Mobile App Analytics Updates And Public Beta Launch

With ever-expanding mobile application marketplaces (more than 600,000 apps on Google Play at the time of writing) and a shift in focus to mobile (more than 80 percent of marketers are planning to increase emphasis in mobile initiatives in 2013, according to recent research we conducted with ClickZ) measuring mobile is more important now than ever. With this, we are excited to be moving Google Analytics Mobile App Analytics (initially launched at I/O) out of closed and into open beta. We’ve listened to feedback from more than 5,000 mobile app developers during the closed beta, improved the product, and are now making it available to all developers and marketers. 

In addition to moving into public beta, there are some other exciting updates:

A New Sign-up Flow for all GA users

With the induction of mobile app analytics into the family of digital analytics at GA, we’ve introduced a new and improved sign-up flow that you will see whenever you setup a new entity on GA. In just 3 clicks, you’ll be able to set up your app analytics account, download the SDK, and be well on the way to tracking key metrics and finding valuable insights using our features.

New sign-up flow for Google Analytics

More powerful SDK for both Android and iOS, yet really easy to implement

The mobile app analytics solution is made possible with our new Android and iOS SDKs which have been rebuilt from scratch. They are lightweight, powerful, and super easy to implement. The majority of the mobile app reports are available out of the box after less than 5 minutes of work implementing our new SDK (check out our developer guides for more details).

New App Version Report

Find out about the long-tail of your old app versions. This report gives answers to questions such as:

• How quickly are users migrating to the latest version of my app?
• What’s the cannibalization effect among my multiple versions?
• How many users would be affected if I deprecated an early version of my app?

App Versions report in Mobile App Analytics

A first-class customizable structure called “Custom Dimensions” 

For those of you who are savvy users of “Custom Variables,” consider this feature the next-generation Custom Variables: 

• You can create your own dimensions by which to segment your hits in every standard or custom GA report.
• Leverage your own business and customer data as custom dimension values to enable new possibilities for analysis and reporting.
• Naming and scoping of Custom Dimensions can be configured through the administration UI - no retagging needed!

(Note: we are rolling out Custom Dimensions to everyone over the next few weeks)

Other improvements include: more accurate & up-to-date mobile device library, armv7s ( iOS6) support, support for social interaction tracking, a more accurate Google Play conversion report and more.

With this big step forward for Mobile App Analytics, we still have many more exciting features on the way and planned for the future that will add to the power and functionality of the platform. Look forward to improved integration with other Google properties like Google Play as well as brand-new reports that will provide a better understanding of your user acquisition, engagement, and outcome models.

We hope that our product will give app developers and advertisers a better picture of users’ interactions as well as the end-to-end value of your mobile app. And in the long run, make mobile apps more beautiful and engaging experience for all users.

Happy analyzing!

Posted by JiaJing Wang, Google Analytics Team

Mobile-friendly sites turn visitors into customers

The following post originally appeared on the Google Mobile Ads Blog.

In this world of constant connectivity, consumers expect to find the information that they want, when they want it - especially when they’re on the go. We know that this applies to their web browsing experiences on mobile, so we took a deeper look at users’ expectations and reactions towards their site experiences on mobile. Most interestingly, 61% of people said that they’d quickly move onto another site if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site. The bottom line: Without a mobile-friendly site you’ll be driving users to your competition. In fact, 67% of users are more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site, so if that site’s not yours, you’ll be missing out in a big way. 

Discover these and more findings from, What Users Want Most From Mobile Sites Today, a study from Google (conducted by Sterling Research and SmithGeiger, independent market research firms). The report surveyed 1,088 US adult smartphone Internet users in July 2012.  

The problem (and opportunity) is big...

While nearly 75% of users prefer a mobile-friendly site, 96% of consumers say they’ve encountered sites that were clearly not designed for mobile devices. This is both a big problem and a big opportunity for companies seeking to engage with mobile users.

Mobile-friendly sites turn users into customers

The fastest path to mobile customers is through a mobile-friendly site. If your site offers a great mobile experience, users are more likely to make a purchase. 

