Google Analytics - Annotations and other New Features

Google today launched a new feature in Analytics i.e. Annotations. Now you can explain why there are dips and hikes of visitors on your website or web application. Webmasters have been demanding this feature for really long time as this will help them in analyzing which events have caused conversions to increase or decrease. Earlier Webmasters have to maintain separate sheets/files for explaining to the Owners of the websites the reasons for increase or decrease in the conversions.

According to Official Google Analytics blog:

"Annotations allows any user with access to a Google Analytics profile to leave shared or private notes right on the over-time graph. Building upon the concept of bringing Intelligence to data, Annotations complements existing anomaly detection by capturing the tribal intelligence of your company, which tends to be the most expensive and easily lost resource of all. A simple note from a colleague can save hours of real work (and frustration) for an analyst who is tasked to explain a usually dry set of numbers. This short video will show you how to use Annotations."




Apart from Annotations, Google also added few more NEW features in Analytics:

• Multiple Custom Variables: Custom variables provide the power and flexibility to customize Google Analytics to collect the unique site usage data most important to your business. Define and track visitors according to visitor attributes (member vs. non-member), session attributes (signed in or signed out), and by page-level attributes (viewed Sports section). Use custom variables to classify any number of interactions and behaviors on your site.
• Custom Variables in Custom Reports: Create Custom Reports with any of the key or value dimensions associated with any Custom Variable. There will be a segment defined by Custom Variables and how it behaves along any of the metrics available in Google Analytics.
• New Tracking Code: Google also made it easier for users to track data across multiple subdomains, mobile sites and more with a new tracking code setup wizard. The new technology will automatically generate the appropriate code for specialized tracking without the user having to input it manually.