New Google Analytics Features Announced at SES Today!

Fast on the footsteps of the feature announcements made at eMetrics in October, and just a week after the announcement of the new asynchronous tracking code, yet another set of announcements came today at SES Chicago. Here’s a brief recap:

Annotations:

We love this one, and after using it for a while, we can’t really remember the life of an analyst without it. Now you can leave notes in the top graph of your reports to explain what happened when, who did what, when that fantastic promotion was blasted out, and anything else you can dream up. Here’s a quick screenshot:

Custom Variables now in Custom Reports & Advanced Segments:
Custom variables, announced just a little over a month ago, are now available for use in Custom Reports as well as Advanced Segments. This is great news since for most folks the announcement made in October meant that you could start collecting data for custom variables, but showing it in your reports was limited to just the standard Custom Variables reports that were rolled out in the weeks after the announcement.

Now, you can use your new custom variables to slice, dice, cut up and show in whatever context you like in custom reports, or define segments on the fly based on your custom variable definitions!

Google Analytics Setup Wizard

Sure, you can slap on the code and start collecting some data, but if you have some advanced installation situations (like crossing top level or subdomains, specific PHP considerations, alternate campaign tags, cases where Urchin is also being used, mobile application tracking, and more), how do you know how to change your code?.

Well, here’s a screenshot of some of the advanced situations where you can use the new Setup Wizard to help you generate customized Google Analytics Tracking Code (GATC), but remember, we always suggest reviewing this code and installation instructions to ensure that it’s going to accomplish exactly what you want it to:

Google Analytics API Updates

There are a number of updates coming to the Google Analytics API, and we’re very excited to see all the ways people start using this new functionality. Here’s one we can share with you early:

Advanced Segmentation is now supported via the Google Analytics API!

Later this week, look for the official announcement of the full new set of updates to the Google Analytics API.

David Booth

David is a founding partner and principal consultant at Cardinal Path, as well as an author, instructor, adjunct professor, and regular speaker. As a consultant, David has advised and worked with companies and organizations across five continents in web analytics and business intelligence, statistical analysis and testing, technology selection and deployment, and online & search marketing. David is the author of Google AdWords Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2011) and Google Website Optimizer Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2010) and served as a technical editor of Performance Marketing with Google Analytics (Wiley, 2010) and Google Analytics Essential Training (Lynda.com, 2011). He is currently working on yet another project to be published in the Spring of 2012, and he teaches a masters level course on web analytics and online marketing at the Monterey Institute of International Studies. As an instructor and speaker, David has keynoted numerous events and has led seminars and sessions focused on digital analytics and search & conversion marketing all around the world for audiences ranging from C-level executives to technical implementation teams. He has been involved in web application development as an engineer and consultant since the late 1990's, beginning his career with Intel Corporation. He was a founder and partner at WebShare, LLC through its merger, and spent two years with the United States Peace Corps developing and deploying websites and web applications to attract grants and international aid for Guatemalan NGOs and local development organizations. David earned his Master of Business Administration in International Management from the Monterey Institute of International Studies and holds a B.S. in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.