Analytics Blog: Analytics

New ways to measure your users in Google Analytics

December 14, 2017

Almost 90% of marketing executives say that understanding user journeys across channels and devices is critical to marketing success.¹

Today's customers have incredibly high expectations for personalized and relevant experiences from brands. That's why Google Analytics keeps working to better measure the full customer journey in all its complexity.

Let's look at four new Analytics features that are all about helping businesses understand users so they can deliver more personalized site experiences.

Focus on your users in reporting

Analytics standard reports have been updated to focus on your users. User metrics are an essential way to understand engagement with your customers, especially those who may have multiple sessions across multiple days.

With our updated standard reporting, you can see immediately, for instance, how many users are coming to your site from paid search ― in addition to seeing the number of sessions.

Users are now included in Analytics standard reports.

To enable this update, sign in to your account and go to Admin > Property Settings and then choose the toggle switch labeled Enable Users In Reporting.

For other ways to analyze by user, try existing reports like Active Users, Cohort Analysis, and Lifetime Value. In case you're wondering, session metrics will continue to be available in standard reporting ― that's not changing. Learn more about audience reports.

Measure lifetime metrics and dimensions for every user

Another tool that marketers can use to analyze visitors on an individual level is User Explorer. And now we've added something new: lifetime metrics and dimensions for individual users (based on the lifetime of their cookie). These new metrics and dimensions will give Analytics users a much more detailed way to measure visitors and customers.

New lifetime metrics and dimensions for individual users in User Explorer.

For example, you can look back and see the total amount of time an individual user has spent or the total number of transactions an individual user has made on your website. You'll also see new dimensions that show data such as when a user made their first visit to your site and which channel acquired them.

The new lifetime metrics and dimensions are already available in your Analytics account. Learn more about User Explorer.

Audiences in reporting

For marketers who live and breathe audiences ― which is most of us ― the breathing just got easier. We've added the option to publish any audience to a new report in Analytics that should help make every audience easier to understand.

Publish your audiences into Analytics and then view reporting in the Audiences report.

You can now go to the new Audiences report and see a cross-channel view of the audiences you’ve created in Analytics. This is a change from the past, where you could create audiences in Analytics and export those audiences to other products like AdWords, but you weren’t able to publish audiences to Analytics for reporting.

For instance, you might decide to publish an audience to Analytics so that you can see all users who have purchased within the last 12 months but not during the last 2.

You can find the new Audience report in your Analytics account. Learn more about Audiences in reporting.

Reach users most likely to convert

Meet our newest metric: Conversion Probability. It takes user-based metrics one step further to show you just what the name suggests: the probability that a given user will convert in the future. The calculation is based on a machine learning model that learns from users who have made transactions in the past.

The advantages are clear: Marketers can create remarketing lists that target users who have a high likelihood to purchase and then reach those users through either advertising campaigns in AdWords and DoubleClick or site experiments in Optimize.

We are also adding a new Conversion Probability report. This report will show you the Conversion Probability for all your users, including across important dimensions such as channel.

The new conversion probability report.

This new feature from Analytics Intelligence is the first forward-looking estimate of how likely a conversion is for individual users. It's rolling out in beta to all Analytics accounts over the next few months. Learn more about Conversion Probability.

These four new enhancements will help you better understand your users and what they are doing on your site, so that you can create better experiences for them. If you — like those 90% of marketing executives — are working hard to understand your users' journeys, we hope you'll find these features useful.

Happy analyzing!

¹"The Customer Experience is Written in Data." Econsultancy and Google, May 2017.

Posted by Gene Chan, Product Manager, Google Analytics

Google Analytics for Firebase: New Look and New Features

November 9, 2017

If you use Google Analytics for Firebase to measure your apps, you'll notice something familiar today: a new look and feel that's more consistent with your Google Analytics experience.

These new elements echo some of the changes we made to Google Analytics earlier this year — the updates should help bridge the gap for anyone who uses both Google Analytics and Google Analytics for Firebase. We've also added new reports and cards that will make the Google Analytics for Firebase Dashboard more timely and helpful.

Real-Time Data

We are now providing you with more real-time information throughout Google Analytics for Firebase to give you a better read on what’s happening in your app.

Inside the Google Analytics for Firebase Dashboard, you’ll now find a real-time card, much like the one on the Google Analytics Home. It shows details on the number of active users in the past 30 minutes. You'll also see the top conversion events logged by the app. You can configure these conversions so you can track app events that are most important to your team.

The new Google Analytics for Firebase Dashboard

Google Analytics for Firebase has a brand new stability card that reports on data from Firebase Crash Reporting and Firebase Crashlytics. It displays the percentage of users who have not had their app crash, so you can see just how stable your app is.

Latest Release

The new Latest Release report lets app developers track the adoption and stability of new app versions within a few hours of release.

The report also contains a real-time card with an app version filter that lets you see which users have adopted the latest version of a release and know whether any versions have crashed in the past 30 minutes. It also lets you measure your users’ level of engagement.

Same Great Analytics

The updated experience is more consistent with Google Analytics, but one thing hasn't changed: Google Analytics for Firebase users still get the same great app-centric reporting and analysis they're used to for Android and iOS. Our engineers are working on developments and new features we'll share in the months to come.

To see the new look and updated features, check out your Firebase project now. (Don't have one yet? Sign up!)

Posted by Sukriti Singal, Product Manager, Google Analytics

Google Analytics 360 + Salesforce: A Powerful Combination

November 6, 2017

We often hear from marketers how challenging it is to piece together online and offline customer interactions in order to see a complete view of a customer’s journey. That’s why we’re excited to share that Google and Salesforce are working together to seamlessly connect sales, marketing and advertising data for the first time, giving you the full view of what’s working and what isn’t as customers engage with your ads, websites, apps, emails, call centers, field sales teams and more.

Today at Dreamforce, Google and Salesforce are announcing a strategic partnership to deliver four new, turnkey integrations between Google Analytics 360, Salesforce Sales Cloud and Salesforce Marketing Cloud:

Sales data from Sales Cloud will be available in Analytics 360 for use in attribution, bid optimization and audience creation
Data from Analytics 360 will be visible in the Marketing Cloud reporting UI for a more complete understanding of campaign performance
Audiences created in Analytics 360 will be available in Marketing Cloud for activation via direct marketing channels, including email and SMS
Customer interactions from Marketing Cloud will be available in Analytics 360 for use in creating audience lists

These new connections between our market-leading digital analytics solution and Salesforce’s market-leading customer relationship management (CRM) platform will change the game for how our clients understand and reach their customers — and how they measure the impact of their marketing. These integrations are fully consistent with our privacy policies and have settings that offer privacy controls and choice on how data is used.

