• by Laurie Sullivan  @lauriesullivan, October 22, 2008

Google unveiled a major upgrade Wednesday to Google Analytics. It includes new services--such as custom reporting, advanced segmentation, API, visualization tool, and integration into AdSense--and updated user interface and management interface.

The services and upgrades aim to offer customers flexible and free options for ways to view data, as well as methods to integrate Google Analytics data with other data sources. Several years in the making, employees throughout the company--including engineers, marketers, sales, user experience, copywriters, webmasters and designers--had a hand in creating the package.

Until now, these features had been "extremely expensive," said Brett Crosby, senior manager of Google Analytics--suggesting that companies spend millions of dollars annually for similar functions. "We took something expensive and difficult, and made it free and easy to use."

Analysts agree that Google Analytics, initially designed for hardcore Web users, is now easier to use, too. "Google's announcement today effectively raises the bar for all Web analytics solutions," said John Lovett, senior analyst at JupiterResearch, recently acquired by Forrester Research. "The segmentation capabilities, custom reporting and APIs meet many of the needs JupiterResearch has identified as requisites for large enterprises utilizing Web analytics."

The custom option offers between 80 and 90 preconfigured reports, depending on the options turned on, such as ecommerce, goals, and adWords. The feature offers drag-and-drop, as well as auto-fill, giving users a similar feel to the automatic fill in as you type on Google's search engine.

Custom reporting integrates well with the advanced segmentation feature, which allows users to look at specific results. Rather than look at all the traffic coming into the Web site, users can view the clicks that came in through search ads from Google AdWords. The reporting feature provides advanced options that let users see specific data in one report by segment or compare it with traffic data across the entire site.

Motion Charts, a technology rebranded from Trendalyzer, provides a new way to visualize data. Customers can select their own metrics to compare and then view how those metrics interact over time. By animating data, Motion Charts make discovering insights much easier and more obvious than when viewing data in traditional graphs and columns.

Google has also created an API, currently in private beta. Crosby said "developers can customize Google Analytics with our blessing rather than doing it as a hack." The API lets developers access all of their Google Analytics data and export it for any type of use. Possible uses include integrating information into other data sources, building custom visualizations or interfaces, and conducting offline analysis.

The updated interface includes several new features in the administrative interface and a cleaner reporting screen that highlights tools for changing the way reports display data. A new navigation, administrators' ability to rename accounts and profiles, and account and profile locator functionality are designed to help increase customers' efficiency and ease of account management.

Aside from the API, the integration with Google AdSense gives new and existing AdSense publishers access to granular reports that break down AdSense performance by both page and referring site. Armed with this new data about user activity, they can now make more informed decisions on how to improve user experience on their sites and optimize their AdSense units to increase revenue potential.

Crosby said it's a back to basics mentality. "If people get a higher conversion from their AdWords spend, then they are more likely to reinvest there," he said. "Marketers are rethinking their advertising spend, and they will put it in places where they see the highest return. If that's on Google's products, then that's good for us in the long run."