Google Analytics was launched in November 2005 as the evolution of Urchin 6 On Demand. For all of us Urchin fans it was the announcement that put our analytics fears at ease; with this re-assurance that the product would live on. Urchin was a solid web analytics company that was acquired by Google in Spring 2005 - a great move for both companies. The period of time leading up to the new product announcment was filled with anticipation of what Google would do with Urchin's product, technology and loyal user base. And Google Analytics was launched with great acceptance.
Now we need to assess whether Google Analytics can support the Enterprise market while still offering value to small and medium businesses. While Google Analytics may have a robust set of reports and functionality, for the Enterprise market a few key features are needed to provide the high-end analytics tool they require. They are few, but critical such as custom-reports, ability to push reports to e-mail, SMS, etc and the need for getting all marketing cost data into the reports.
However, Google Analytics still offers plenty of value for the Enterprise marketer and merchandiser through custom-segment report drill-down capabilities, goal and funnel reports and integrated Google AdWords analysis. As we all know, Google will surely be adding value to this product with its plentiful resources!
For the small business market Google Analytics is a great tool for better understanding their website activities. The product features an intuitive navigation, is relatively easy to implement and scaleable to grow over time.
The organization of the reports in Google Analytics is outstanding. The key reports are split into Marketing and Content categories - otherwise - tracking how people get to your site and what they do on your site, respectively.
Overall, Google Analytics will be a strong player in the market and continue to force other web analytics solutions to evolve their products at a Google pace.
Monday, December 12, 2005
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