By integrating your customer data, you can see a customer’s path from awareness all the way through to conversion and retention. And with connections to Google’s ad platforms and Salesforce’s marketing platform, you can quickly take action, engaging them at the right moment. You'll see these new integrations begin to arrive in the first half of 2018.

Example of a complete customer journey funnel in Google Analytics 360 joining website data (pageviews, leads submitted) with pipeline data from Sales Cloud (lead and opportunity stages); example also shows a prompt to create a new audience segment to take action

New insights

Until now, businesses have not been able to connect offline interactions, such as an estimate provided by a call center rep or an order closed by a field sales rep, with insights on how customers use digital channels. With the connection between Sales Cloud and Analytics 360, soon you’ll be able to include offline conversions in your attribution modeling when using Google Attribution 360, so you’ll have a more complete view of ROI for each of your marketing channels and even more reason to move away from a last-click attribution method. This integration will also let you see how your most valuable customers engage with your digital properties, answering some important questions like, what are they looking for and are they actually finding what they need?

With the integration allowing data from Analytics 360 to be visible in Marketing Cloud, you’ll gain a more complete understanding of how your marketing campaigns perform. For example, if you send an email campaign to frequent shoppers to promote your fall fashion line, you’ll be able to see right in Marketing Cloud information such as how many pages people visited when they came to your site, the number of times people clicked on product details to learn more, and how many people added items to their shopping cart and converted.

Easy to take action

Today, Google Analytics allows you to create audience lists and goals that you can easily send to AdWords and DoubleClick for digital remarketing and to optimize bids. With the new connection from Sales Cloud to Analytics 360, in addition to unlocking new insights and more data for attribution modeling, you’ll be able to combine Salesforce data (such as sales milestones or conversions) with behavioral data from your digital properties to create richer audiences and for smarter bidding.

For example, if you’re a residential solar panel company and want to find new customers, you can create an audience in Analytics 360 of qualified leads from Sales Cloud and use AdWords or DoubleClick Bid Manager to reach people with similar characteristics. Or, create a goal in Analytics 360 based on leads marked as closed in Sales Cloud, and automatically send that goal to AdWords or DoubleClick Search to optimize your bidding and drive more conversions.

With the Analytics 360 connection to Marketing Cloud, you’ll be able to use customer insights to take action in marketing channels beyond Google’s ad platforms, such as email, SMS or push notification. For example, you can create an audience in Analytics 360 of customers who bought a TV on your site and came back later to browse for home theater accessories, and use that list in Salesforce to promote new speakers with a timely and relevant email.

Powerful combination

Every day, Google Analytics processes hundreds of billions of customer moments, Salesforce Marketing Cloud sends 1.4 billion emails, and there are over 5 million leads and opportunities created in Salesforce Sales Cloud. These new integrations represent a powerful combination, and we believe they will help marketers take a big step closer to the ultimate dream: providing every customer with a highly relevant experience at each step of their journey.

You’ll see these new joint capabilities become available beginning in 2018, and we'll be sure to keep you updated along the way. Contact us here if you would like to learn more about Analytics 360. We hope you’re as excited as we are!
Posted by Babak Pahlavan, Senior Director of Product Management, Measurement & Analytics

The Google Analytics 360 + Salesforce integrations are just one part of a broader strategic alliance announced today between Google and Salesforce. Read about new integrations between G Suite and Salesforce and a new partnership between Google Cloud and Salesforce here.

Better tools for teams of all sizes

October 10, 2017

We’ve heard feedback from businesses of all sizes that they need simpler ways to manage the analytics products they use and the team members who use them. That’s why we’re making new controls available to everyone who uses Analytics, Tag Manager, and Optimize and improving navigation for users of Surveys and Data Studio. These new features will help you more easily manage your accounts, get an overview of your business, and move between products.

Streamlined account management

With centralized account management, you can control user access and permissions across multiple products, like Analytics, Tag Manager, and Optimize.

The first step is to create an organization to represent your business. You then link this organization to all of the different accounts that belong to your business. You can also move accounts between the organizations you create.

Now you have a central location where administrators for your organization can:

Create rules for which types of new users should be allowed access to your organization
Audit existing users and decide which products and features they should have access to
Remove users who have left your organization or no longer need access to the tools
See the last time a user in your organization accessed Google Analytics data
Allow users to discover who are your organization’s admins and contact them for help

New home page

Setting up an organization also gives you access to a new home page that provides an overview of your business. You’ll be able to manage accounts and settings across products and get insights and quick access to the products and features you use most. For example, you might see a large increase in visitors for a specific Analytics property, and then click through to Analytics to investigate where the visitors are coming from.

Simplified navigation

Finally, you’ll get a unified user experience across products. Common navigation and product headers make it easy to switch between products and access the data you need. You can view accounts by organization, or see everything you have access to in one place. We’ve also redesigned search, making it possible to search across all of your accounts in a single place.

Get started

If your business would benefit from these features, please visit this page to get started. You can also check out the help center for more info.

These updates will be rolling out over the next few weeks, so please stay tuned if you don’t yet have access.

Note: If you’re using the enterprise versions of our products, like Analytics 360, you already have access to these features as part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.

Posted by John Oberbeck, Product Manager Google Analytics

New: Streaming Google Analytics Data for BigQuery

September 20, 2017

Streaming data for BigQuery export is here.

Today we're happy to announce that data for the Google Analytics BigQuery export can be streamed as often as every 10 minutes into Google Cloud.

If you're a Google Analytics 360 client who wants to do current-day analysis, this means you can choose to send data to BigQuery up to six times per hour for almost real-time analysis and action. That’s a 48x improvement over the existing three-times-per-day exports.

What can I do with streaming data delivery?
Many businesses use faster access to their data to identify and engage with clients who show an intent to convert.

For example, it's well known that a good time to offer a discount to consumers is just after they've shown intent (like adding a product to their cart) but then abandoned the conversion funnel. An offer at that moment can bring back large numbers of consumers who then convert. In a case like this, it's critical to use the freshest data to identify those users in minutes and deploy the right campaign to bring them back.

More frequent updates also help clients recognize and fix issues more quickly, and react to cultural trends in time to join the conversation. BigQuery is an important part of the process: it helps you join other datasets from CRM systems, call centers, or offline sales that are not available in Google Analytics today to gain greater context into those clients, issues, or emerging trends.

When streaming data is combined with BigQuery's robust programmatic and statistical tools, predictive user models can capture a greater understanding of your audience ― and help you engage those users where and when they’re ready to convert. That means more sales opportunities and better returns on your investment.