• When they visited a mobile-friendly site, 74% of people say they’re more likely to return to that site in the future
• 67% of mobile users say that when they visit a mobile-friendly site, they’re more likely to buy a site’s product or service

Not having a mobile-friendly site helps your competitors  

A great mobile site experience is becoming increasingly important, and users will keep looking for a mobile-friendly site until they find one that works for them. That means your competitors will benefit if your site falls down on the job (and vice versa).

• 61% of users said that if they didn’t find what they were looking for right away on a mobile site, they’d quickly move on to another site
• 79% of people who don’t like what they find on one site will go back and search for another site
• 50% of people said that even if they like a business, they will use them less often if the website isn't mobile-friendly

Non-mobile friendly sites can hurt a company’s reputation

It turns out that you can lose more than the sale with a bad mobile experience. A site that’s not designed for mobile can leave users feeling downright frustrated, and these negative reactions translate directly to the brands themselves. 

• 48% of users say they feel frustrated and annoyed when they get to a site that’s not mobile-friendly
• 36% said they felt like they’ve wasted their time by visiting those sites
• 52% of users said that a bad mobile experience made them less likely to engage with a company
• 48% said that if a site didn’t work well on their smartphones, it made them feel like the company didn’t care about their business

Takeaways

While the research confirms what we already suspected -- that mobile users actively seek out and prefer to engage with mobile-friendly sites -- it’s a sobering reminder of just how quickly and deeply users attitudes about companies can be shaped by mobile site experiences. Having a great mobile site is no longer just about making a few more sales. It’s become a critical component of building strong brands, nurturing lasting customer relationships, and making mobile work for you. 

To learn more about our study

• Click here and join our free webinar on September 26 at 1 p.m. EST  / 10 a.m. PST
• Get help on building a mobile-friendly site, visit howtogomo.com.

Posted by: Masha Fisch, Google Mobile Ads Marketing

Mobile Will Require Advertisers To Redefine How They Measure Success

The following post originally appeared on the Google Mobile Ads Blog.

Mobile introduces exciting new opportunities for measuring the success of marketing campaigns, but connecting consumers’ mobile activities with advertisers’ business outcomes can be challenging.  Increasingly, advertisers are redefining their direct response marketing strategies for mobile in order to more accurately measure the success of mobile campaigns.  We recently sat down with Kerri Smith, Director of Mobility at iProspect, a leading, global digital marketing agency to discuss this topic.

Google: How are you helping your clients to assign dollar values to mobile all along the funnel?

Kerri:  This really depends on the client.  In most cases, clients are assigning value based on a number of factors used to determine the lifetime value of a customer.  For example, one of our brands assigns an average order value (AOV) on app downloads based on the usage they’ve seen through analytics and resulting revenue from their aggregated app users.   For another brand, call extensions have proven very effective, though it’s been difficult to track conversions and resulting revenue as the consumer is taken offline.  Therefore, we use an equation that allows us to measure the likelihood of an actual conversion. Knowing the average call duration, which indicates level of interest, and the agent conversion rate, the brand helped to formulate the following equation:

          6 minute call duration = an interested consumer

          Agents convert 30% of interested consumers

          Interested Consumers * 30% = # of conversions

This allows us to quantify a return where 1-to-1 measurement is difficult, and to understand the impact the channel is having on the brand’s overall business.

Google: What types of clients have you seen be successful with understanding the value of these micro- conversions?

Kerri:  We’ve seen our retail brands be the first to embrace these micro-conversions - especially in the case of location-based responses, due in large part to the known “intent to visit” derived from these and previous testing.  We’ve been able to use coupons to measure the revenue opportunity in stores from mobile and to prove the value in attributing dollars to these actions.  Retailers have seen enough of these trends and subsequent lifts in revenue to value these actions.

Google: What success stories or best in class examples can you share?

Kerri:  One of our clients had a goal of directing mobile users to their app download page to increase conversions, and we worked with Google to help them run a two month test of Mobile App Extensions.  During the test, we disabled all sitelinks, location extensions and product extensions in order to focus on the primary goal of driving app downloads.  The test showed phenomenal results: 92 downloads, 89:1 ROI and a 334% lift in ROI when they began attributing value to app downloads.

Google: What's iProspect POV on where mobile is going?

