15A

So I have seen these tools used to update elected officials regarding online advertising campaign.  Really they were used by staff to show that the online campaign in question is doing numbers a higher rate (better than average) that comparable campaigns. So I think that is how many government agencies use tools like this. To show that tax payer money is not being wasted on an in-effective campaign.

After looking at a Google’s demo analytics site, four of the available features stood out to me, Overview, Demographics, Behavior, and Mobile.

Getting a quick overview of data is always nice before looking into the sub-sets of data. It also would help in producing reports, such as to elected officials, regarding website performance.

The demographics information can be helpful in a few different ways. First if an agency is trying to get the attention of homeowners (very common) the age data can verify if that is the group that is responding to your advertising. Also, in general it would be nice to know what age group most visits your website.

I think that the behavior statistics probably are the most valuable in assessing the success of advertising or your website design. Understanding the how people are relating to your content is at the crux of online marketing. Using the information of frequency, new vs. returning can help you understand if the new campaign you just launched is being effective at driving the people you want to your website.

Finding out what devices your visitors are using can be used to optimize your customers’ experience. Why design (or pay to advertise) on a platform that is rarely used by your customers?

Used all together, Google’s analytics tools can be a powerful way to understanding how people are reacting to your online presence.