What's changing?
Those who opt in to streaming Google Analytics data into BigQuery will see data delivered to their selected BigQuery project as fast as every 10 minutes.

Those who don't opt-in will continue to see data delivered just as it has been, arriving about every eight hours.

Why is opt-in required?
The new export uses Cloud Streaming Service, which costs a little extra: $0.05 per GB (that is, "a nickel a gig"). The opt-in is our way of making sure nobody gets surprised by the additional cost. If you don't take any action, your account will continue to run as it does now, and there will be no added cost.

What data is included?
Most data sent directly to Google Analytics is included. However, data pulled in from other sources like AdWords and DoubleClick, also referred to as “integration sources”, operate with additional requirements like fraud detection. That means that this data is purposefully delayed for your benefit and therefore exempt from this new streaming functionality.

For further details on what is supported or not supported, please read the help center article here.

How do I get started?
You can start receiving the more frequent data feeds by opting in. To do so, just visit the Google Analytics BigQuery linking page in the Property Admin section and choose the following option:

You can also visit our Help Center for full details on this change and opt-in instructions.

Posted by Breen Baker, on behalf of the Google Analytics team

Google Analytics is enhancing support for AMP on cache

September 5, 2017

With users getting more and more impatient with slow mobile pages, developers are increasingly investing in a faster web experience with solutions like Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). Billions of AMP pages have been published by all kinds of mobile sites – from news to recipes to e-commerce. With so much AMP content being published every week, Google Analytics continues to evolve to support those of our customers who have adopted AMP.

Today we are excited to be the first supporting vendor to announce a new service, Google’s AMP Client ID API, that will enable the same benefits for AMP pages displayed via Google surfaces. In May of this year we launched a solution to help you better understand your customers’ journeys across AMP and non-AMP experiences that were hosted on your own domain. Google’s AMP Client ID API will enable the same benefits for AMP pages displayed by Google such as in Google Search.

How will this work?

This solution works by allowing your web pages, which may be partially served on Google platforms and partially on your domain, to communicate with each other. This communication happens via a newly introduced Google API and with Google Analytics such that it can understand if a user on your non-AMP pages had ever visited an AMP page displayed by Google. When true, Google Analytics can help you understand user behavior across these two page types as a single cohesive experience.

To get started you’ll have to opt-in to this solution via a code change. The small code change is required on both your AMP and non-AMP websites to enable this as well as an acknowledgement of the new Google Analytics terms for usage of this API.

When will this happen?

The ability to opt-in to this solution is available today and you can find code instructions and new terms here. Please review the documentation and opt-in when you are ready.

Are there any other implications of this change?

Once you opt-in to this solution you will notice changes to some of your metrics. Your user and session metrics will drop down to more accurate counts as formerly distinct users are recognised as the same person, as well as related metrics that will also become more accurate (such as Time on Site and Bounce Rate). And New Users may rise temporarily. This is a function of the product more accurately counting your users. It's a one-time effect that will continue until all your users who have viewed AMP pages in the past return to your site (this can take a short or long period of time depending on how quickly your users return to your site/app). To get more detail about what may change, please read our help center article.

Opt into this new feature today to get deeper insight into how users are interacting with your AMP pages.

Happy Analyzing!

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Ask a question, get an answer in Google Analytics

July 18, 2017

What if getting answers about your key business metrics was as easy as asking a question in plain English? What if you could simply say, "How many new users did we have from organic search on mobile last week?" ― and get an answer right away?

Today, Google Analytics is taking a step toward that future. Know what data you need and want it quickly? Just ask Google Analytics and get your answer.

This feature, which uses the same natural language processing technology available across Google products like Android and Search, is rolling out now and will become available in English to all Google Analytics users over the next few weeks.

The ability to ask questions is part of Analytics Intelligence, a set of features in Google Analytics that use machine learning to help you better understand and act on your analytics data. Analytics Intelligence also includes existing machine learning capabilities like automated insights (now available on both web and the mobile app), smart lists, smart goals, and session quality.

How it Works
We've talked to web analysts who say they spend half their time answering basic analytics questions for other people in their organization. In fact, a recent report from Forrester found that 57% of marketers find it difficult to give their stakeholders in different functions access to their data and insights. Asking questions in Analytics Intelligence can help everyone get their answers directly in the product ― so team members get what they need faster, and analysts can spend their valuable time on deeper research and discovery.
Try it! This short video will give you a feel for how it works:

“Analytics Intelligence enables those users who aren’t too familiar with Google Analytics to access and make use of the data within their business’ account. Democratising data in this way can only be a good thing for everyone involved in Google Analytics!”
Joe Whitehead, Analytics Consultant, Merkle | Periscopix

Beyond answering your questions, Analytics Intelligence also surfaces new opportunities for you through automated insights, now available in the web interface as well as in the mobile app. These insights can show spikes or drops in metrics like revenue or session duration, tipping you off to issues that you may need to investigate further. Insights may also present opportunities to improve key metrics by following specific recommendations. For example, a chance to improve bounce rate by reducing a page's load time, or the potential to boost conversion rate by adding a new keyword to your AdWords campaign.

To ask questions and get automated insights from Analytics Intelligence in our web interface, click the Intelligence button to open a side panel. In the Google Analytics mobile app for Android and iOS, tap the Intelligence icon in the upper right-hand corner of most screens. Check out this article to learn more about the types of questions you can ask today.

Help us Learn
Our Intelligence system gets even smarter over time as it learns which questions and insights users are interested in. In that spirit, we need your help: After you ask questions or look at insights, please leave feedback at the bottom of the card.

Your answers will help us train Analytics Intelligence to be more useful.

Our goal is to help you get more insights to more people, faster. That way everyone can get to the good stuff: creating amazing experiences that make customers happier and help you grow your business.
Happy Analyzing!

Posted by Annissa Alusi, Ajay Nainani, and the Google Analytics team

Firebase Analytics Gets New Features and a Familiar New Name

May 17, 2017

Can it be just a year since we announced the expansion of Firebase to become Google's integrated app developer platform at I/O 2016? That Firebase launch came complete with brand new app analytics reporting and features, developed in conjunction with the Google Analytics team.

Now, at I/O 2017, we're delighted to announce some exciting new features and integrations that will help take our app analytics to the next level. But first, we’d like to highlight a bit of housekeeping. As of today, we are retiring the name Firebase Analytics. Going forward, all app analytics reports will fall under the Google Analytics brand.

This latest generation of app analytics has always, and will continue to be, available in both the Firebase console and in Google Analytics. We think that unifying app analytics under the Google Analytics banner will better communicate that our users are getting the same great app data in both places. In Firebase and related documentation, you'll see app analytics referred to as Google Analytics for Firebase. Read on to the end of this post for more details about this change.