Kerri:  Where is mobile not going?  Mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) have already become so ingrained in our everyday lives that the full impact is literally boundless.  Mobile is the channel that connects all others.  It doesn’t fit in the traditional conversion funnel -- it runs alongside it, involved at every stage.  This presents a challenge to brands who still segment advertising channels with separate budgets and directives instead of focusing on how they impact each other.  Mobile will highlight the need to evaluate all channels together to create a truly integrated approach - one that enhances the consumer’s interaction with the brand.  Applying a value to the multitude of “responses” available in mobile is just the first step.  Advertisers will also need to evaluate the impact of those responses relative to other brand initiatives (both online and offline) in order to determine the role each plays in contributing to their bottom line.  The ubiquity of mobile will force advertisers to redefine their approach and how they measure success.

Posted by Samantha Podos Nowak, Product Marketing Manager, Mobile Ads

Mobile Websites vs Responsive Design: What’s the right solution for your business?

The following post originally appeared on the Google Mobile Ads Blog.

As more of your competitors Go Mo, building a mobile-friendly site becomes more of a priority for your business. Over the past two years alone, mobile search traffic has increased five-fold. Customers are searching for your business from their mobile phones, and you need to engage them with a mobile experience designed for completing on-the-go tasks from their small screens. Recently many businesses have been asking us about an emerging trend among web developers—responsive design—and if they should use it. While we believe that building a separate mobile website is an appropriate solution for certain businesses, it’s also important to understand how responsive design might fit into your plans to Go Mo.

What is responsive design? It is a website design technique that allows you to create a single website that will adapt to the device on which it’s being viewed, whether it’s a laptop, smartphone or tablet. A site built with responsive design will automatically resize for different devices, but it is up to you to prioritize the content that matters most to the mobile user. For example, a mobile user might need to quickly find your phone number or directions, whereas a tablet user might want a simpler way to make couch-surfing purchases. A site built using responsive design could prioritize click-to-call and click-to-map buttons, while the tablet site would focus on simplifying the shopping cart. For the technical details on how responsive design works for building mobile-friendly sites, read this blog post from the Google webmaster team.

So how do I know if I should build a separate mobile website or use responsive design?  

Here are some guidelines to help you decide what makes sense for your business:

If I decide responsive design is a better fit for my business, do I have to build my site from scratch?

Not necessarily. A sophisticated web developer might be able to adapt an existing site with responsive design, but there will still be costs in terms of time and budget. 

Will a site built with responsive design have more than one URL?

No. A site built with responsive design will have the same URL for desktop, mobile and tablets. When building a separate mobile optimized site, typically there is a different mobile url, but the users will be taken there automatically as long as your desktop site is enabled with the auto redirect code.

How much does it cost to use responsive design for mobile?

Prices vary across developers and agencies. We recommend reaching out to a developer and/or agency for help on getting started. 

Responsive design can definitely minimize long term maintenance of your site, but many businesses can effectively connect with their customers with a separate mobile-friendly site. If you have the technical resources and a clear business need, then responsive design is a more advanced way to make your site mobile-friendly. No matter how you go about it, you need to ensure you are designing for mobile first, and engaging your customers when they're using their mobile phones to search for your business. 

For additional resources on the value of mobile, testing your site and finding developers to help you build your mobile-friendly site, visit howtogomo.com. 

Posted by Jessica Sapick, Associate Product Marketing Manager

Data At Your Fingertips: Announcing The Google Analytics App For Android

We are pleased to announce the launch of Google Analytics App for Android phones!

With the Google Analytics App, you can access the same accounts and profiles you see when you open Analytics from a desktop browser, but you’ll see reports that are optimized for your phone. 

Swipe through these reports to see the essential data about your websites and apps anywhere, anytime:

• Real-Time: See the number of visitors you currently have and a list of the pages (for websites) or screens (for apps) that are currently popular.
• Dashboard: Monitor the KPIs and user metrics you care about the most. By default, you’ll see your Daily Unique Visitors and your Goal Conversion Rate, but you can customize the dashboard to change which reports, metrics, or segments you see.  
• Automatic and Customized Alerts: Google Analytics detects statistical anomalies in your data and can send you an alert when something unusual happens. See either automatic alerts, or customize your settings to send alerts based on your own benchmarks. 

