Overview of the New Google Analytics Interface

Google has continued to add new features and functionality to their tracking system, Google Analytics. Whether you are a longtime user of the system looking to update your knowledge and use of Analytics, or you are researching the tool to see if it's right for you, it's important to understand the changes and upgrades that have been made. Here's an overview of a handful of the new features that Google Analytics offers.

Custom Reporting

Custom Reporting from Google Analytics is a powerful new feature that allows you to obtain the exact information that you are seeking. Using Custom Reporting you can drill down into your stats to open up a wealth of new data. The way it works is that you create a custom report, or many custom reports for your website based on a series of individually selected Metrics and Dimensions.

There are dozens of Metrics, including things such as entrances, pageviews, bounces and more. After selecting the metric or metrics that you are interested in, you then select the appropriate Dimensions you are seeking. There are dozens of Dimensions including things such as traffic sources, content page titles, landing pages, and visitor country. Combining the two you can have amazing new information about the success of your website. You can choose up to ten metrics at a time and up to 5 dimensions at a time, producing an infinite array of different custom reports that can highlight any detail you are trying to learn about.

For example, combing the Metrics of entrances and pageviews with the Dimension Page Title, you see which pages on your website serve as the main landing pages, and which lead to the most engaged visitors as determined by total pageviews. You can derive a great deal of useful, specific information from this new feature. Custom Reporting takes a little bit of time to get used to, because not all Metrics can be used with all Dimensions. However, some quick experimentation will allow you to dig out the data you are trying to find.

Adsense Integration

For a long time, Google Analytics has allowed you to connect your Google Adwords campaigns to your Google Analytics account. This lets you see how effective your different campaigns are in terms of generating targeted traffic and real prospects to your site. Using the Goals and Funnels that Analytics provide, you can then track your campaigns in terms of the conversions they actually produce for your website.

Now, Google Analytics allows you to connect your account with your Adsense account. This is a great new feature that many webmasters have been looking for. With this functionality, you can see which specific page on your site leads to the most clicks or the best conversions. You can track different ad placements on similar pages, you can see which pages produce the highest price per click and so on. It's a great and handy feature that allows you to make the most of your Adsense revenue.

Advanced Segments

Advanced Segments in Google Analytics is a quick way to take a narrower look at your data. Using Advanced Segments you can easily and instantly look at only a specific set of information, apart from the whole, and you can then compare that set to other specific sets or to your entire site.

For example, you can use the default segment of Paid Traffic to see returned all of the information related to traffic from your PPC campaigns. You can then compare that to the segment of Non-Paid Traffic to see how your organic traffic compares in success to your paid traffic. Other segments include referral traffic, direct traffic, returning visitors, new visitors, visits with conversions and more. Of course, you can also create custom segments with different information as well.

As compared to Custom Reporting, Advanced Segments is instant to use and shows you a grouping or subset of your data, including every statistic that Analytics provides. Custom Reporting on the other hand shows you a combination of different factors that you specifically choose to paint a clear and specific picture about one or several specific factors.

Conclusion
These new features to Google Analytics provide an even more rich and in-depth experience for those looking to obtain as much information as possible about their websites. If you utilize Analytics to the fullest extent possible, you'll have a very clear picture of how your website is operating in the real world, which marketing campaigns are working and which aren't, and most importantly - how you can continue to improve performance.