One other note: The launches highlighted below apply to our latest generation of app analytics – you need to be using the Firebase SDK to get these new features.

Now let’s take a look at what’s new.

Integration with AdMob
App analytics is now fully integrated with AdMob. Revenue, impression and click data from AdMob can now be connected with the rest of your event data collected by the Firebase SDK, all of it available in the latest Google Analytics app reports and / or in the Firebase console.

For app companies, this means that ad revenue can be factored into analytics data, so Analytics reports can capture each app’s performance. The integration combines AdMob data with Analytics data at the event level to produce brand new metrics, and to facilitate deep dives into existing metrics. You can answer questions like:

What is the true lifetime value for a given segment, factoring in both ad revenue and purchase revenue?
How do rewarded ads impact user engagement and LTV?
On which screens are users being exposed to advertising the most or the least?

With this change, you can now have a complete picture of the most important metrics for your business ― all in one place.

Custom parameter reporting
"What's the average amount of time users spend in my game before they make their first purchase?" Many of you have asked us for the ability to report on specific data points like these that are important to your business.

Custom parameter reporting is here to make that possible. You can now register up to 50 custom event parameters and see their details in your Analytics reports.

If you supply numeric parameters you’ll see a graph of the average and the sum of that parameter.
If you supply textual parameters you’ll see a breakdown of the most popular values.

As with the rest of your Analytics reports, you can also apply Audience and User Property filters to your custom parameter reports to identify trends among different segments of your userbase.

To start using custom parameter reporting for one of your events, look for it in the detail report for that event. You'll see instructions for setting things up there.

Integration with DoubleClick and third-parties – Now in Beta
We're also pleased to announce a new integration with both DoubleClick Campaign Manager and DoubleClick Bid Manager. Firebase-tracked install (first open) and post-install events can now easily be imported back into DoubleClick as conversions.

This is a boost for app marketers who want a clearer view of the effect their display and video marketing has on customer app behavior. Advertisers can make better decisions (for all kinds of ads, programmatic included) as they integrate app analytics seamlessly with their buying, targeting and optimization choices in DoubleClick.

We also know that some of you use advertising platforms beyond AdWords and DoubleClick, so we continue to invest in integrating more third-party networks into our system. (We're now at 50 networks and growing). The goal: to allow app data from all your networks to come together in Google Analytics, so you can make even better advertising choices using all the data you collect. Learn more.

Real-time analytics for everyone
Google Analytics pioneered real-time reporting, so we know how important it is for our customers to have access to data as it happens. That’s why we’re so excited by the real-time capabilities we’ve introduced into our latest app reports. To refresh an announcement we made in March: StreamView and DebugView are now available to the general public. These features allow you to see how real-world users are interacting and performing with your app right now.

StreamView visualizes events as they flow into our app reporting to give you a sense of how people around the world are using your app, right down to the city level. Then Snapshot lets you zoom-into a randomly selected individual user’s stream of events. And DebugView uses real-time reporting to help you improve your implementation – making it easy for you to make sure you’re measuring what you want how you want. DebugView is a terrific tool for app builders that shows you events, parameters and user properties for any individual development device. It can also highlight any events that contain invalid parameters.

Same product, familiar new name
As mentioned above, we're rebranding Firebase Analytics to make it plain that it's our recommended app analytics solution, and is fully a part of the Google Analytics family.

Our latest reports represent a new approach to app analytics, which we believe better reflects the way that users interact with apps. This means that these reports have different concepts and functionality when compared to the original app analytics reports in Google Analytics.

If you're used to using the original app analytics reports in Google Analytics, don’t worry: they're not going anywhere. But we recommend considering implementing the Firebase SDK with your next app update so you can start getting the latest features for app analytics.

Good data is one thing everyone can agree on: developers and marketers, global firms and fresh new start-ups. We've always been committed to app-centric reports, because analytics and data are the essential beginning to any long-term app strategy. We hope that these new features will give you more of what you need to build a successful future for your own apps.

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Google Analytics is Enhancing Support for AMP

May 16, 2017

Over the past year, developers have adopted the Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) technology to build faster-loading pages for all types of sites, ranging from news to recipes to e-commerce. Billions of AMP pages have been published to date and Google Analytics continues its commitment to supporting our customers who have adopted AMP.

However, we have heard feedback from Google Analytics customers around challenges in understanding the full customer journey due to site visitors being identified inconsistently across AMP and non-AMP pages. So we're announcing today that we are rolling out an enhancement that will give you an even more accurate understanding of how people are engaging with your business across AMP and non-AMP pages of your website.

How will this work?
This change brings consistency to users across AMP and non-AMP pages served from your domain. It will have the effect of improving user analysis going forward by unifying your users across the two page formats. It does not affect AMP pages served from the Google AMP Cache or any other AMP cache.

When will this happen?
We expect these improvements to be complete, across all Google Analytics accounts, over the next few weeks.

Are there any other implications of this change?
As we unify your AMP and non-AMP users when they visit your site in the future, you may see changes in your user and session counts, including changes to related metrics. User and session counts will go down over time as we recognize that two formerly distinct IDs are in fact the same user; however, at the time this change commences, the metric New Users may rise temporarily as IDs are reset.

In addition, metrics like time on site, page views per session, and bounce rate will rise consistent with sessions with AMP and non-AMP pageviews no longer being treated as multiple sessions. This is a one-time effect that will continue until all your users who have viewed AMP pages in the past are unified (this can take a short or long period of time depending on how quickly your users return to your site/app).

Is there anything I need to do to get this update?
There is no action required on your part, these changes will be automatically rolled out.

Will there be changes to unify users who view my pages both on my domain and in other contexts?
Some AMP pages are not visited directly on the domain where the content is originally hosted but instead via AMP caches or in platform experiences. However we decided to focus on fixing the publisher domain case first as this was the fastest way we could add value for our clients.

We are committed to ensuring the best quality data for user journey analysis across AMP and non-AMP pages alike and this change makes that easy for AMP pages served on your domain. We hope you enjoy these improvements - and as always, happy analyzing!

Posted by the Google Analytics team

Real-time just got real: Google Analytics 360 offers fresher insight

March 1, 2017

You’ve just launched a website or feature. Your toe is already tapping. Wait, wait, wait — you can hardly wait one hour to see exactly how it’s performing. Sound familiar? If you’ve been there, we have exciting news for you.

Google Analytics 360 can now provide updated insights as quickly as every 10 minutes. We’re proud to give our customers the fastest access to the freshest first party data Google Analytics has ever offered.

