Google has today launched a premium version of its web analytics package aimed at enterprise level organisations. Given the costs involved in taking up this service this product is clearly aimed at competing with the other industry big players such as Adobe’s Omniture.
Since Google bought Urchin back in 2005 it has revolutionised the web analytics industry with it ‘free to all’ offering. Suddenly even the smallest websites had access to enterprise level analytics software. Google’s motivation was to make the web a better place (Read – “make more money through AdWords”). However Google has struggled to get larger organisations to adopt its service for a number of reasons. No SLA, unsuitable security control and lack of customisation and integration features to name a few.
Today is an exciting announcement for the analytics industry as Google have made some massive changes to address the concerns of larger corporations. Please note though that to the company with basic needs then the functionality is not massively different – maybe people will now understand more what a great tool the free GA really is!
Some of Google Premiums New Features:
Dedicated Processing
- Massive hit limits in the billions per month
- Access to download unsampled reports
Advanced Features & Functionality
- Get conversion attribution modelling. Don’t worry if you can’t afford the premium version and still want this – we have a great free tool here that gives you Google Analytics attribution modelling !
- 50 custom variables – allowing you a massive potential to segment and analyse you visitor data.
Support
- Dedicated support from Google.
Service Level Agreement (SLA)
- Explicit Data ownership
- 99.9% on data collection, 99% on reporting and 98% on data freshness.
So what does this mean for Google Analytics Standard Edition? Is Google aiming to start charging everyone? The answer to this is definitely not! In fact the pace of features added to the standard version is growing rapidly! And Google’s plans to extend this are ambitious to say the least. Here is a list of new features recently added to the standard product.
- Version 5 – As well as a slick new interface there have been substantial changes under the bonnet – promised to allow faster, more and better additions to the product over the coming months!
- Multi-Channel Funnels – Much awaited ability to analyse all the sources that contribute to a sale or goal.
- Social plug in tracking – track the interactions with your social plugins
- Real Time Tracking – LAUNCHED TODAY! – This puts data in your reports within 1-2 seconds. Watch traffic levels as it happens.
- Site Speed Reports – see how fast your various pages are loading.
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For help with installing, using or analysis using GA then please visit our Analytics services page.
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