Most businesses I know use Google Analytics to measure and analyse the visitors to their website, and there’s a new version of that now available. Being an online application, you just get the new version – there’s nothing to install – but to see it, you may have to click the “new version” link top right.
What’s changed? Well, since the last redesign, which must be two or three years ago, loads of new features have been introduced, so this tidies up where they all live. However, the default initial view still isn’t really that helpful to the average B2B marketing manager, giving you obscure data like the operating systems being used by your visitors, rather than the stuff you really need to know (traffic sources!). But don’t worry, it’s easy to set up your own default “dashboard” view of the data, and impressively, this starts with a “blank sheet”, so you need to specify exactly what you want to see. As I’ve said before, this is sensible, as it doesn’t tempt you to use such bland data as “all visitors from the whole world”.
I’m still getting used to the new version, and I’m not certain whether it’s a complete success; once it’s settled down, I may be looking to go on a training day to find out exactly what can be achieved with it!