What did you just say?!
If you need to know how your sites, microsites, or digital engagements are doing right now, we’ve got you covered. Most first-party data in Analytics 360 can now be collected, processed, and available — via our UI, API, and BigQuery integration (coming soon) — in as fast as 10 minutes. This means you can move faster to:

Fix things when they’re broken
Detect trends and react when things are popular
Understand and take action on the impact of cultural events or social memes

To see how fresh the data is in your report at any time, just look for this icon in the upper right:

When you see this icon, it means you’re looking at today’s data and the report is supported and super fresh. Hover over the icon to see how fresh the data is!

This new level of freshness is only available to Analytics 360 users. To learn more about which reports, views, and properties support fresher data, and the factors affecting data freshness, check out our help center.

Some site owners just can’t wait
Brands and sites in the business of capitalizing on momentary consumer attention are excited about fresher insights. Take the case of publishers and retailers as an example.

Publishers strive to put the richest, most interesting content in front of users at any given point in time. The trick is understanding what’s rich and interesting right now — and that’s a constantly moving target.

Publishers have long referenced our real-time Google Analytics reports to make decisions, but sometimes they’re looking for deeper insight than what is provided in those reports. Fresher insights across additional Google Analytics reports help our publishers make even more informed content decisions, paving the way to better user acquisition, user engagement, and a stronger relationship between content consumer and publisher brand.

Online retailers are in the same boat. When celebrities wear a product or mention a brand on social media, product interest may spike. Retailers may have just minutes to capitalize on purchase intent before it wanes.

When a product’s popularity is on the rise, retailers can react by upping its prominence to capture interest, running focused promotions or recommending related products to expand consideration. With fresh insights available as soon as every 10 minutes, retailers move faster and turn trending interest into sales.

Speed is good, but safety comes first
As you know, Google Analytics has the ability to pull in data from other sources like AdWords and DoubleClick. We refer to these as “integration sources” and these sources operate with additional requirements, like fraud detection, that mean that the data in these reports are exempt from our enhanced freshness capabilities.

For example, any report with Ads data, including a dimension widened by an Ads integration, will continue to be made available within hours. For further details on which reports are supported or not supported, please read the help center article here.

Posted by Breen Baker, on behalf of the Google Analytics team

Using the Customer Voice to Speed Up Decision Making

January 10, 2017

Making important business decisions is often a slow process, regardless of industry or company size. In a world where innovation is increasingly important, speed is a necessity. But how does an organization streamline its decision-making process? For many companies, the answer is data. In fact, highly data-driven organizations are three times more likely than others to report significant improvement in decision-making, according to PwC research.¹

When looking for meaningful insights to drive innovation and growth, market research is often a go-to data source. The problem many companies face is that market research can feel like a roadblock because it can take months to get the data.

At Lenovo, the leading PC manufacturer worldwide, constantly evolving and improving products is required to remain competitive. “We have to make decisions today for products two years from now,” says Sarah Kennedy, User Experience Researcher at Lenovo. To keep the decision-making process moving, Sarah’s team uses Google Surveys 360 for fast and accurate data. Bringing consumer insights to the table in the early stages of product development helps her team get buy-in from senior stakeholders at a faster pace. “Within seven days, we can get results that would normally take us a month,” says Sarah.

"We put an emphasis on innovation. Collecting competitive data and industry benchmarks is critical to do this. Surveys 360 helps us get data on the current state of the market. The results are reliable and delivered at the speed we need so our teams can continue developing the best products without delay."

– Corinna Proctor, ‎Director of User & Design Research, Lenovo

See the Lenovo story here.

Google Surveys 360 provides businesses with the data they need quickly, accurately, and affordably. Choose your target audience, write your survey, and get answers in as little as three days. Get started today.

Happy surveying!
¹PwC's Global Data and Analytics Survey, Big Decisions™, Base: 1,135 senior executives, Global, May 2016

Posted by Kevin Fields, Product Marketing Manager, Google Surveys team

Data Studio: DoubleClick Campaign Manager Connector

November 30, 2016

Google Data Studio (beta) allows users to connect, transform, visualize, and share data no matter where it lives. Today we are happy to announce that DoubleClick Campaign Manager (DCM) customers can pull their data into Data Studio dashboards instantly!

With this new connector, DCM customers no longer need to import data into spreadsheets. Users can now quickly create dashboards with over 50 DCM metrics and dimensions. These dashboards are an effective way to track and optimize campaign performance and share reports with client and agency stakeholders.

Creating a new report with DCM data
Ready to get started? The first step is to connect to your DCM network or advertiser through the Data Sources page.

Next you can create a new report from scratch or use our DCM template. With just a few clicks, the dashboard is populated with your data.

Want to learn more? Looking for a new connector in Data Studio?

To learn more about the new DCM connector, please visit our Help Center or post your questions in the Data Studio community forums.

Is there a specific data service you wish to be able to access and visualize through Data Studio? We welcome your feedback via the connector feedback form — we read all responses and use them to prioritize new connectors.

Happy reporting!

The Data Studio team

Posted by Alon Gotesman, Google Data Studio team

Introducing the Firebase Demo Project

November 10, 2016

"All genuine learning comes from experience" - John Dewey

Earlier this year we introduced Firebase: a unified app platform for Android, iOS and mobile web development. It includes tools to help you develop faster, improve app quality, acquire and engage users, and monetize apps. There are many resources available to learn Firebase, from documentation, guides and free training courses (Android and iOS) we created, to advice from the Firebase community. However, there is nothing quite like learning through practical experience. To address this we’ve launched a fully functional Firebase Demo Project, available to everyone from today (get access here).

The Demo Project includes data from Flood It! (Android and iOS), a real puzzle game in which you have to flood the whole game board with one color in less than the allowed steps. Therefore, the data in the Firebase demo project is typical of what you might see for a gaming app with in-app purchases. It includes the following kinds of information:

Analytics: Attribution data, key events, cohorts and funnel reporting. This includes data about first opens (think of these like installs), in-app purchases, and more.
Remote Config: The parameters that control the app experience as well as the conditions which define which users receive which parameter values.
Test Lab: The automated test results from running the app on numerous device/OS combinations for quality assurance purposes.
Crash: Details on various crashes which have occurred in the app, including callstacks and device information.
Notifications: The notification campaigns that were sent to users to re-engage them. This includes data about the number of messages sent, opened and the number of conversions attributed to each campaign.

