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04.01.10 Google Adds An Opt-out Plugin For Google Analytics  By Anil BatraLast week I wrote about a browser plug-in that will allow people to opt-out of the Google Analytics cookie. The release of this plug-in seems to be a proactive step towards another announcement. Eric Peterson, on his blog, voiced his opinion on why Google is rolling out this plug-in. I think Eric has a point in his post about Google trying to make a push into Federal Government web sites and this roll out is a check-box to satisfy the needs of privacy advocates. However, I am still not entirely clear on what Google will get if it can't use all the data that it will collect on Federal Government website? It won't be able to use in any way…well maybe at an aggregate level to compete with the likes of ComScore. So what do I think the reason is? Behavioral Targeting I think the real answer to Google Analytics' rolling out Opt-out is "Behavioral Targeting". Google Analytics is deployed on thousands of websites and collects a wealth of data. However, so far this data is used by individual sites to optimize their ad spend and improve the site for customers while improving the websites impact on the bottom line. Google has not really used that data much other than providing benchmarking reports in Google Analytics. I think the time has come for Google to start using Google Analytics data to make more money. Google Analytics Data Sharing Remember, in 2006 Google Analytics started asking GA accounts to opt-in/opt-out of data sharing. As I wrote in my blog post on Google Analytics Data Sharing, "data sharing" was a step towards using Google Analytics data for behavioral targeting. This opt-out plug-in seems to be a next step in that direction. Limited functionality of Adwords Remarketing Last week Google Adwords announced the roll-out of "Remarketing" feature that will allow advertisers to remarket to the visitors (cookies) who came to their sites but left without taking the desired action i.e. without converting (this is also called Retargeting, a form of Behavioral Targeting). For this feature to work, Adwords advertisers will have to put a small script and identify the people (cookies) whom they want to target. The functionality to identify the segment that you want to retarget seems to be very limited in Adwords. Google Analytics role in enhancing Adwords Remarketing Now imagine, you can create complex segment in Google Analytics and then use Adwords to target the visitors who fall in that segment. Won't that be nice? Well that can't happen unless you use Google Analytics. Here is an example to make this clear: I want to target visitors who viewed more than 3 products and looked at the contact us page and then left without converting (or it could be more complex than this). This is a segment that I won't be able to create easily in Adwords without some coding on my pages. Using Google Analytics, advanced segment functionality this is a piece of cake. I create my segment then use Adwords to remarket to visitors who fall in that segment. Won't that be more powerful? I think that's where the money is. Other Behavioral Targeting Scenarios with Google Analytics Continue reading this article. About the Author: Anil has over 10 years of experience in Consulting, Business Intelligence, Web Analytics, Online Advertising and Behavioral Targeting. Anil helps companies use Web channel data to improve online business results (lead generation, conversion, retention and self-help metrics). Anil has helped several fortune 500 customers effectively use web analytics and increase their ROI on the web. Anil has worked with customers such as Microsoft, SmartMoney.com, ESPN, T-Mobile, Hoovers, Realnetworks, Starbucks, and TheStreet.com Anil holds a B. Tech in Electronics and Communication Engineering from India and an MBA from University of Washington, Seattle. |
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