Analytics Talk

Google Analytics: Thoughts on the Future

December 4, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

I am continuously amazed at how fast our industry changes. In the two years since Google Analytics was launched we’ve seen Web Analytics grow in popularity and web analysts become highly prized in the marketplace. Many people attribute the change to Google Analytics which got me thinking about GA and how it may evolve in the future.

I’d like to mention that this post is purely opinion and speculation. I have no idea what Google’s master plan is for Google Analytics, but I do think that my ideas are possible.

Let’s start by looking at where Google is going as a business. Google’s long term strategy is to become the dominant advertising network on the planet. It’s something that CEO Eric Schmidt has talked about in the past and it make total sense. The more advertising options that Google can offer it’s current customers the bigger the opportunity for growth.

Google’s success relies on the adoption of said advertising tools. Look at AdWords and the insane revenue it generates. Now image if Google could create 3 or 4 more advertising products that are as successful as AdWords. We’ll be looking at Berkshire Hathaway stock prices in no time.

The expansion of Google’s advertising platform began with audio ads and print ads and I’m sure they’re not going to stop there. These new products are simple, thus making them accessible to businesses that may not normally branch out into a new advertising medium. I’ll talk about specific Google advertising products and my thoughts on each in a moment, but what does all this mean to Google Analytics?

No matter what advertising tools Google creates, there needs to be a centralized reporting and analysis component. GA is that piece of the puzzle. It’s no secret that Google wants to create the Google Marketing Dashboard, why not base it on Google Analytics? It makes complete sense, right? GA is a data analysis tool so why not use it to analyze all marketing data? At the very least GA should be the analysis piece of the puzzle.

That’s the long term vision, but what type of integration opportunities exist right now?

The most basic integration is the inclusion of advertising cost data into Google Analytics. Audio cost data, print cost data… it’s natural to think that these will be pulled into GA soon.

The next integration step should be the automatic identification of online traffic that originated with an offline ad. Image if you could automatically create vanity URLs for your audio or print campaigns and have GA automatically track them. We’re already doing this manually, but it could, and should, be automated by Google. This type of integration will further remove IT from the configuration of GA making it easier for all types of organizations to track offline marketing efforts.

Let’s get even more specific.

Google AdWords

No need to talk much about this one. Google is the 800 pound gorilla in the paid search world. AdWords campaigns are automatically tracking in Google Analytics and cost data is automatically imported to compute ROI. Pretty slick. It would be nice if Google could pull in cost data from other paid search vendors, but there are probably too many political hurdles for this to happen.

Google Audio Ads

I mentioned this one above and wrote a post about tracking audio ads with Google Analytics it in the past. I think audio integration is pretty logical. Beyond the cost data, I would like to see some type of map overlay report correlating geographic web traffic and the distribution of audio ads. The addition of automatically created vanity URLs for audio ads would provide a slick way to connect online conversions to the originating audio ad.

Google Print Ads

Print is very similar to audio and I think it’s something we could see soon. Many of the same integration points exist for print ads including cost data, a map overlay of ad distribution and web visits and an automatically created vanity URL for print ads.

Graphic (Banner) Ads

This is another one that could be very close. Once the purchase of DoubleClick is finalized I bet we’re gong to see DoubleClick’s pre-click data rolled into GA quickly. Maybe they’ll add a DoubleClick item to the Traffic Sources menu below the AdWords menu item.

I think we’ll also see an auto-tagging feature for ads displayed on DoubleClick’s network. No more tagging destination URLs. Woo hoo!

Mobile

Everyone loves to talk about mobile tracking. But the fact is that mobile tracking right now is miserable. The inconsistent implementation of JavaScript on mobile devices makes it very hard to track visitors on mobile devices.

Google has taken a big step to improve mobile tracking with the announcement of Android. This isn’t just a mobile browser, it’s a complete platform for mobile devices. It’s also a way that Google can insure that they’re very involved in the future of the mobile web. I’m sure that Google will include some type of mechanism in Android to track visitors.