Firebase Demo Project: Analytics Dashboard

"Since the launch of Firebase we have been excited to continually build hands-on experience with its many features. Especially with the freely included and unlimited analytics solution for mobile apps, Firebase Analytics. The Firebase Demo Project has helped our team do just that and similar to what we've done with the Google Analytics Demo Account, we've incorporated the Firebase Demo Project within our training programs. This plays a critical part in helping our clients maximise their familiarity with Firebase." - Ben Gott, Analytics Director, Periscopix

Self-Learning

The Demo Project is useful for exploring Firebase features and reports. Here are a few things you can do with it:

View all standard Analytics reports populated with real data from the Flood It! app
Dissect Analytics reports by applying a variety of filters
See which ad campaigns are driving the most valuable users to the app
Track crashes and their impact on end users, and understand the steps that led to them
See the full notifications funnel for notifications sent from the Firebase Console
View Remote Config parameters to see how values are varied based on targeting parameters, especially feature flags and percent targeting for staging and Analytics audience targeting for customization
See test results from testing the app on real physical and virtual devices in the Firebase Test Lab

Education Programs
If you’re an educator trying to teach others to use Firebase then we encourage you to use the Demo Project within your course. For example, you can create practical exercises that students can complete using the Demo Project.

Access the Demo Project
You can get access to the Demo Project and learn more about it, from this help article. If you need some help, or have ideas to make the Demo Project more useful, please share it with the Google Analytics Community. We hope the Demo Project gives you a practical way to try new features and learn about Firebase.

Happy analyzing!
Posted by Deepak Aujla & Steve Ganem, Google Analytics team

Google Tag Manager: Giving Mobile Tagging a Little Extra Love

October 24, 2016

Over the last several months, we have talked about Google Tag Manager’s improvements to enterprise workflows, enhanced our security features, and made great strides to bring more partners into our Vendor Tag Template Program. Tag Manager also launched a new mobile SDK at Google I/O in May that builds on the power of Firebase, Google’s mobile app developer platform. Today, we’re excited to announce our latest efforts to make mobile tagging easier than ever with Google Tag Manager.

Welcoming AMP to the Tag Manager family

We are excited to launch support for ⚡ Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) in Google Tag Manager! AMP is an open-sourced initiative to make the mobile experience better for everyone. Early data shows that AMP pages load 4x faster and use 10x less data than equivalent non AMP pages. Starting today, you can start using Google Tag Manager to simplify your tag deployment on AMP sites.

While implementing measurement solutions on AMP pages has already been possible, it can be confusing and cumbersome for folks who are new to AMP or who have tagging needs beyond tracking a basic page view. That’s why, in addition to Google Analytics, AMP containers in Tag Manager provide support across Google’s ad platforms including AdWords and DoubleClick. You will find more than 20 tag types available out of the box including a variety of 3rd party vendor tags. We also made sure that firing your tags is a breeze with great coverage of AMP’s triggers as readily available built-in Tag Manager triggers:

When setting up tags, it’s common to want to collect additional values such as how far the user has scrolled down the page or the page’s title. AMP Analytics’ variables serve this purpose and are available in Google Tag Manager as built-in variables ready to be integrated into your tags. You can head over to our support pages for a full list of supported tags and information on how to use built-in variables.

Getting started is as easy as it sounds:

Create a new container for your AMP site
Drop the Tag Manager snippet on your AMP pages
Create your first tags
Preview & Publish

AMP containers are built with the familiarity and flexibility that existing Google Tag Manager users already depend on. As with our other solutions in Tag Manager, AMP containers “just work” out of the box.

Improving Tag Manager for mobile apps

When we announced Google Tag Manager’s new SDK at Google I/O, we brought an integration method to Android and iOS apps that builds on the power of Firebase. This integration makes it easier than ever for developers and marketers to manage where their app data is sent, both within Google and to our supported Tag Template Vendors.

New triggers for events Firebase automatically detects

Today, we are making our mobile app containers even more intuitive and easy to use by tapping into the events that Firebase detects automatically. Now, when you are in a Firebase mobile container, you will see several new options when setting up triggers. Whether your container targets Android or iOS, you will see a new section called “Firebase Automatic Events” which contains the supported automatically detected events for the respective platforms. You can also find built-in variables for each of those events’ parameters, so setting up your tags should be a cinch.

Find parameters when you need them

In addition to the events Firebase can detect automatically, developers are encouraged to implement general events for all apps as well as suggested events by app type to help them fully take advantage of Firebase features. Once implemented, you’re able to use the parameters from these events in your tags: just create a new user-defined variable and select “Event Parameter.” With this new feature, you no longer have to remember which parameters are available for which events. Select the event you’re working with, and you get a list of available parameters.

We are dedicated to providing you with best-in-class tag management. As consumers shift to mobile, our priorities include developing simple, easy-to-use solutions for the latest mobile technologies.

Whether you are building mobile apps or adopting the AMP platform, we’ve got you covered.

Posted by Ben Gram, Product Manager, Google Tag Manager

How to Apply Holiday Shopping Insights to Your Analytics Strategies

October 24, 2016

The Year of the Supershopper
We all have that friend — the one who somehow knows the latest brands, the season’s must-have products, and where to find the best deals at the snap of a finger. In years past, this friend was an enigma, making us wonder how does he or she do it?

Today, we can all be that friend. With the ability to instantly discover, research, and purchase, shoppers around the world are more informed and more efficient than ever before - they’ve transformed into supershoppers seemingly overnight.

But what defines supershoppers? And what does this mean for retailers trying to win them over this holiday season? Let’s find out.

They Keep Their Options Open
Last year, more than 50% of holiday shoppers said they were open to purchasing from new retailers¹. This is especially true online. More than three-quarters of smartphone shoppers who usually go to the same physical stores when they shop for products are very open to new retailers and brands online². Why? Mobile makes it easy to explore all of your options no matter when or where you’re shopping. In fact, after searching on Google, 76% of mobile shoppers have changed their mind about which retailer or brand to purchase³.

Mobile is Their Muse
It used to be that shoppers would thumb through catalogues or stare longingly at the holiday window displays, but mobile is now the super shopper’s go-to source for inspiration. Sixty-four percent of smartphone shoppers turn to mobile search for ideas about what to buy before heading into a store⁴. And 1 in 4 mobile video viewers in the U.S. have visited YouTube for help with a purchase decision while they were at a store or visiting a store's website⁵.

But shoppers aren’t only making purchase decisions, they’re discovering new brands and products along the way: more than half of smartphone users have discovered a new company or product when conducting a search on their phones⁶.

They Want the Best - Not the Cheapest
In July we learned that shoppers are on the quest for the best — and this still rings true more than ever today. Last holiday, mobile searches related to “best gift” grew 70% year over year while mobile searches related to cheap or inexpensive gifts grew about 35%⁷. They’re also willing to do the research to the make the best decision: on YouTube, mobile watch time for product review videos has grown 60% year over year⁸.

