What Might Be Next For Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is set to see a number of big improvements this year, one of which is going to be customer lifetime value. This leads me to believe that they may be planning on moving from a 1st party cookie to a 3rd party cookie or perhaps no cookie – and the reasons for this are clear – more money for Google. Let me explain.
A first party cookie can only be read by your own domain, but with a third party cookie it could be tracked across different Google properties/websites, it can also be a way for Google to store details centrally.
One of the biggest issues with evaluating the worth of Google AdWords was working out how much money from a sale could be attributed to AdWords – the more sales that Google can prove that ad clicks provide, the better ROI advertisers will see and so the more they will be prepared to bid per click. Much of this has now been proven through the release of multi-channel funnels, and also currently in beta testing their attribution modelling tool (sign up here). But even this won’t go far enough – why? Because of multi-screening.
People are more and more beginning to browse the web on their smartphones and tablets, with many doing product research on their smartphone perhaps whilst they are on the move – making their purchasing decision and then revisiting and purchasing when they get back to their PC/laptop/tablet.
The only way Google can get at this data is if they switch from tracking cookies, to people, the best way for them to do this is through a first party cookie on Google.com which can also work in conjunction with them recording your device details or your computer details and whether you logged in or not etc. I believe this is going to be the way that they can show to you who visits on their smartphone and then converts on their PC.
So what effect will this have?
1. Not only will Google AdWords bids climb again, but all advertising will see an uplift, which will be good news for AdSense publishers.
2. They are saying we will get access to customer life time values, but we may also get access to anonymous profiles – demographic data such as age, sex, interests etc. (I hope).
3. We may see them try and scrap the cookie all together to get round the EU cookie law – which will want to crack down on this type of thing most likely. If they do find a non-cookie solution, then it could mean improved accuracy in Analytics.
4. Google will make a lot more money – so expect them to grow a bit, again.
I think we may also see physical locations on smart phones being tracked as a conversions – although this is probably a bit further in the future.
8 Comments
John Doyle - http://www.johnedwarddoyle.co.uk
I imagine a lot of tracking may be passed to Chrome, and maybe even other browsers, to monitor with option to synchronize accounts across devices these days.
David W
Yeah they have a lot of different tools that they can use to get all this data, so it should be possible.
David - http://lostpr.es
Ah yep lifetime value attributes would make sense as that is inline with what the other enterprise platforms have been doing and I think having lifetime value insight would help particularly with larger or more expensive keywords. It also means that businesses will significantly increase their PPC spend if they can easily track long term value of that click/visitor beyond just what they earned today.
I think it would also help progress the digital insight of businesses so it’s beneficial to correctly understand more about what is the true lifetime value of a customer. Currently a lot of that information is locked up inside CRM platforms and never fully utilised.
David W
Yeah I’m not entirely sure how they will get data out of the CRM systems – it will be interesting to see how it gets implemented, I imagine an API of some sort…
Vahe - http://wwww.onlinemarketingblog.com.au
That is purpose behind Google Universal Analytics, so that you can incorporate CRM data
David W
Vahe,
Thanks for contributing – I’d not heard of Google Universal Analytics – I’m not quite sure how as I subscribe to the Google Analytics blog! Just been reading about it and signed up, although I’m not sure if we have any candidates for it yet at Bronco.
Is that something you are using?
David W
Ah just realised I did read the post, but I didn’t realise it was a new product they were releasing, I mistook it for a feature.
Andy Hughes - http://www.7minutebreak.com
Great post, clearly this affects opportunities for re-marketing
we really do need to see more intergration