Access to a powerful analytics solution is crucial for any business that wants to succeed online. But it’s often difficult for marketers to determine exactly when they should take the leap and move from a free solution to an enterprise analytics solution like Google Analytics 360. After all, the decision to move from a free analytics solution to one with a premium price tag is far from trivial.
Of course, the cost is just one of many factors you will take into consideration when deciding whether or not you should upgrade, but there are also some other factors you’ll need to consider before deciding if analytics platform Google Analytics 360 is right for you. At the end of the day though, when it comes to analytics – it’s true that you get what you pay for.
Let’s walk through some of the top reasons that advertisers may want to make the move to enterprise analytics solution Google Analytics 360, from the most simple reasons to the most complex.
Advertisers want to Optimize the Customer Journey
Motive: Desire to move beyond last click attribution model
As the digital ecosystem grows more complex, the industry is quickly moving away from a solitary focus on last-click attribution model. While still a valuable measurement for lower-funnel strategy, last-click attribution fails to hold its value against full-funnel media strategy. With analytics solution Google Analytics 360, advertisers can measure performance based on the attribution model that makes the most sense for their business: last click, first touch, linear, or custom.
Note: Google’s acquisition of Adometry in 2014 provided a strong foundation for cross channel attribution modeling. First integrated into analytics platform Google Analytics as ‘Attribution’, Google will soon launch a rewrite of this powerful tool as Google Attribution 360.
Google Attribution 360 is designed to directly compete with cross channel platforms like Visual IQ and Convertro, while still having the ability to integrate with the Google Marketing Platform.
Read more about Google Attribution 360
Advertisers want to Activate their Audience
Motive: Desire to leverage first party data to drive media efficiency
Enterprise analytics Google Analytics 360 provides a powerful solution for activating on first party audience data. With Google Analytics 360, advertisers can bucket site visitors into impactful segments, and export those segments directly to Google Ads and Display and Video 360. Therein, frequency and retargeting settings can be automated to drive high-value consumers back to your site, and ultimately through to conversion. Additionally, these segments can be used as a foundation for powerful lookalike modeling in Display and Video 360, to implement against Prospecting and Awareness strategy.
Advertisers want to Measure Display
Motive: Desire for budgetary expansion into Display
Google Analytics 360 integrates directly with Campaign Manager (previously named DCM) and Display and Video 360 (previously named DBM), generating a full path view of both media clicks and impressions. This media activity, as well as all associated metrics and dimensions (cost, revenue, campaign name, etc.), are seamlessly pushed back into analytics platform Google Analytics 360 for a detailed look at media performance throughout the complete conversion funnel.
Advertisers want to Develop a Cohesive Marketing Data Mart
Motive: Desire to merge marketing and behavioral data with CRM, offline, or additional external data sets
Google Analytics 360 integrates directly with Google’s data warehousing solution, Google Cloud Platform. On Google Cloud Platform, advertisers can manage large, peripheral datasets in BigQuery, and connect these data sets directly to tools in the Google Marketing Platform. This allows advertisers to integrate, measure, overlay, and activate against their full marketing data environment, to provide end-to-end views of Customer Journey, all without the need for IT.
Advertisers want to Leverage Machine Learning
Motive: Desire to leverage Machine Learning for predictive analytics
Google Cloud Platform and BigQuery also provide the programmatic and artificial intelligence tools required to train machine learning algorithms against the full breadth of advertisers’ marketing data. Google Analytics 360 provides uninterrupted data flow from tool to tool, protecting and standardizing data integrity and creating a single source of truth against which advanced analytics can be confidently pursued.
To recap, Google Analytics is a powerful, free tool for small to mid-sized advertisers with limited site traffic and minimal scope for advanced analytics. Google Analytics 360 brings to the table a complete technology stackable to competently manage mid to enterprise-level marketing strategies that are coupled with high site traffic, robust audience measurement, activation, and advanced analytics initiatives.
Advertisers with High Site Traffic Volume
Motive: Site traffic volume is higher than average
Google Analytics 360 offers access to unsampled data up to 100M sessions, compared to the Google Analytics sampling threshold of 500k sessions. Google Analytics 360’s unsampled data improves data accuracy and granularity for both highly trafficked websites, and for websites tracking a high volume of variables each session.
Advertisers need to meet Legal or Regulatory Protocols
Motive: Compliance or IT requires strong SLAs (Service Level Agreements) for all integrated technologies
As an enterprise-level solution, Google Analytics 360 provides guaranteed uptime of over 99 percent, guaranteed data freshness within four hours, and the ability to connect with a Google technical support team 24/7.
Ready to take your ads, and your business, to the next level? Get in touch with the DELVE team today.