Google updates its analytics suite for more insight, less data

If you’ve only just gotten your head around what you need and don’t need from your Google Analytics dashboard (OK so maybe it’s just me), then it’s time to put your thinking cap back on again. The Wall Street Journal reports that “Google unveiled a new suite of marketing analytics and data products on Tuesday, called the Google Analytics 360 Suite.”

The update from the search giant is designed to keep the company’s products in line with the more modern ‘cloud-based’ offerings from companies like Adobe, Salesforce and IBM.

The suite comprises six separate tools, some brand new and some merely updated, but the motivation behind the relaunch is ‘to provide marketers with a centralized platform to track and store information about customers and their behaviours”. In its own words, Google explains eloquently that “Our lives are filled with micro-moments: intent-rich moments when we turn to the nearest device to find a store, buy a product or look for answers to all kinds of wants and needs. In these moments, today’s consumers decide what to do, where to go, and what to buy.”

The move comes in line with a worldwide trend amongst enterprise markerters to see the complete customer journey and make informed marketing decisions around it. “Marketers require full visibility and context to see what’s really happening across all customer touchpoints, devices, and channels.” The suite is designed to provide useful insights about the data, not just more and more data for departments to process and try and understand. At the same time, it’s making analytics much easier to share so that the whole company can be on the same page and make strategic decisions about influencing consumer behavior.

So what’s in the new toolbox? There are updates on tried-and-tested tools such as Google Analytics, which serves as the centerpiece of the suite and Attribution 360, which is an update on a tool called Adometry which is designed to “help advertisers value marketing investments and allocate budgets with confidence.” But there are also some brand new tools, like the Audience Centre 360, which marketers can use “to store and analyze customer data collected across multiple different devices and platforms. The DMP will also connect to ad-buying software offered by Google and others to help inform targeted ad buys,” according to WSJ.

While other tools like this do exist, Google has the unique reach and power to bring them all together in one elegant suite. At the same time, the company is determined to collaborate with other players in the field. Paul Muret, Vice President of Analytics explains ““We’re taking an open approach and working to make all the systems interoperable. We recognize we need to
interoperate with other platforms to make things more realistic.”

Ultimately, the new product from Google is a strong push into the enterprise market and a recognition that what companies need is not more data, but better, actionable insights which are derived from the data that will make a real difference to their bottom line.