Screenshot: The Realtime Report

Screenshot: The Dashboard

Visit Google Play to download and install the app to keep up with your data anytime, anywhere.

Peng Li, on behalf of the GA Mobile App team

Measuring a Mobile World: Introducing Mobile App Analytics

Mobile is changing the way that people communicate, work and play, and much of the growing adoption and innovation we're seeing in the industry is driven by mobile apps. There are already more than 600,000 mobile apps on Google Play alone, and we expect to see continued momentum throughout the industry. Mobile is also becoming front and center for marketers and businesses. As more of them understand the value of mobile apps, sophisticated measurement tools are becoming core to how marketers and app developers invest, analyze and market their apps. 

That’s why today we’re announcing a new set of reports in beta called Mobile App Analytics that help marketers and developers better measure their mobile apps. The reports are tailored for mobile app developers and marketers, speaking the language that matters to them. They are designed to measure the entire mobile customer journey - from discovery to download to engagement. This enables the creation of app experiences that are more useful and engaging through data-driven decisions at each stage of the app lifecycle:

1. Acquisition and user metrics such as downloads and new users
2. Engagement metrics such as retention, crashes and conversions
3. Outcome metrics such as app sales and in-app purchases

Layout of new Mobile App Analytics reports

Here’s an outline of the new Mobile App Analytics along with screen grabs of selected reports:

Acquisition and User Analysis Reports - discover your best sources of new users

New and active users - measure the number of new and active users who launch your app everyday and analyze your most valuable segments. 

Google Play traffic sources - understand which traffic sources are driving new users and in-app conversions through Google Play to fine-tune your marketing initiatives. 

App versions - keep track of the distribution of active users over the older and newer versions of your app so you know what to support.

Device overview - check out the top mobile devices and OS versions that your app runs on, and optimize the experience for each device.

Engagement Reports - see how users interact with your app

User behavior - assess how loyal your users are, how frequently they use the app, and the engagement level of each loyalty group.

Engagement flow - visually see the screens, actions and paths users take to move throughout your application in order to optimize usage.

App crashes - see trends in crashes and exceptions that will help you troubleshoot problems on certain devices and operating systems.

Outcome / Business Impact Reports - identify whether users are accomplishing your goals

Goal conversions - set up conversion events in your app, like spending 10 minutes in the app, or clicking on ads to gauge success.

In-App purchases - if you sell virtual or tangible goods in your app, you can measure the number of purchases and the revenue generated.

The new reports are part of a holistic experience tailored for mobile app measurement, including a new and lightweight SDK v2.0 that’s easier to implement and is opt-out ready, with a streamlined back-end infrastructure.

We’ve also revamped our sign-up process, so new users can choose whether they want to start measuring their website or their mobile app. This means you’ll be just 3 clicks away from setting up your app analytics account and downloading the SDK.

We will be opening the beta up to whitelisted users in waves, so if you’re interested in using Mobile App Analytics for your app, please complete this beta signup form and we’ll get you started soon. We anticipate the reports will be available to all Google Analytics users by the end of the summer.

Also, if you are at Google I/O be sure to attend the Google Analytics session “Measuring the End-to-End Value of Your App” (from 11:30AM - 12:30PM today, June 29) where our lead engineers will tell you more about Mobile App Analytics and some other exciting things we’re working on.

Posted By JiaJing Wang, Product Manager, Google Analytics Team

Be A Part Of ClickZ / Google Analytics Mobile Research

In our recent post on next generation of measurement, we discussed mobile as one of the fastest areas of digital channel growth. How fast? According to GA benchmark data, mobile now accounts for 8% of all conversions that we’re seeing in Google Analytics, and mobile conversions have grown by about 180% in just the last year. 

The staggering growth of mobile platforms, devices, apps and of course users has inspired an entire generation of marketers and entrepreneurs to take notice. But with such rapid change execution and adoption are all over the board. That’s why we’ve partnered with ClickZ to survey the industry and provide a reference point for the state of mobile marketing in 2012.

