping marketers measure avenues for conversion. This product aims to identify the online and offline advertisements that led to a sale and properly attribute credit to each ad, instead of just the first or the last-touch.
Attribution 360 TV—which I view as this product’s most unique and compelling feature—will integrate “digital and broadcast data” to help you interpret the behavior of customers who come in as a result of your brand’s TV placements. It will pair TV ad airing data with your website’s data and additional organic search data to determine traffic spikes that may have been caused by your offline ad.
Audience Center 360 (beta)
This is the product that will help you identify your most valuable customers by analyzing your site’s metrics paired with email, SEM, display, social, and CRM campaigns. Audience Center 360 then interprets this data to provide you with insights to improve your digital campaigns on AdWords, DoubeClick, and other major third-party marketing platforms.
These insights from Google can help you build, segment, and test audiences to see which ads, ad frequencies, and placements work best for your business.
Advertising metrics are only getting better. And Google is leading the way. Do you have questions about how to put the power of Google Analytics 360 to work for your brand? Let’s talk.
Photo was taken by the supremely talented Crew at Unsplash. This stellar company provides free high-res photos for you to use however you want. Really.