17 January 2020

Gain new insights into the customer journey with Google’s upcoming data model

Google is giving its tool box of digital analysis tools a huge makeover and a new data model will, among other things, ensure a better insight into the consumers’ journey across platforms and channels. But which analytical opportunities and valuable insights does this give you in your capacity as e-commerce companies and how can you use it strategically in your business development? Gain the insight here.

Data driven commerce is here to stay

At the conference for digital analysis, Digital Analytics Congres, in Holland where Hesehus’s analysis team was represented, it was established that the trend ‘data-driven commerce’ only becomes more and more popular. However, in a fast-growing omnichannel market, it may be difficult for e-commerce companies to gain the full overview of the consumers’ interaction with your brand.

Consequently, the conference offered several examples of how you gain a better insight into the customer journey and one of these came from Google. Google presented an exciting roadmap and a huge makeover of its group of digital analysis tools known as Google Marketing Platform which according to Google can contribute with new and important insights and with it making it possible for e-commerce companies to create a better overview of the consumers' journey and ease their way towards conversion.

Data driven commerce

Unified Analytics – a new data model

Since the acquisition of the app development platform, Firebase, in 2014, Google has been working on a new data model, the ‘Web + App’ model, which will ensure a more unified insight into the consumer journey with Google Analytics. Previously, e-commerce companies have been able to track and analyse the customers’ interaction with your webshop in Google Analytics and their interaction with your mobile app in Google Analytics for Firebase, and the user data have thus been divided in two separate data set and analyses.

However, with the new data model, which is being rolled-out as BETA, it will, according to Google, be possible to collect the data across webshop and mobile app in one total analysis. According to Google, this provides you with an easier and more precise complete insight into the consumers' actions across channels than previously and this can be a pivotal basis for the further development and design of your omnichannel user experience.

Mobile first, e-commerce, ecommerce expo


From ’how long’ to ‘what’: a new tracking focus

In the wake of Google’s new data model for Analytics also follows a change in focus in tracking. At the conference in Holland, Google gave an introduction to how the future will involve much more focus on events, i.e. the specific actions made by the visitor on your site.

Rather than the previous focus on which pages the visitors were surfing and how long they stayed on the individual page, e-commerce companies will now have more insight into what the visitors are actually doing or perhaps not doing in your webshops. According to Google, the change in focus in tracking can generate a lot of new data and hands-on insights into the consumers’ interaction with your webshop which to a greater extent than before can help you in your continued work to ensure a high conversion of the visitors into customers.

Google Analytics on phone
Mobile first, e-commerce

The new event-based focus means that in the upcoming period, Google will launch a number of new analytic functions and options in Google Analytics. On of these new, exciting options is available in an update of the way funnels are built which is expanded to also accommodate more steps, allowing e-commerce companies to identify the critical steps towards conversion and have a better understanding of how the users are navigating between these steps.

Another interesting update is Google’s completely new idea for path visualisation which contains the possibility of dynamic filtering of user groups based on demographic data. In this way, e-commerce companies will have a powerful visual overview of the user journey which can provide huge value during the analysis of the users’ way towards conversion, for example, by identifying steps that are more critical for certain segments than others. By identifying these critical steps, you can take action and make it as easy as possible for the consumers to interact with you and by doing so increase the chance that they will convert.

"Start with business requirements and figure out what you want to track and why. Hopefully, that leads to the types of tracking you need to implement to be able to answer those questions and take your analytics to the next level.”

- Krista Seiden, former Product Manager and Analytics Advocate at Google

New import and export options

The last novelty which Google introduced at the conference in Holland was that Google is working on making it possible to import and export data from BigQuery, which is Google’s server free data warehouse. For you e-commerce companies, this also means that you will have the opportunity to use your data in several ways and in other contexts than what Google focuses on.

An example is that as part of a significant update of Google’s Audience Builder, it will be possible to make direct integrations to the CRM systems and import data from CSV files. In this way, it will be possible for e-commerce companies to enrich your data at the same time as you are building and adjusting your target groups in the Audience Builder. According to Google, this can contribute to the fact that to a greater extent then previously, e-commerce companies can use data in exactly the ways which provide most value for your business specific purpose.

With the road map for the Google Marketing Platform and the many new functions and options in the pipeline, Google is providing its idea as to how you e-commerce companies will get a better insight into the customer journey across channels and thereby ensure a continued strong basis for data driven commerce.

Are you a customer in Hesehus?

And are you interested in putting the opportunities of data driven commerce even more into play and learn more about how you can use digital data strategically smart in our business development now and in the future?

Please call our Business Development Manager, Ditte Tvede Arentoft, at:

+ 45 ​​​​​​​20 47 24 44 or write to diar@hesehus.dk

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