Google Analytics celebrates Christmas early

Remember the string of new features that Google Analytics offered us almost two months ago and that I mentioned in  this article . Well Google continues to spoil us since it has just announced the arrival of new features … even newer. But where will it stop?!

1. Annotations

This feature does not pay mine but it will prove to be extremely valuable since we can now keep a history of all events related to the website while associating them with a date. Have you changed your homepage? You have finally optimized your Adwords campaigns? Have you launched radio and television campaigns? Everything is now archivable in the interface itself and will allow, from the first glance, to interpret the graphs without having to dig into the reports. This functionality goes hand in hand with the alerts since it associates the actions taken and the abnormal variations which result from them. Annotations can be personal or shared with others. One could even imagine Google syncing this with Google Calendar or any other feed.

The days of wondering what variations in traffic curves correspond to are over!

2. Custom variables in custom reports and advanced segments

Remember this new feature released two months ago and which has truly revolutionized the way of using Google Analytics. Custom variables are now usable in custom reports and advanced segments. This makes the tool even more flexible since we can now have an overview of the different types of visitors (buyer, man, woman, prospect), the different states of the session (authenticated or not) and the types of content (product pages, informative pages, etc.). If these variables have been defined correctly during implementation, it will be possible, for example, to create the segment “Authenticated male customers who have not seen the product pages” and compare it to the behavior of other segments. This really opens up great prospects!

3. Advanced Tracking Code Generation Wizard

In order to make it even more accessible to everyone, Google Analytics now allows you to generate an advanced tracking code without having to be a programming ninja or an advanced user of the tool. This initiative is commendable but it risks, in my opinion, leading to incomplete implementations since average users could be satisfied with the pre-chewed work of Google Analytics without knowing the subtleties and the additional code that could go with it. So be careful.

So here's a nice Christmas gift from Google that's sure to make up for the disappointment you'll feel when you discover the ugly polka dot tie your aunt left under the tree...