Clients have sometimes seem quite shocked when I explain what data can legally be stored on their customers – I’m thinking particularly in email marketing where based on what link or image you click a profile can be built up. If someone clicks a picture of a 4×4 instead of a convertible then you know that’s of interest and adjust their profile – next time the email can be focused on 4×4, or put that content at the top.
Also, a well known bookmakers scores their customers based on factors like when they click a link in an email, if it’s far down the page it means they have engaged more with the brand and the content. They give them points for various factors that are invisible to the customer, but help the brand to know who to reward and with what incentive.
Whenever a customer has raised their eyebrows at how far data gathering knowledge has come on I assure them that a privacy policy covers all this, and it’s never linked with an individual anyway. So, finding out today that data protection officials in Germany are attempting a ban of Google Analytics I was quite shocked.
Taking a few minutes out to consider this it did make me think that all is well and good until so much data capture becomes the norm and then it suddenly gets into the hands of someone who wants to misuse it. All of the profile information captured by Google Analytics is indeed anonymous, but if it were linked back to an iGoogle account you suddenly know a heck of a lot about an individual. What have they been buying with Google Checkout, what sites have they been visiting and when, what locations are they interested in with Google Maps, etc, etc.
Google itself is becoming increasingly powerful with its colossal cash reserves and huge server farms of data, so ensuring that it is all used in the best interest of the consumer could become more difficult as time goes on. For the meanwhile, enjoy getting very advanced visitor profiling information for free.
So Google are beta-testing an Intelligence section of Google Analytics for select users – this includes us lucky people at Refreshed.
For those of you who haven’t seen it, it looks like the below:
Google Analytics Intelligence (click to enlarge)
Users can determine the sensitivity of these alerts with a typically Google-Analytics-user-friendly setting, and can even decide to create advanced segments defined by the metric alerts, and use them to benchmark over time or query other analytics data with (I like this… though it’s a bit of a mind-boggler).
It’s great to break from the rigidity of the GA reports being sent only daily, every Monday, or the first day of every month. It should save marketers and site owners time logging in an checking for trends, stats, spikes… as they can now just be told when they should scrutinised their analytics accounts.
It’s a good move for Google Analytics this, and should get users thinking more about advanced segmentation and the importance of trends (and interpreting / reacting to trends).
Am a little frustrated that there is no custom alert for volumes of goals / conversions, which is pretty much one of the most important metrics there!
Google are looking to add a permanent sidebar to their search results (from searchengineland).
The idea being that this represents a cleaning up of the UI Jazz that currently happens with Google results where you are not always clear of exactly what you will get (will you get a local search results, will you get price comparison).
This seems to be Google straying from what made it such a popular destination in the first place, it’s simplicity. If you wanted a cluttered complicated page with loads of options you had Yahoo, or Alta Vista. Google was one search box, and a load of results.
And I’m not sure I buy the UI Jazz argument anyway. For me the logic behind these options has always worked well. For instance if I’m looking for bournemouth shoe shop I get local results and a map. If I search on adidas trainers I will get price comparison results.
Hopefully you will be able to turn of the sidebar because as a lazy git I prefer Google to do my thinking for me.
