Universal Analytics

Integrated Tracking Across Multiple Devices, Off-Screen Touch-Points, One Tracking System Google’s Universal Analytics is a new set of features in Google Analytics marking a revolutionary shift from visit-based analytics to visitor-based or customer-based analytics. In terms of tracking our customers, it allows us to move from tracking instances of interaction on our website, to tracking the same customer as they engage with our site on their work computer, their home laptop, their tablet or smartphone, and even offline.

Advanced Insights Across the Entire Consumer Conversion Path

A typical user engages with your site on multiple platforms. It is now common for users to populate shopping carts on a mobile device before proceeding to make a purchase on their desktop. In both cases the user is logged in, so we know that this is the same person — our web analytics software should know too!

Until now, web analytics tools have treated these separate devices as separate visitors and separate visits. Universal Analytics, makes this stream of behaviour visible, allowing us to see how we can improve the experience and increase the engagement of a visitor who switches from desktop, to laptop, to mobile, to tablet or even walks into your store. We can use this data to produce actionable analysis that underpins improvement on our website, on our mobile site, and in our digital marketing for both mobile and desktop.

See how we measured dance moves with Universal Analytics:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCeJITfEhSk

Example Business Applications:

Customer Loyalty Programs

For businesses with both online stores and shop fronts, customers can be tracked as they make purchases both online and in-store using RFID keys or customer loyalty cards. Universal Analytics will allow for integrated shopping basket and consumer behaviour analysis.

We will be able to see which users engaged with our digital marketing channels before making an in-store purchase.

Measuring Offline Sales

For lead-generation sites selling services where a sale takes place offline, we typically lose track of the customer when they leave our website and pick up the phone. Using sensors or buttons that track into Universal Analytics, or through integration with a POS or CRM, these conversions can be tracked into Google Analytics and included in digital marketing reporting.

Billboard and Print Campaigns

Universal Analytics can bring the same level of accountability to some of our print campaign or physical display marketing that we see for our digital campaigns. By assigning campaign-specific URLs and using sensors to detect the presence and interaction of people close to a billboard, we can, for example, measure and analyse the time people spend viewing billboards, art in galleries or sponsored display booths at conferences!