Google Analytics

Google Analytics is well suited for worldwide apps or multi-branch intranet sites or multichannel (web and mobile) apps.

Google Analytics is well-suited towards tracking most straightforward interactive marketing campaigns - emails, click data, download data, user visits, opens, and things of that nature. It is less suited toward providing up to the minute data results - sometime it can take several hours before the data shows up, so you might want to look elsewhere if you need instant metrics.

Google Analytics is great for small businesses as it is free to implement and set up on your sites. You do not need to have an IT staff or trained analytics people to start seeing the data. The software is pretty user friendly and encourages use on all sites, regardless of internet skill or training. Might not worry about it if you have a larger staff though.

Every business with a website should run Google Analytics. Period.

Google Analytics works very well for users that require quick and basic implementation of digital analytics. The basic implementation works really well to understand your audience at a higher level and how they interact with your website. Where Google Analytics falls down is if you want a real deep analysis on your audience, as the data is sometimes just not deep enough. This can be solved by implementing extra pieces of code in Google Analytics but I feel like most businesses pick Google Analytics because it looks pretty.

I think Google Analytics is necessary for a business of any size, especially one that is running paid ads online. Without Google Analytics, you would not be able to see how your website is performing or identify areas that need improvement. It is an excellent platform for managing website traffic, time on site, page views, bounce rate, conversions, etc. I use just about every tool and option that Google Analytics offers, and I can tell you that I would be "left in the dark" without it.

Google Analytics is very well-suited for e-commerce sites and news sites where there is a lot of traffic. With e-commerce, you can tweak the site when you have specific products that may go on sale or you want to drive traffic to. Smaller static sites such as a small business with only information might not benefit as much from Google Analytics.

This is the ideal platform to identify and track customers. We use this in board meetings, company presentations and to develop our NPS score.

Google Analytics is a great tool for any new business website or personal blogger. It is easy to install and free to use so it tends to be a great starter resource.

If you are less technically inclined, I'd recommend finding something easier to use. Some of the terminology and interface can be confusing at times.

The only times I can think of when Google Analytics might not be appropriate, is when trying to pull social media or metrics that are not captured by Google Analytics --- duh.

Beyond that, though, it is a great tool that offers valuable information if you have the team to support you in analyzing the data that's pulled and captured. Great insights can be made in terms of recommendations for the end product.

I think any company that has a website needs to have Google Analytics to gain knowledge about all the traffic to their website. Understanding how people get to your site and what they do once they are there is invaluable and a must if you are wanting to grow your business and better understand your audience or leads.

It is really helpful for anyone with a website. You can use all of the data from your website for advertising and really use it to determine where people that you could be targeting are found and can find where your customer base may be. I think it is always important to have a tracking code on your website.

If your site generates 10 million or fewer hits per month, then Google Analytics is free. If your site generates more than 10 million hits per month, then Google offers increased limits as part of Google Analytics Premium.

Be prepared to spend the time in the tool and read the documentation. Unlike commercial tools that can offer training or a person to walk you over the details, there is a lot to GA, but it can be hidden and takes time to find and learn. Out of the box, it works well, but the real depth takes time to discover and learn how to use.

For most SMB's I would definitely recommend Google Analytics. If a business sells a lot of 'complex' products with many attributes, then Omniture may be a better solution.

Google Analytics can be tricky to set up when you have multiple websites that you send visitors between (i.e. cross domain tracking).

Great improvements have been done when it comes to attribution modelling last year, but the need for improvement is still there.

If your client/boss has no or very little knowledge of how GA cookies and attribution work - be sure to be very clear when explaining that and how to interpret results.

I would recommend Google Analytics to anyone who has a website. It's not necessary to need to analyze your data all the time, but to have the option to view site activity down to the specific page and know how each traffic source behaves on that page, that information is invaluable to a growing business and/or website.

One scenario for which I found this service particularly well suited was for tracking and calculating ROI on trade show spending. For example a company may purchase banner ad space for a trade show and have site links included at the end of an attendee email. Using Google Analytics you can measure the traffic from the trade show homepage (referral) and the CTR/time spent from the email links.
While this service is very impressive for one that is free it is far from all encompassing. While the platform reports data it is not an all in one tool that allows you to monitor how your actions directly influence inbound web participation.

There's really no reason not to use Google Analytics. The fact that it's free is incredible - it is the very first program I suggest clients set up to start getting a real handle on their online presence. Just answering simple questions like "Where does my traffic come from?" would be impossible without GA.

It just depends on the needs of the user. For One Page Sites, it will need more tailoring and work when implementing tracking; however, with standard multi-page sites, it is a good, free resource that provides reporting that can be very useful for a company.

GA is free. If the client has a different system (one tied to their shopping cart, for example) you might not use GA as you complete reporting solution. But you have to know your GA numbers.

Google Analytics is free and developer friendly to work with.

I guess if a business is looking for a web analytics software that integrates into ERP or something, then Google Analytics may not make sense. Otherwise, it's hard to say another tool for monitoring web traffic, conversions, or revenue generated from your website is better suited to meet your needs than Google Analytics.