Google Analytics Improvements - Site Engagement Goals, Mobile Reporting, Multiple Custom Variables

Josh Chambers, Former Viget

Article Category: #Strategy

Posted on

Last year, after attending the Google Analytics Authorized Consultant's Summit, I blogged about wonders such as advanced segments, the API, and custom reporting. This year, there are some pretty cool additions once again, including:

  • Multiple goals
  • Engagement goals
  • Mobile tracking and reporting
  • Advanced analysis
  • Multiple custom variables
  • Analytics intelligence
  • Custom alerts

Goal Improvements - Engagement Goals & 20 Goals / Profile

  • Now you can define pages per visit and time on site as a conversion. 
  • Additionally, remember that time you could only have four goals per Google Analytics profile? Those days are finally over! Now, 20 goals per profile are comprised of four goal sets each containing five goals. In other words, you can track up to five goals in one goal set, and see the total aggregated conversion rates for one set, as well as each individual conversation rate.

Mobile Tracking and Reporting

  • You can now better measure mobile marketing efforts within Google Analytics with expanded mobile tracking. It supports PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX in this release - and, of course, JavaScript. Here are some instructions.

Advanced Analysis - Advanced Table Filtering

  • Previously in Google Analytics, you could only filter reports by text (pageview name, search keywords). However, you can now filter by metrics (bounce rate, time on site, etc.).

Multiple Custom Variables

  • Finally!
  • Custom variables allow you to segment users by naming their cookies with relevant information. For example, once someone logs in you would name them "member" and segment accordingly. Previously in Google Analytics, you could only store one variable per user/cookie using the setVar method. Now, however, you can track multiple variables per user/cookie! I'm really excited about this one.
  • Some instructions and more details are here.

"Intelligence & Custom Alerts"

  • I'll just let Google Analytics tell you:
  • We're launching the initial phase of an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine to Google Analytics. Analytics Intelligence will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago.
  • Also, you can now set up daily, weekly, and monthly triggers. I'm not that excited about this one, but this will be a big deal for some users.

These are some really awesome improvements! As Google Analytics says, these new features are powerful, intelligent, and flexible. Any questions?

Some Related Videos

Engagement Goals and Multiple Goals Video

Google Analytics Advanced Table Filtering

Google Analytics Pivoting & Secondary Dimensions

Google Analytics Intelligence and Custom Alerts

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