Robust Web Analytics tool which is easy to use
December 23, 2019

Robust Web Analytics tool which is easy to use

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Google Analytics

Overall Satisfaction with Google Analytics

Google Analytics is used to measure engagement and conversion impact of marketing campaigns which involve homepage banner ads, email and social ads. Examples of success metrics which are analyzed include: banner impressions, clicks on banners, sessions, product views, adds to cart, checkouts and cases sold. In summary, Google Analytics is used to correlate ad clicks to cases those clicks drove as well as the customer journey which led to that engagement and transaction. For advanced analysis of who is purchasing the products targeted in the marketing campaigns, I also analyze customers so I can track if they are existing or new and if buying same items which were purchased before the campaign or new items which were not purchased before the campaign. Outside marketing team, Google Analytics is also used by other teams such as Sales, IT And Communications to track metrics at division, rep, error, employee and segment level. So, use is at enterprise level.

Pros

  • Google Analytics correlates ad banner clicks to cases of products sold in that session
  • Google Analytics helps segment e-commerce product performance by specific skus

Cons

  • Google Analytics has a limit of 5000 rows that can be exported in one report. This limits how many total rows I can analyze in one export, so I have to spend more time in exporting additional rows and then combine them into one report.
  • Google Analytics has a limit of 1 million rows on cardinality. This limits how many single value unique events can be collect in a report. So, after the limit of 1 million rows is reached, Google Analytics starts sending additional unique event values to 'other' which means analyst doesn't know what that event was.
  • Google Analytics insights helped me measure year-over-year lift in marketing campaign driven cases sold so I could determine incremental dollars generated from investment in a specific marketing tactic like email, social or banner ads, by using the product performance enhanced e-commerce report
  • Google Analytics insights helped me analyze reduction in errors after improving the checkout experience of customers and reducing the cart abandonment, by using the custom events report
Google Analytics has similar reporting capabilities as Adobe Analytics and Webtrends Analytics. But it stands out when it comes to having higher limits or caps on web server calls or website hits to analyze without charging extra. For advanced analysis, Google Analytics does a better job of integrating with BigQuery so SQL can be used against relational databases to run queries and pull non-clickstream analytics which are correlated to clickstream analytics. Example: Invoice sales correlated to Clickstream conversions. When it comes to tracking qualitative data such as survey responses to measure customer satisfaction or heatmaps and session replays, Hotjar and Foresee tools are rated higher. To track impact of SEO marketing campaigns on driving awareness of a particular brand, category or drive higher conversions of specific items, Conductor Searchlight does a better job because it also compares results of our SEO campaigns to industry trends and benchmarks.
Google Analytics - the support portal support.google.com/analytics is comprehensive and easy to find information on by typing a keyword. For example, if I am searching for information on how to implement custom dimensions, I just type 'cu' and Google support starts showing 'Custom dimensions & metrics' in the search results. When I click that result, I can see detailed articles on definition of custom dimension and metrics, prerequisites, configuration, limits, processing, reporting, scope, etc. So, the support portal is a self serving option to use for those analysts or developers who know what to search for to get answers to their questions. On the other hand, for those analysts of developers who are new to Google Analytics and don't know the basics or what keywords to search for, there is no human support. Hence, I gave a rating of 5 (average).

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?

Yes

Would you buy Google Analytics again?

Yes

Google Analytics is well suited to track marketing activity specific to a campaign once customers land on the website or application which has its tracking code installed appropriately. Google Analytics will successfully correlate banner clicks to the conversions that ad drove in the same session. Google Analytics is less appropriate to use for analyzing activity before customers landed on the website or after the conversion is completed. So, its not the correct tool to use for Facebook reach, Email opens, item returns, item exchanges, invoice revenue, etc. To track, social campaign reach and email opens, analysts should use tools like Facebook Business Analytics or Exact Target. And to track item exchanges, returns, or invoice revenue, analysts should use business intelligence tools such as microstrategy or Teradata.

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