Don’t miss out on your chance to participate in this survey and shape the future discussion of our industry:

Click here and take the 2012 mobile marketing & apps survey.

As a bonus for completing this ClickZ/Google Analytics industry survey, you will be one of the first to receive the results once it's been compiled in a report. 

Posted by Adam Singer, Google Analytics team

Google Analytics Enhancements for Mobile Apps

November was a busy time in Google Analytics. In particular, the Mobile App Tracking Team has a few things to announce.

• EasyTracking Library - automatic session management, better integration with Google Analytics SDK
• Updated Google Analytics SDK - More reliable method for sending hits, Android Market referral issue fixed, available via the Android SDK manager
• More samples - new open source application aimed to help reduce the ramp up time for new developers who want to track their apps

EasyTracker Library
We’ve created EasyTracker libraries for both iOS and Android.  The EasyTracker library will enable tracking of your application down to the Activity (or UIViewController for iOS) level with almost no coding required on your part.  See the ReadMe file and source code for details. These Libraries are intended for use with the standard Google Analytics SDKs and should make it very easy to add standard tracking to your applications.

Another advantage to using the EasyTracker library is session management.  As many developers know, it’s not always easy to determine whether your application is active and when to start a new session.  The EasyTracker library handles this for you.  It will determine when your application has been put into the background and will start a new session automatically.

The Android version of the Library not only provides for easy tracking, but also ensures that all calls to GoogleAnalyticsTracker are done off the main UI Thread.  Using this library should address responsiveness issues some Android developers have seen using the Google Analytics SDK.

We’ve adapted the Android Notepad sample application to use the EasyTracker library, just to show you how easy it can be.

You can find the libraries and sample applications at
http://code.google.com/p/analytics-api-samples/.  Check the downloads section for the libraries.  The source for the libraries is available in subversion as well.  Drill down into trunk/src/tracking/mobile/android/EasyTracker for Android and trunk/src/tracking/mobile/ios/EasyTracker for iOS.  The Notepad sample application is there as well.  We’ve released them as open source and contributions to making them better are welcome.

Check the ReadMe files in the libraries themselves for more information on how to use them.

New Versions of Google Analytics SDK for Android and iOS
We’ve released version 1.4 for iOS and version 1.4.2 for Android.  The iOS version of the SDK has one new feature.  Both versions contain several bug fixes as well.  Read on for details.

iOS
We’ve added a new method, dispatchSynchronously, that blocks while it dispatches hits.  It won’t return until the hits sent have either been acknowledged by the Google Analytics servers or the specified timeout period has elapsed.  This provides a more reliable method for sending hits before your application terminates or goes into the background.

We’ve also addressed several memory leaks and crashes reported against the SDK.

More details on the new version of the SDK can be found at http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/mobile/ios.html.

Android
The Android SDK will now handle referrals from the Android Market properly.  This applies to autotagging as well.

We’ve fixed several other bugs in the Android SDK.  Check out the details at http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/mobile/android.html.

Google Analytics SDK now available via the Android SDK Manager
We’ve added the Google Analytics SDK to the Android SDK Manager.  You can download the latest versions using the Android SDK Manager instead of checking the website for updates.

Of course, this only applies to the Android version of the SDK.

MobilePlayground
We’ve released an open source application for both iOS and Android that exercises all the APIs for Google Analytics that are available to Mobile Application developers.  You can find them at trunk/src/tracking/mobile.

New Home for the Mobile Tracking Documentation
The Mobile Tracking documentation has moved.  It now resides with the rest of the Google Analytics tracking documentation.  Check it out at http://code.google.com/apis/analytics/docs/mobile/overview.html.

Reporting Problems and Feature Requests
We really value your feedback. If you are having problems with the SDKs, let us know by posting them on the Google Analytics issues website at http://code.google.com/p/analytics-issues/issues/list.  Use the component MobileTracking when entering an issue or looking through the list for issues already reported against the Mobile App SDKs.

Please stay tuned for more exciting news regarding Mobile Application Tracking with Google Analytics.

