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Google Analytics just got a whole lot better for b2b marketing

December 6th 2011

Frankie Robinson

This is Frankie’s first ‘proper job’ after graduating from university and joined the team as a PR account executive before moving over into marketing. Having already undertaken internships at ITV Press Office and b2c PR agencies, she decided that the challenging (but seriously fun) world of b2b was more to her liking and the rest, as they say, is history!

Google analytics has revolutionised the way we measure our b2b marketing campaigns. It’s an incredibly powerful -and free- tool that allows us to track an endless amount of valuable information about the way people interact with our websites. And like 99% of the internet, it is constantly evolving, making the life of a b2b marketer that little bit easier by enabling us to drill down further and further into thebehavioural analytics of our sites.

November saw Google launch a new, improved version of its Analytics platform, after listening to vast amount of feedback it had received on how to enhance this tool even further. So what exactly have they done to help the world of b2b marketing?

There are three significant developments:

  • Google Analytics looks prettier – it has been given a facelift which makes the interface more intuitive whilst also giving us better control over our accounts
  • The whole platform and its usability has been streamlined – making the information we most want to reach easier to get to in less clicks
  •  The report function has been improved to create a faster, more accurate service.

So why has Google decided to make these changes now? The older version of Google Analytics did a fantastic job as it was, analysing data based on past performance but with the ever increasing rate at which things are done, especially on the internet, it required the boffins at Google to create a tool which measured data in real time – enter Google Analytics Real-Time. This new platforms creates reports that show exactly what is happening on your site as it happens – cool huh?

We all know that social media is playing an everincreasing role in our marketing campaigns and with the changes Google has made, it now allows us to measure the immediate impact of our social media  activity. How? By campaign tagging the links we’ve shared on such sites as twitter, we can see how much traffic is been driven by each channel, as it happens. Best of all, from a marketing and PR view point, we can see exactly when traffic drops off which helps us to know when to reengage with our audiences. Brilliant!

These aren’t the only changes a foot at Google either. We now have access to multi-channel funnel reports that show us how previous referrals, searches and exposure channels work together to create sales and conversions. For the first time ever, we also get to see the role blogs and our comments on social media are playing (and whether we can assert sales) to our b2b campaigns.

Pretty interesting stuff and perfect for convincing the powers that be, that the time committed to  social media is worthwhile. Sitting along-side this is, for the first time, is a mobile section. We all know the increasing role Smartphones and tablets are playing in our daily lives, and Google has acknowledged this with this neat new little feature. We can see how much traffic is coming from mobiles and how our sites look on any Smartphone – which we reckon, is a pretty useful feature for our web developers here at Marketecture.

All in all, the changes Google have made to Analytics is a major step forward, and makes proving the ROI of our b2b marketing campaigns a little easier. Why not check it out? We think you’ll be as impressed as we were.