Video (Google Video & YouTube) Ads

Google is poised to provide some amazing data about how people interact with video. The new Google Analytics Event tracking feature is a logical, structured way to measure visitor engagement with video and video ads. I really hope that event tracking is added to all YouTube videos so we can all measure the performance of video content. Once we know how visitors are engaging video we can choose optimal placement of video ads.

I also expect Google to facilitate the creation of video ads in the same manner they did with audio ads and print ads. Maybe they’ll create a video ad marketplace.

Email Marketing

Google does not have an email marketing solution, but why couldn’t they leverage Gmail and create one? Just add a basic interface where users can upload a recipient list and some type of interface where they can style the email and you have a very effective email marketing tool.

But what about all of those people that don’t use Google advertising tools? What if someone just wants to use GA to measure website traffic? What cool features can they expect from Google?

I think Google’s commitment to GA goes well beyond the integration of advertising data. Google has a vested interest in providing tools that help EVERYONE make the web a better place. Part of Google’s philosophy is to, “Focus on the user and all else will follow.”

Analytics is one of the tools (and the most mature, I might ad) that Google provides so we can all make the web better (Website Optimizer and Google Trends are two others). The more analysis features that Google can pack into GA the more effective we’ll all be at making our sites better.

Case in point, GA version 2. It was a major improvement in analytics UI design that facilitates analysis. Is it perfect? No, of course not. But it really makes analysis easier for everyone. I expect that Google will continue to refine the reporting interface by giving us more data visualization tools and more context for our data.

So what does this mean to other analytics vendors?

I don’t think that any other analytics vendor will be able to track Google based advertising (AdWords, Audio ads, etc.) as well as Google. I know that seems obvious, but it is a big deal, especially when Google becomes the major advertising network on the planet. Google can provide a view of offline ad activity and the resulting online behavior because they will have all the data. Could other providers create similar reporting? Maybe, but it won’t be as easy.

I also believe that we’ll continue to see consolidation. Google has, in my opinion, made web analytics tools (and testing tools) a commodity. Is there still a need for $250,000 web analytics application? Maybe, but I guarantee you people are taking a closer look at GA and evaluating the features that they really need before dropping hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Think I’m nuts? Think OmniSciences will take over the world? Leave a comment and let me know.

Subscribe:

12 Comments »

Tracking Google Audio Ads with Analytics

June 4, 2007 by Justin Cutroni

Today the Inside AdWords blog announced that the AdWords team has completed their beta test for audio ads. They are now in the process of rolling out access to all AdWords accounts. I was pleasantly surprised that my own personal AdWords account now has audio ads. Look out America!

Anyway, this got me thinking. What measurement capabilities have been built into the system? I haven’t done any audio ad analysis, but how different can this be from tracking other offline advertising using web analytics? It turns out that Google has integrated a call reporting system that can be used to measure the volume and geographic density of customer response to an audio ad. From the audio ads support docs:

Call reporting is an easy, free way to track customer responses to your audio ads campaigns. With call reporting you add a special phone number to your audio ads. When a listener calls the number Google records the time and location of the caller and forwards them on to your main business number.

This is all very good, but in today’s world of multi-channel business you need to combine the call data with web data. Not everyone is going to remember your phone number (unless you have a catchy jingle and repeat it over, and over, and over… Red Sox fans know what I’m talking about… 1-800-54-GIANT!) Luckily almost every analytics package on the market can help you identify the impact an audio ad has on your online traffic.

Segmentation is the Key

What better way to measure the impact of geo-targeted advertising than through the use of geo-segmented web data? Most analytics tools, including one that I have a soft spot for, lets you to segment your web data based on geographic location.

Obviously you should see a good bump in web traffic coming from the geographic areas where your audio ads are running. Make sure you segment the data by date/time to appropriately isolate the dates/times that your ads ran. Don’t just segmenting using geo-segmentation. You must continue to drill into the data using other segments.