But supershoppers don’t only want the best - they want personalized, unique, cool gifts. Mobile searches related to “unique gifts” grew more than 65% while mobile searches related to “cool gifts” grew a whopping 80%⁹.

Mobile is Their Door to the Store
Although more and more people are willing to buy on mobile, we know that mobile is still used predominantly as a door to the store. In fact, 76% of people who search for something nearby on their smartphone visit a related business within a day, and 28% of those searches result in a purchase¹⁰.

Once they’re inside your store, they expect the experience to be a seamless one: more than 40% of smartphone shoppers want retailers to automatically surface relevant information such as the location of the item in the store, a special deal or related products¹¹.

They Shop ‘Til they Drop
Supershoppers live up to their name as the holiday season progresses. From November through mid-December we see online conversion rates increase across devices. Last year, on mobile alone, they jumped 30% on Black Friday and 50% on Cyber Monday when compared to November 1¹².

Tips to Using Analytics to Reach Today’s Shopper
Analytics is a critical marketing tool all year long. But that importance is amplified during the holiday season. Here are five ideas on how you can use analytics to get the most out of the holiday shopping season.

1. Understand which days drive the most sales — be there. In order to develop a successful holiday retail strategy, it’s important to first understand the days that drive the most sales for your business. Once you understand this, you can craft strategy — across mobile, desktop, and tablet — that optimizes your media and promotion not only for these days, but for the entire holiday season.
For example, adjust bids for auction-based media and use the lift in transaction rates over the average transaction rate as your bid multiplier. Use Smart Bidding in AdWords or DoubleClick Search to maximize your performance.

2. Get personal when engaging with window shoppers. The great thing about the holidays is that you can start shopping at any time — and then wait for discounts. Many consumers may already be browsing your site looking for gift ideas. This is an audience that may convert at a higher rate. Use Google Analytics to create remarketing lists including these shoppers, and then customize your marketing campaigns to better suit their needs.

But don’t stop there: Remember, supershoppers crave personalization. Test different variations of your website with this same audience to offer more customized experiences. Try Google Optimize, our free site testing and personalization tool, to get started.

3. Act fast: Create a culture of optimization. Your holiday marketing plans are set long before the holiday season starts. It’s very important to monitor your activities to ensure they’re driving business growth. And if they’re not you need to take action by immediately identifying areas of opportunity and improvement.

Google Analytics offers a number of ways to help simplify reporting, sift through data, and spotlight insights for you. Custom reports, dashboards and shortcuts all let you customize reporting so you spend less time looking for data and more time analyzing important information. Or better yet, try Google Data Studio and create a holiday shopping dashboard for different teams in your organization.

4. Analyze your performance against your competitors. Benchmarking your business against your competitors helps you see the big picture. If you’re a Google Analytics user, you can tailor this analysis and approach, using your own data and the data available in our benchmarking reports. The benefit of using those reports is that they will provide you a comparison between your data and your competitors, using characteristics such as website traffic, country and detailed vertical information.

5. Start developing your New Year marketing strategy. With so many new shoppers entering your stores, sites, and apps, data and analytics are critical to helping you convert first-time shoppers into long-term, loyal customers. Use your website data to create lists of first-time customers during the holidays, and deliver personalized communication across channels to build relationships. With Google Analytics you can create remarketing lists and easily connect with this audience.

Happy analyzing!

Posted by Julie Krueger, Retail Managing Director, Google and Casey Carey, Director of Analytics Marketing, Google

Google/ Ipsos, Post Holiday Shopping Intentions Study - Total Shoppers Report, Jan 2016, Base: US Holiday Shoppers, n=1,500

Google/Euromonitor International, Micro-Moments Survey, US, July 2016, Smartphone shoppers = 1000, Same store shoppers = 801

Google/Euromonitor International, Micro-Moments Survey, US, July 2016, Smartphone shoppers = 1000

Google-commissioned Ipsos Brand Building on Mobile Survey, U.S., December 2015 n=1000, 18-54 year olds

Google/Ipsos, "Consumers in the Micro-Moment," Wave 3, U.S., n=1291 online smartphone users 18+, August 2015

Source: Google Search Data, Apparel, Home & garden, Beauty & personal care, Computers & electronics, Gifts, Toys & games, Photo & video, Nov-Dec 2014 vs Nov-Dec 2015, United States

YouTube data, U.S., Classification as a “Product Review" video was based on public data such as headlines and tags, and may not account for every such video available on YouTube, Nov - Dec 2014 and Nov - Dec 2015

Google Search Data, Apparel, Home & garden, Beauty & personal care, Computers & electronics, Gifts, Toys & games, Photo & video, Nov-Dec 2014 vs Nov-Dec 2015, United States

Google/Purchased Digital Diary: How Consumers Solve Their Needs in the Moment, May 2016, Representative sample of US Smartphone users = 1000. Local searchers = 634, Purchases = 1,140

Google/Euromonitor International, Micro-Moments Survey, US, July 2016, Smartphone shoppers = 1000

Google Analytics Shopping category data, Nov 1, 2015–December 14, 2015, United States

Improvements coming to the Google Analytics desktop UI

October 10, 2016

Over the last ten years, Google Analytics has added many new features and reports. For the last few months, we’ve been working to build a simpler Google Analytics while still retaining the key functionality that people frequently use. The changes highlighted in this post are the first part in a series of improvements that you will see in the next few months.

Below is a summary of the changes that all Google Analytics users will begin to see over the next few weeks.

1. Simplified navigation

A brand-new navigation using Google’s Material Design standards
Removal of the “Home Customization Reporting Admin” subheader bar

Admin is now pinned to the bottom of the navigation

Resizeable left navigation to allow for more space in the canvas

2. Customization, all in one place

Previously , reporting customization items were spread out: Dashboards & Shortcuts in the left-nav; Custom Tables, Custom Reports, etc. in the Customization tab; Custom Alerts in a tab in Intelligence Events
Now, all customization elements are contained in a “Customization” left-nav element:

3. Simplified Google Analytics View switching

The old “Home” account/property/view picker page has been replaced by the new picker in the header, which allows you to switch views from any page in the product
Note that for Analytics 360 users, you may need to switch organizations to see the set of accounts you are trying to get to

4. A streamlined login flow

Logging in now automatically takes you to the last Google Analytics View you were looking at the last time you logged in

5. An adjustable default date range

You can now change the default date range that Google Analytics reports load with. This can be changed in your Google Analytics user settings
Setting it to shorter times (like 7 days) has several benefits. For example, many campaign changes, website experiments, etc. will have impacts hidden in a 30-day view but immediately visible on a shorter timeline
Defaults are now set to 7 days for all standard GA users

