Universal Analytics Reaches Prime Time with Tracking Changes

Roll out the red-carpet, Google’s Universal Analytics has left beta and has already begun changing the way visits to our devices are tracked. Since the introduction of Universal Analytics in 2012, Google has been hard at work looking at additional means for marketers to track user engagement with their websites to increase conversions. Last week Google, doing what they do best, unveiled a consolidated view for tracking user engagement on separate devices in one easy to see report.

How it works?

In the digital age, it’s safe to assume that a large part of your target market utilizes multiple channels for accessing your content – websites, mobile apps, web apps, and other digital devices. All of these channels can be a lot to go through to determine how to best market to your customers. You talked, Google listened. Tada! Introducing the ability to view web and app data in a single report! (Ooo and Ahh).

How it works you ask? It’s quite simple. You can now see all data reported from one Google Analytics property to a single view – regardless of how you collected that data. You can still view data separately if needed by utilizing various filters, dimensions, and segmentations. If you don’t send all of your traffic data to the same property, this change will not affect your data.

What to expect?

The biggest change recently announced by Google Analytics is the change of usage metrics “Visitors” and “Unique Visitors” to “Sessions” and “Users.” Although the motivation for this change is unclear, it is expected that this change is a result of Google’s desire to better deliver analytics traffic for marketers. Sessions are customizable depending on your business and end after 30 minutes so as not to duplicate visits to your site from the same visitor. For websites with more content, it is recommended to have longer sessions, while less content should have shorter sessions.

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Velocity Agency is a digital marketing and advertising firm specializing in digital and internet marketing & advertising, print, web design, graphic design, film, and HD video promotion and post-production. Velocity serves clients all over the United States from our Metairie, LA office just outside of New Orleans by strategically implementing proprietary tools and techniques to get you the most conversions for your business through lead generation, cost-per-acquisition, and top line revenue.