At DELVE, our status as a Google Marketing Platform Partner means that we are the first to hear about new capabilities in Google Analytics 360, and our constant learner mindset means we are dedicated to understanding and building expertise with every new update.
Take the recent update to App and Web measurement in Google Analytics 360: We now have a unified view of user activity across your app and website, and what was once a major challenge is now a streamlined process.
The update allows users to create a new property type in Analytics 360, (App + Web property) or link Firebase projects to the user’s Analytics account. This new function is still in beta and is based on the Firebase data collection model (event-based) instead of the standard Google Analytics model. You’ll now be able to see all the Firebase Analytics reports in the Google Analytics interface. So how does it work?
App + Web measurement is enabled by merging separate data collection types, such as data streams, into one unified view. As a user, you should connect web and app streams into a single view. As a result, you’ll see a set of consistent metrics and dimensions, which provides integrated reporting across platforms.
Depending on your organization’s existing website measurement implementation, no retagging is needed to make this feature available for web as long as you are tracking site activity via gtag.js or Google Tag Manager. You can do this in the property settings by connecting a new site tag to an existing Analytics gtag.js, or by implementing the new tag type, Google Analytics App + Web, in Google Tag Manager.
Once this is set up, you’ll get access to the following capabilities:
1) Cross-Platform Measurement looks into the full context of the customer journey, spanning across multiple devices and platforms. You can also set up a merged view based on a user ID to identify signed-in users across your web and app environments. A duplicated view of customers across platforms provides insights into how users switch between your website and app, from the moment they first engage with your brand, through to the moment they achieve your set goal, such as converting.
2) Enhanced Measurement (for web data) provides out-of-the-box tracking for some of the most common interactions, other than page views: scroll tracking, outbound link clicks, site search, video views, and file downloads. The web data collection is now an automated process, so you no longer need to apply specific engagement metrics in the code or configure them manually.
3) Deeper Path Analysis takes customer journey analysis to the next level because it allows you to see each step users take as they move through your app or website. This is a completely new function within the Analysis section of the Analytics reporting UI, similar to what’s been provided for Analytics 360 clients. It’s a highly flexible tool that encompasses new techniques and it’s also free for app and web properties. In addition to everything the Funnel technique provides, Pathing also allows you to explore multiple user paths instead of analyzing a pre-defined, pre-configured, rule-based path within the standard funnel visualization.
The Funnel technique is currently unique to app and web properties, which allows you to perform certain analysis functions that haven’t been fully provided by Google Analytics in the past.
For example, you can:
- Explore the most frequent user paths, from a specified starting point.
- Determine the actions users take on your site or app, after visiting a page/screen or before leaving your site.
- Reveal bottlenecks in the customer journey, and find any possible weak points where users experience issues that prevent them from moving forward towards your goal.
- Apply segments or filters to isolate the subset of paths you want to analyze, based on: demographic data, location, platform/stream, device, operating system, browser, traffic source, user properties, and/or event names
- Customize path steps so you can switch between event names and pages/screens.
- Perform a user-based cross-session analysis, including events that were a part of any of the user’s subsequent sessions.
In summary, Pathing allows you to explore multiple user paths at once, reveal actionable insights about the customer journey, and perform a cross-session user-level analysis that includes app and web platform integration into a single property.
4) App Analytics Capabilities features the Firebase event-based data model, and provides additional flexibility in measurement, data collection, and reporting. In addition to this, you can take advantage of other app analytics capabilities, such as a more advanced audience builder, and a streamlined view with an extra level of granularity on real-time site activity. You’ll also be able to access custom funnels for the free version of Google Analytics.
The app and web functionality in Google Analytics free enables businesses to streamline data collection across mobile applications and websites, but users can now easily discover deeper insights due to the exploration capabilities of Google Analytics 360.
Ready to take your ads, and your business, to the next level? Get in touch with the DELVE team today.