If you can segment your geo-data by referral source you will gain even more insight into the effectiveness of the advertising. If your geo-data contains a large number of direct visits then it is probable that the visitor remembered the URL from your ad and typed it into the browser.

If your geo-data had a high percentage of organic search engine visits (probably using branded keywords) then it the visitors probably forgot the contact information from your ad but remembered your company name, or some other aspect of your brand, and used a search engine to locate your site.

It may be useful to analyze the non-branded keywords originating from the geographic region where your audio ads are running. This can provide insight into the overall message that your ad is generating among listeners.

Don’t forget to analyze the outcomes from this data. How many conversions occurred from the geo-segemented direct traffic or branded search traffic? Conversions are crucial to measuring the return for your audio ads.

You can also compare your web data with the call reporting data from Google to get a good picture of the overall impact of your audio ads. You could even create some cool KPIs for audio ads using the combined data set. For example, an audio response rate could be calculated using the following metrics:

Audio Response Rate = ( the number of web visits + the number of calls ) / impressions

Just for your reference, Google estimates the number of impressions using data from Arbitron.

Don’t forget to segment the above KPI using time, date and geographic location :) Then you can fine tune your audio ad buys.

A Better Way to Track

The one thing that bothers me about the above process is that it is fuzzy. Sure, the quality of web data stinks, but inferring that all traffic from a geographic region during a specific time, even if you know exactly when the audio ads were running, is a bit too loose for me. There is a more reliable way to link the offline world of audio ads with online tracking.

Using a vanity URL in offline advertising, including audio ads, is a better way to link offline advertising to online traffic. This technique is very common in print advertising. Vanity URLs are easier for people to remember and can be more indicative of your offer. I wrote a small blog post about offline campaign tracking which is a good primer. A better resource is Google’s Conversion University, which has a very good piece on tracking offline campaigns.

The concept of tracking an offline vanity URL is simple. When the visitor enters the URL into the browser they are redirected to a new landing page. During the redirect special query string parameters are added to the URL that indicate which ad the visitor is responding to. This method provides a more reliable way of linking an offline ad to a customer response. No more inferring that direct traffic to your site, from Mountain View, on a Thursday between 8 AM and 12 PM, was from a radio ad.

My Vision for the Future

Finally, how long will it take for Google to integrate audio ads with Google Analytics? I’m 99% sure it’s on the radar (just like integrating DoubleClick and FeedBurner with Analytics), but here’s how I would do it.

First, when you create an audio ad the system it will ask you if you want to activate call reporting (which is available now), web reporting (aka Google Analytics) or both. If you choose web reporting, the system will ask you for two pieces of information:

1. A vanity URL that will be used in the ad
2. The actual landing page that you want the visitor to see when they type in the vanity URL

After you submit the information the system will check the availability of the vanity URL. If it is already registered, and you own it, Google will confirm your request. If the vanity URL is not registered Google will register it for you. Then the system will check the actual landing page to make sure it is tagged with the Google Analytics tracking code. If it is not, then it will warn you that the page is not tagged and verify if this is ok. Who knows, maybe you want to use another analytics application to track your audio ads. If it is tagged then Google will confirm that the tracking is in place. That’s it. No other setup would be needed for tracking.

When a visitor types in the vanity URL Google will automatically redirect the visitor to the actual landing page. During the redirect the system will automatically tag the URL with the appropriate link tags to identify that the visitor originated from an audio ad. The system will embed critical information about the audio ad in the link tags such as:

• when the ad aired
• which market it aired in
• which station it was on
• the version of the ad

Essentially, this integration would be very similar to the AdWords auto-tagging feature that currently exists. It’s flexible enough to simplify the tracking setup for GA users and still lets non-GA users track their audio ads with other analytics applications. Obviously this is pretty vague, but it could be done.

Conclusion

In the end, it doesn’t matter what analytics tool you’re using. As long as you have some plan to track the performance of your audio ads.

So, what do you guys think? I’d love to hear from anyone out there that is actively tracking audio ads.

Subscribe:

7 Comments »