Jim Cotugno, Mobile Application Tracking Rockstar

PrivacyStar scales Android business with AdMob & Google Analytics

With the rapid smartphone growth, it’s no surprise that consumers are downloading a huge number of apps--10 billion on Android alone, as of last week. Many app developers are recognizing the opportunity to develop on Android, including PrivacyStar, a small privacy services company offering smartphone users the ability to block unwanted calls from telemarketers via their mobile app. To help grow their business on Android, PrivacyStar looked to AdMob to drive quality downloads of their app.

PrivacyStar had used a variety of marketing channels to promote their app, including desktop display and television advertising. While successful, this initial acquisition strategy resulted in relatively high cost-per-acquisition (CPA), with downloads costing upwards of $5. Seeing the need to reach their audience while on specific smartphone devices and slash CPA, the PrivacyStar team decided to try in-app advertising across a number of mobile ad networks to drive users to download their app directly to their devices.



AdMob was able to deliver and quickly become their most effective channel of advertising. Other mobile ad networks struggled to maintain a low CPA as they grew on Android inventory. The team then began optimizing their advertising within other mobile apps on the AdMob network—informed by data from Google Analytics. App placements were limited to particular app categories to focus their audience and placements that didn’t meet the aggressive CPM targets were excluded. Within a month of these optimizations, cost per acquisition fell to less than $2, a fraction of their initial acquisition cost. Additionally, the quality of downloads that AdMob drove were far superior, with more users upgrading to a monthly subscription.

The success that PrivacyStar has achieved with AdMob and Google Analytics has them poised for continued growth on Android. For more details on PrivacyStar’s approach, check out the full case study.


- Eduardo Fenili, AdMob Sales Executive

3 last-minute Analytics tips for the holiday season

If you're a marketing professional, you've probably spent months preparing your holiday campaigns. But have you focused so much on great creative that you've neglected your measurement plan? Don’t despair: there’s still time to make the most of your holiday marketing and measurement. Here’s some food for thought to help you make sure your Analytics is adding value this season and setting you up for success next year.

1. Stuffing your stockings: all the best treats for your marketing funnel

Online shoppers are increasingly taking a considered, comparative approach to making purchases. Consumers are now consulting an average of 10.7 sources when making a buying decision - double the rate of 2010. That means that all steps of the marketing funnel are more important than ever. So make sure to take all the steps to conversion into account when measuring your campaigns this season.

With Multi-Channel Funnels reports in the new version of Google Analytics, you can see not just the last click prior to conversion, but also how earlier interactions influenced the purchase decision. For instance, your customer may have clicked on an organic search link immediately prior to purchasing, but in the weeks before to the purchase, he clicked on a display ad, followed links from a post on a social network, and later visited your site directly. With Multi-Channel Funnels, you can see these earlier assists and take this influence into account when optimizing campaigns throughout the holiday season. You’ll also have a rich set of data to plan next year’s campaigns, as you can plan around those channels that drive awareness and consideration earlier in the purchase process.




2. Jingle bells, mobile’s ringing

It’s hard to overstate the enormity of the mobile opportunity this holiday season as consumers turn to smartphones and tablets for both product research and purchases. Mobile searches have grown dramatically in the last two years, and it’s predicted that 44% of searches for last-minute gifts and store locator terms will be from mobile devices.

Providing a great mobile experience is now expected, or you will lose customers. With mobile reporting in Google Analytics, you can see how users are able (or not able) to make purchase decisions. You can segment visitors based on criteria like device types and operating systems. For instance, you can compare if there are different conversion rate for iOS and Android, and make adjustments accordingly. Google offers resources to help you make your site mobile-ready, so you can take action if you find roadblocks. Finally, when measuring your marketing channels, make sure to take mobile ads into account. You can get deeper insights by segmenting out mobile advertising using the recently updated AdWords reports in Google Analytics.

3. Follow Santa’s sleigh in real time

You may have time-sensitive marketing events planned this quarter - whether it’s a daily deal marketing program, viral content that suddenly takes off, or even press coverage. Data that arrives days or even hours later is too late to make decisions during the fast-paced holiday season. With Real-Time reporting in Google Analytics, you can see the impact of these events within seconds. This can be particularly useful for social media efforts. If you post a tweet linking to your site, for example, you can see the immediate visits resulting from the post, and engage in the conversation with your customers. You can also use Real-Time to monitor the immediate impact of email offers and other campaigns that offer customers deals to purchase quickly.

