What Google Analytics 360 Means For Digital Marketers

One of the most famous quotes about marketing and advertising is attributed to 19^th century department store merchant John Wanamaker: “Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.”

In the digital marketing age, this quote is every bit as relevant as it once was, at least at SEO Sydney. One of the reasons Google launched Google Analytics was to help digital marketers understand which of their marketing spend was having the biggest impact. Now with launch of Google Analytics 360, accurate ROI attribution will be made even easier.

Last month, Google announced that they would be launching the Google Analytics 360 product suite. This launch has been hinted at over the past few years with Google’s acquisition of Adometry and the integration of GA with other Google-owned tools such as DoubleClick. The new end-to-end analytics suite is a digital marketer’s dream, including options for site testing, audience segmentation and activation, tag management services, data visualisation, full customer attribution and more.

Google Analytics 360 is comprised of six products:

1. Google Audience Centre 360: In a long overdue move, Google is releasing a data management platform (DMP) on par with similar platforms offered by Oracle and Adobe. What does a DMP do? Essentially it organises and segments raw data in a more useful way. With Google Audience Centre, advertisers will be able to import their own first-party data, bring in third-party data and use Google’s own data to develop highly relevant audience segments for campaign targeting.
2. Google Optimise 360: Another functionality that has been noticeably absent from Google’s suite of products (until now) is the ability to test and personalise your website landing pages. Many webmasters have been using services like Optimizely to easily A/B test new landing pages. With Google Optimise 360, marketers will be able to test offers, layouts and funnel flows against audience segments.
3. Google Data Studio 360: Data visualisation and collaboration software is a growing market, and Data Studio 360 is Google’s attempt to break in. With Data Studio, marketers will be able to unlock enterprise marketing information and present it in meaningful ways. They will also be able to update and collaborate on reports and dashboards in real time using the Google Docs framework – no more emailing around spreadsheets!
4. Google Analytics 360: The crux of the new product suite is the tried and true Google Analytics platform. With this new facelift, Google Analytics Premium members get an upgraded analytics platform with fresh customer touch-points and augmented data collection capability.
5. Google Attribution 360: Formerly known as Adometry, the rebranded Google Attribution 360 is one of the most exciting inclusions in the Google Analytics 360 suite. Now the power of Adometry will be more easily available to digital marketers, giving them the ability to gather attribution insights across online and offline channels. In other words, you will be able to see how the money you spent on online marketing is translated into a customer’s offline journey, thus improving ROI measurement and attribution.
6. Google Tag Manager 360: The existing Google Tag Manager is a powerful product that makes it easy for marketers to “tag” buttons and containers on their website or app for easy data collection without having to rely on their IT team. The new standalone Tag Manager 360 product is built from the existing Tag Manager and will offer “simplified data collection and powerful APIs to increase data accuracy and streamline workflows.”

What are the implications?

It’s been common for companies to rely on product suites like Adobe and Salesforce to fill the gaps missing from Google’s digital marketing solutions. Now with Google Analytics 360, these companies will have access to a full-service multi-channel campaign management option backed by one of the most recognisable brand names on the planet.

With Google Analytics 360, site testing, data visualisation, targeting and online/offline attribution are simpler than ever before. It’s one step closer to the ultimate goal of 100% accurate ROI measurement that marketers have been dreaming of since long before the days of John Wanamaker. If you want to learn more or would like some help with Google Analytics, contact us at SEO Sydney – the experts in all things SEO