Item: Google Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Heide Rembold

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Google Analytics is often used by one individual (myself) with occasional consultation and sharing with other members of the staff. As the Director of Marketing & Analytics, I use Google Analytics to track data on our website and relay that information to our team, as well as use it to come up with ways to increase traffic to our website and business in general. The business problems we address as the questions of how consumers are getting to our website, what they're doing once they're on it, and when and how they leave.

Pros and Cons

Has details on everything
Raw data, up for interpretation
Multi-user functionality
Courses available for education

While raw data is nice to have, I do wish there was an easier way to provide reports from Google Analytics directly. Something that could answer questions straight-forward for people.
I would appreciate "helpful hints" or a cheat sheet of some sort, so when quickly searching for something such as time on a certain page, I can find it quickly.
I really don't have a third point!

Most Important Features

Ability to track traffic on website.
Ability to know where traffic is coming from.
Ability to count clicks.
Ability to track bounce rate.
Ability to see a journey of what consumers are doing on the website.

Return on Investment

It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
It has helped guide our website redesign.

Alternatives Considered

I honestly have not used other platforms. I've used a "company-specific" set up of Google Analytics at the last job I had where we basically had a dashboard to refer to rather than the raw Google Analytics, but it was still sourced from GA. I've looked into other ones, but for the price and functionality, I've never switched.

Key Insights

Do you think Google Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Google Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did Google Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Google Analytics go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Google Analytics again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

I am highly likely to recommend Google Analytics to a friend or colleague if they have the goals of knowing what is going on in their website and how they can improve the layout, design, or working of it to increase attention, sales, et cetera. The many functions that Google Analytics provides make it a fantastic platform to record and present data, including the "goals" setting.

Good Way to Track Raw Data!

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Google Analytics