I am going to start this blog post by saying some of this is still speculation, and perhaps wishful thinking, but this is what I know and what I am predicting to happen over the next few months.

As you may have heard, Google’s Analytics 360 Suite is coming, and it’s coming fast. While the majority of us have used, or currently use, Google Analytics, Google Analytics 360 Suite offers some powerful insights to better measure the experience of customers on your website. For a cliche analogy’s sake lets pretend Google Analytics is a standard Chevy Cruze, while Google Analytics 360 Suite is a Chevy Corvette Z06 with a supercharged V8 engine.

The concept of Suite is incorporated because of the following services that Google is adding to their Analytics repertoire:

Analytics 360
Optimize 360
Tag Manager 360
Attribution 360
Audience Center
Data Studio 360

Lets first start by breaking down what each one is expected to be, since the majority of the above listed are still in Beta.

Optimize 360 is for personalization and testing to offer better experiences.

Tag Manager 360 offers a way to streamline workflows and increase data accuracy.

Analytics 360 is essentially, at the moment, a rebrand and redesign of Analytics Premium

Attribution 360 offers advanced attribution, modeling and helps you understand investments while measuring success.

Audience Center helps understand the needs of the clients across devices, campaigns and channels.

Data Studio 360 is for reporting & data visualization, essentially turns data into interactive reports.

Google Analytics 360 Suite is basically a new way to monitor and track a user’s experience. This can help us gauge things like customer experience, whether a customer successfully logged in and whether or not they converted. It is also a tool that loves big data. It, essentially, is data, and data is key. When we are dealing with things like A/B testing to monitor an ads performance, to a new vs. old website, to how things are being delivered on mobile, to how a user completes their story, even using Attribution 360 to monitor a television advertisement’s success and having Media Mix Modeling, Analytics 360 does it all.

How Will This Affect Me?

If you use standard Google Analytics don’t worry yet. Everything will remain the same, changes may occur in May, but will most likely just be a name change and possible an interface change. It is also important to note that, unless you are an active premium member, this will be for larger companies with larger online presences. This is Google’s way of delivering a knock out blow to competitors such as Adobe and Oracle.

Premium vs Standard were only good unless you had enormous amounts of data to analyze. For small and medium businesses this wasn’t necessary. It offered:

•    The ability to analyze more data and at a faster rate. (no data sampling)
•    Service level agreements and reliability guarantees.
•    A dedicated Google Support team to help with configurations/goals/segments etc.

What about the little guy.

If you use the free version of Google Analytics you won’t see a lot of changes. These features will be paid and are focused for large websites initially, but changes and tools may trickle down over time.

At the moment, the license price of GA premium is $150,000/month but It’s possible that the new suite brings new pricing options, and give the chance to small/medium sites acquire some of the 360 features.

Google Analytics 360 Suite is available to in beta and premium customers until May before it opens to the public.

If you want to learn more or have any questions call us at 888.315.8013 or email me at [email protected]