6. Goodbye to a couple of pages:

Intelligence Events:

Custom alerts have moved to the new Customization section and will continue to function as normal
Automatic Intelligence Events have been removed from Google Analytics, and will soon be replaced by automated insights from Google Analytics Assistant

In-Page Analytics: The In-Page Analytics report has been removed from Google Analytics web UI. You can still access in-page analytics with the official Chrome Extension

All Google Analytics users will begin to see these changes in the next few weeks. We hope these changes improve your Google Analytics experience!
Posted by Ajay Nainani, Product Manager, Google Analytics

Spotlight on Data Studio: Beautiful Reports and Collaboration Just Got Easier

October 4, 2016

We launched Google Data Studio (beta) in the U.S. earlier this year, and last week, we expanded availability to 21 additional countries.* We’re excited to offer Data Studio to companies across the globe so they can easily create and share reports and dashboards, and ultimately use insights and collaboration to make better business decisions.

Organizations today collect an increasingly large amount of data. In a world of web analytics, CRM systems, and third-party sources, data-driven decisions should be easier than ever before. However, all of this data has presented a significant challenge: making it easily accessible and useful.

Having multiple data sources that live in silos within your organization compromises your ability to spot critical business opportunities and issues when they matter most. This is a widespread challenge, with 84% of marketers saying they don’t believe their data sources are well-integrated, according to a 2016 Forrester study.

Data Studio solves this problem by allowing you to easily connect your data and create beautiful, informative reports that are easy to read, easy to share, and fully customizable. Create up to five custom reports with unlimited editing and sharing. All for free.

Get started today so you can:

Put all your data to work. Easily access the data sources you need to understand your business and make better decisions.

Transform your data. Quickly transform raw data into easy-to-follow reports and dashboards — no code or queries required.

Build engaging reports and dashboards. Data Studio gives you the ability to create meaningful, shareable charts and graphs that bring your data to life.

Leverage teamwork that works. Work together quickly, from anywhere, by sharing reports via Google Drive.

Not sure where to start? Good news: We’re releasing our first batch of templates today to remove that hurdle. Businesses can use a library of templates to get up and running in a matter of minutes.

Get started for free.

Happy reporting!
The Data Studio team

*Canada, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam

Posted by Kevin Fields, Product Marketing Manager, Data Studio

Announcing: Smart, Fast-Acting Analytics — For Everyone

September 28, 2016

This past March, we launched the Google Analytics 360 Suite, a set of integrated data and marketing analytics products designed for the needs of enterprise-class marketers in today’s multi-screen world.

Today we have another exciting announcement. Next month we’ll start rolling out a new product: Google Optimize — a free version of our enterprise-class testing and personalization product, Google Optimize 360. Google Optimize will be globally available at that time. Additionally, we’re including enhancements to many of our existing free products. Read on for details.

Businesses of all sizes need tools to measure and succeed

First of all, why this free product now? Because companies big and small face the same challenge today: Consumer expectations are higher than ever in a mobile-first world. How can brands be more useful to people in their moments of need? With ever more data flooding in, marketers need access to the right data so they can uncover useful insights — and act on them quickly.

The companies that are already making this leap from data to action are transforming their businesses by becoming more useful to consumers throughout these micro-moments. How? Analytics and testing are the key. In fact, according to an Econsultancy survey of 4,000 marketers, the top two digital trends in 2020 are going to be a focus on customer experience (24%) and personalization (23%).

That’s what has led to today's announcement. We've made several advancements to the free versions of our analytics products to bring modern measurement to everyone, and help them create happier customers by providing more relevant experiences. Let’s take a closer look.

How can every business deliver personalized customer experiences?
Google Optimize (beta). This free web and mobile-web testing and personalization tool helps businesses improve their customer experiences and business metrics. Because it’s built on top of Google Analytics, businesses can use their existing information to experiment and personalize site experiences with minimal setup requirements. Request an invite.

"With Google Optimize, we’ve been able to provide more engaging content to The Next Web's readers – converting them from new readers to loyal customers."

Martijn Scheijbeler

Director of Marketing - The Next Web

How can everyone access and share powerful data?
Google Data Studio (beta), our free reporting and data visualization product, is now available globally in 21 new countries.* It enables businesses to easily spot and share insights, and collaborate to drive better decisions. Additionally, next month we’re launching report templates, making it even easier to get started. As with templates in Google Docs, Slides, and Sheets, businesses can create, edit, and use a library of templates to get up and running in a matter of minutes. Get started. The enterprise and free versions of Google Data Studio launched earlier this year in the U.S. These updates are also available in Data Studio 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.

How can everyone get useful insights, not just more data?
Google Analytics, our free customer analytics product and measurement centerpiece, analyzes customer data from all touchpoints — and soon it’s becoming even smarter. Following the launch of our automated insight stream in the Google Analytics mobile app, we’re excited to announce Session Quality Score: A new metric that incorporates machine learning to predict the likelihood of a visitor making a transaction (purchase) on your site or app. Businesses can use session quality score to provide better customer experiences and / or remarket to their most engaged website visitors. This feature is coming soon in beta and will also be available in Analytics 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.

How can everyone gain full visibility into customer journeys?
Google Tag Manager empowers marketers to move faster and make decisions with confidence. It offers a simplified way to gather site information (all those tiny bits of code), and powerful APIs to increase data accuracy and streamline workflows. And today we’re greatly expanding our openness by integrating an additional 20 tags from Quantcast, Twitter, Microsoft Bing, Nielsen, and many more. See the full list of supported tags here. These updates will roll out over the next couple weeks and are also available in Tag Manager 360, part of the Google Analytics 360 Suite.

Modern measurement for everyone

Put simply, that's our goal with these new free products. As today’s businesses are shifting to compete on customer experience and personalized marketing, we want to give all businesses the tools and access to compete — and ultimately, drive better online consumer experiences.

If you’re interested in learning more, please watch our blog this week and next. We’ll dive deeper into each product announcement and show you how they work. In the meantime, check out the resources below to learn more.

Optimize: Request an invite
Data Studio: Get started for free
Session Quality: Help Center update coming soon!
Tag Manager: Visit the Help Center

As always, you can visit our website to sign-up for our free analytics products.

*Canada, Brazil, Germany, Netherlands, Spain, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Indonesia, India, Japan, South Korea, Australia, Hong Kong, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Taiwan, Vietnam

Posted by Babak Pahlavan, Senior Director of Product Management, Analytics Solutions and Measurement, Google

Google Analytics 360 + Salesforce.