DW
Google Analytics Integrations
A roadmap for turning Google Analytics into a centralized marketing analysis platform
While part of the Google Analytics team, I published the book Google Analytics Integrations (Wiley, 2015). Since the book has not been updated, it's not useful anymore, the product has changed significantly since publication - so not sure you should buy it ;-)
My goal with the book was to show how to eliminate typical hurdles and gain a more meaningful, complete view of customers that can drive growth opportunities. It is an in-depth guide that shows not only how to use Google Analytics, but also how to turn this powerful data collection and analysis tool into a central marketing analysis platform for your company.
According to Paul Muret, VP Engineering at Google: "Daniel provides critical insight into how to increase both the fidelity and the actionability of your Analytics data through the many available integrations. This practical guide will quickly get you through the setup, diagnose any issues, and cut to the bottom line value of these important connections."
Below is the book intro, enjoy!
Thousands of years ago, our ancestors understood the power of weaving flax fibers in a way that would turn long, disparate threads into cohesive pieces of cloth that could be used to warm and protect them. The process has changed along the years; we now have large and complex machines to do the work for us. The main principle is still very similar: A series of parallel threads (warps) is interwoven by another thread (weft) and pressed together.
This book similarly shows that Google Analytics can work very effectively as the weft that interweaves all your data sources, bringing them together as a whole in a cohesive data platform. Very often, you find data all over a company, but data sources run separate from one another, parallel as the warps in a loom, and integrating them may seem like an impossible endeavor. But it shouldn’t be like that; all your data should be as tightly integrated as pieces of cloth.
The word integration comes from the Latin word integratus, past participle of integrare, which means to "make whole." In that sense, we can define integration as the process of bringing together parts or elements and combining them into a whole. When it comes to the world of data, integration means combining all the data you have about one entity (a user, a campaign, a product, and so on) in a single place.
Using Google Analytics, you can integrate data from other Google products to be viewed alongside its reports; you can also integrate other sources of data through custom integrations (provided that you have a key to join them together). This means that instead of having to analyze data using several different tools, you have the power to centralize all relevant information into Google Analytics to make data analysis easier and quicker. Analyzing data generated by different products in one central place will also result in more meaningful and actionable analyses.
Many professionals are still analyzing only a single part of their users’ interactions with their digital properties. They can’t see all the factors (and data) that affect their business, online and offline. This happens mainly because data is scattered over multiple tracking tools, making it hard for professionals to integrate all sources of information in one place. As you will learn in this book, Google Analytics is an extremely good candidate for creating an analytics platform that will centralize the most essential pieces of information for anyone working online.
In summary, this book is a hands-on guide focusing on one very important thing, which I personally believe to be critical for success: integrating all your data into Google Analytics so that you can have a full picture of your marketing efforts and your users’ behavior.