So, grab those reindeer reins and have a great holiday season with Google Analytics. Best wishes for very merry marketing measurement!

Posted by Bill Kee, Google Analytics team

You can now see mobile ad performance in Google Analytics.

Starting this week, some of you will see enhanced Analytics reports with mobile ad performance metrics. All AdWords reports in the new interface will be gaining a new visual toggle as shown below for “All”, “High-end Mobile” and “Tablet” ads.  All AdWords metrics available in Google Analytics can be segmented by these new mobile and tablet dimensions.

 

As more consumers begin to make use of tablets or high-end mobile devices, businesses need to understand this shift towards mobile and adapt your marketing mix. This mobile ads reporting enhancement in Google Analytics is one of many steps that we are taking towards helping you make more sense of how mobile advertising interacts with your business.

Please let us know what you think, and suggest any other mobile measurement options you’d like to see that help make sense of your mobile advertising effectiveness.

- Phil Mui, Google Analytics team

New Google Analytics SDK for iOS Version 1.3

Today we are releasing a new version of the Google Analytics for iOS SDK. We’ve added several features similar to those added to the Google Analytics for Android SDK version 1.3 earlier. New features include:


General Campaign Tracking
This new feature is probably the most exciting one for this release.  We now support the ability to set campaign referral information.  To learn more about this feature and how to use is, see our documentation.


AnonymizeIp
To provide more privacy to your users, use the anonymizeIp property in the GANTracker class, which removes the last octet of the IP address prior to storage.  More details can be found in the documentation.

SampleRate
If you are getting a large volume of traffic, you can set the sample rate to be something other than 100% and we’ll decide based on visitor ID whether to send hits.  This will allow you to control the sampling of your report data rather than having on-the-fly sampling occur.  Check out the documentation for more details.

We're continuing to enhance the Google Analytics Mobile SDKs to add features, fix bugs and make them better overall.  We hope you are just as excited as us with this latest version of the Google Analytics for iOS SDK.

Posted by Jim Cotugno and Neil Rhodes, Google Analytics Mobile Team

New Google Analytics SDK for Android - Version 1.3

Today we’re announcing a new and improved version of the Google Analytics SDK for Android. This release is jam-packed with lots of good fixes, improved methods, and most importantly, better campaign tracking!  Read on for all the juicy details.

General Campaign Tracking
This new feature is probably the most exciting one for this release.  The SDK now supports the ability to set campaign referral information at any time, instead of at installation time.  This gives advertisers the ability to now track ads which lead people to user their app. To learn more about this feature and how to use it, check out the new campaign tracking section in our documentation.

Anonymizing Ip Addresses
To provide more privacy to your users, we added a new setAnonymizeIp method in the GoogleAnalyticsTracker class. This removes the last octet of the IP address prior to storage and makes the tracking more anonymous 

Configuring The Sample Rate
If you are getting a large volume of traffic, you can set the tracking sample rate to only send a portion of data to Google Analytics. Once configured, the tracker will decide based on visitor ID whether to send hits.

Deprecations
We are deprecating the start and stop methods in favor of the startNewSession and stopSession. The existing methods will continue to be in the library, so your applications will still work when you upgrade, but we highlight recommend you move to these new methods.

Bug Fixes
In this release we were also able to fix three bugs:


1. We’ve fixed a few issues with how the SDK accesses SQLite. As a result you will see less warnings and the SDK now uses less memory!

2. We’ve fixed a bug that might occur if you’re using custom variables.

3. The tracker no longer uses the application context passed to the SDK when starting up.  This should avoid memory leaks caused by holding Activity Contexts beyond the life of the Activity.


We hope you’ll find this latest version of the Google Analytics SDK for Android to be a big improvement over previous versions.  We also hope you realize we’re committed to making Google Analytics a first class provider of mobile app analytics as well as web analytics.

There’s plenty more coming for the Google Analytics SDKs for both Android and iOS.  Stay tuned.



Posted by Jim Cotugno and Neil Rhodes, Google Analytics Tracking Team