The new platform launched by Google on 15 March 2016 is targeting business data management professionals that benefited so far from Adobe and Oracle products, as well as other business specialists that just started managing their audience with digital tools. Google Analytics 360 Suite natively ties with other Google products and tools, such as AdWords and DoubleClicks, while offering the possibility to associate and integrate third party demand side platforms (DSPs) in order for the marketers to be able to profile their audiences and avoid repeatedly addressing their ads to the same potential customers.
Google Analytics 360 Suite – the main goals
As Analytics’ introductory presentation for their new platform mentions, the purpose when tailoring this marketing product resided in fulfilling a few particular needs enterprise marketers shared:
- Displaying the complete customer journey made up of touchpoints, devices and channels, in view of full visibility;
- Providing useful insights in an integrated formula, that would endow raw analytics with intelligence-like algorithms ready to perform the heavy lifting for marketers;
- Targeting engaging experiences to the right customers, based on gathering data from the multiple Google technologies and available third party programs, in order to enable marketing professionals to “take immediate action and drive business impact”.
Google Analytics 360 Suite – components
There are four previously existing products (built into new versions) incorporated in the new suite, although TechCrunch for example identified three new products instead of just two (Audience Center 360, Data Studio 360 and Optimize 360). The products that have had previous versions are the following:
- Google Tag Manager 360, a renewed and simplified way of gathering site information, endowed with powerful APIs that “increase data accuracy and streamline workflows”; this product increases agility and is set to come with guaranteed enterprise support and service levels for its various components;
- Google Analytics 360, built from GA Premium; this feature acts as the suite centerpiece, analyzing the data coming from all available sources and further integrating the chosen advertising products for maximum market effectiveness;
- Google Attribution 360, built from the former Adometry; the company rebuilt this tool in order to better suit marketers in their investment calculations and budget allotment procedures;
- Google Audience Center 360 is the suite-integrated beta version of the 2015-rumored ad-tech jigsaw puzzle piece (see here the Business Insider feature on this element, dating from April 2015), that takes the previous Google Double Click towards a game-changer position by providing the suite’s native integration with Google and DoubleClick.
Two brand-new tools accompany these previously mentioned four perfected advertising technology products:
- Google Optimize 360 (beta) is the on-site testing tool that allegedly comes as a surprise; it offers the possibility of A/B pages testing without any coding requirement, a feature that can further integrate into more ample campaign testing operations – enabling the marketing teams to determine the best version to use for any webpage element from their projects;
- Google Data Studio 360 (beta) delivers interactive reports on all the data gathered and integrated via the other suite components; it also features “built-in real-time collaboration” supported by Google Docs, keeping all the data in one place, available for monitoring, reporting, insights and so on.
Google made available all the above components’ details and capabilities, and their Resources page offers a lot of extra details, for those of you having the time to explore their new product more in depth and to see how it would fit your particular needs.
The video insights on the new suite are accessible here.
Google Analytics 360 Suite – facts
- The product was available when launched only in beta version; now some of the features are in beta, while others are in full-on active state;
- 360 Suite’s target are the enterprises that need such tools for their marketing purposes;
- This new Google analytics product is available for paying customers, since it represents an “enterprise-class paid for” solution, taking the usual marketing-destined tools to another level;
- The “game-changer” products from the suite are Google Optimize 360 and Google Data Studio 360, which have both astounded the specialists that tested them with their ease of use, setup and access – all advertised by Google in their presentation, but apparently also delivered masterfully via these two new tools;
- The critics go to the way this suite resolves the omnichannel needs in marketing, without managing to keep up with other available products on the market;
- According to the same product analysts, Google Analytics 360 Suite is definitely NOT another Marketing Cloud, therefore it cannot compete with such products coming from Salesforce, Adobe or Oracle since it lacks “social media management, web site experience management or email marketing”; in other words Google perfected what it excelled at so far and added new features on the same line of operations, without making the leap (yet) towards a different level of marketing approach; the Suite serves the other existing Google products that drive marketing activities online and constrain developers and marketers to the company’s algorithms, without fully acknowledging areas that other product developers master better than Google;
- In relation to the above observation, another element mentioned in Marketing Land’s article also counts as a warning. Calling Google a “fox guarding the hen house”, Dave Ragals, Global Managing Director at marketing suite IgnitionOne underlined how giving Google access to proprietary company data, in order to base its analysis and recommendations on your data, mixed with Google’s interests, might prove to be a risky combination in time.
