Anomaly Detection in Google Analytics Intelligence

We’ve had ‘Custom Alerts’ in Google Analytics for a very long time. They used to look like this: They recently got an facelift and now look nicer, but the data is still the same: I’ve used these alerts for years to help me detect changes in traffic patterns as they occur (by sending an email alert) rather than at a later point during analysis. They still serve this purpose well. But when it comes to understanding what is driving an anomaly, or even detecting it and it’s degree without previously setting up an alert, the new Anomaly Detection features in Google Analytics Intelligence really shine. Anomaly Detection in Google Analytics Intelligence helps us answer a very important question (we may not have even known we had): “What are the statistically
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New Data Retention Policies in Google Analytics

This post reflects my personal thoughts (me = Krista Seiden) and in no way speaks on behalf of Google or Google Analytics. I’m not a lawyer and am not pretending to offer any sort of legal advice with the below post.   Now that the legal statements are out of the way, I want to be sure that my readers have the same understanding of some of the new settings taking effect in Google Analytics on May 25th, 2018 as I do. Starting May 25th, new data retention policies for Google Analytics will take effect. What is Data Retention you might ask? It’s the term used to describe the amount of time (in months in this case) that Google Analytics will retain property data beyond standard reporting. What is ‘Standard
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Using Event Tagging for Form Field Tracking

Many, many websites have forms on them: Subscription forms, Contact forms, Sign-up forms, etc. Understanding how users to your site or app interact with your form, and how they are succeeding through the form, or dropping out of the form, is an important key performance indicator (KPI) for your business to track. There are a lot of tools out there that have a specific purpose for form field tracking, but why use a separate tool when you can do it well with one you are already using? Using Google Analytics Event Tracking is a great way to track form field interaction on your sites and to create fallout funnels to understand success or lack there of for your forms. The benefit of using a tool you already have is data
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