Harnessing the power of artificial intelligence, Google Analytics Intelligence offers users the chance to unearth crucial website insights in an easily accessible way. As a part of Google Analytics 4, Analytics Intelligence brings machine learning algorithms into play to interpret website traffic and user behaviour data. This tool has been specifically designed to assist beginners in finding meaningful insights from a complex array of data without a deep-dive manual analysis.
The Power of Artificial Intelligence in Analytics
Recent advancements in consumer AI technologies, such as ChatGPT, have made it clear how impactful AI can be. With Google Analytics Intelligence, this vast power is applied to make GA4 user-friendly for all users. The tool harnesses statistical analysis, machine learning, and natural language processing, thus taking over the strenuous aspects of analytics, allowing users to focus on what’s important: the insights and next steps.
How Does Google Analytics Intelligence Operate?
Analytics Intelligence functions in two primary ways:
1. Questions
The ability to pose questions in plain English and receive immediate responses about your site is a powerful feature of Analytics Intelligence. The answers provided are not only simple and understandable but are also accompanied by an overview and links to more detailed reports when necessary.
2. Insights
Analytics Intelligence generates auto-insights that draw attention to significant changes or opportunities that could potentially impact your business. Acting as an alert system, these insights identify any major anomalies such as sudden fluctuations in traffic or unexpected changes in revenue.
Additionally, Analytics Intelligence offers other features like Smart Goals, Smart lists, and session quality and conversion probability modelling.
Preparatory Steps to Utilise Google Analytics Intelligence
To effectively employ Analytics Intelligence, you must first establish a GA4 account for a website property with a minimum of three months of historical data. It’s worth noting that using Analytics Intelligence for a new reporting view without historical data may limit the AI’s ability to answer your queries.
Simplifying GA4: How to Use Google Analytics Intelligence
Intended to make GA4 more accessible and user-friendly, using Analytics Intelligence is straightforward. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting started:
Step 1: Sign In
After signing into Google Analytics, select the website property you’d like to analyse and navigate to the home page.
Step 2: Query in the Search Bar
The search bar at the top of the home page is where you can ask Analytics Intelligence a question. Type your query, and a drop-down menu with possible answers, powered by AI, will appear.
Step 3: Delve into the Insights Panel
Once you’ve selected an answer, it will appear in a sidebar, where you can find more information regarding your query.
Tips for Navigating Analytics Intelligence
Google Analytics Intelligence offers more than just the search bar functionality. Here’s how you can navigate its features to maximise the benefits of AI analytics:
Insights Panel
Located on your Google Analytics home page, the Insights panel provides a snapshot of your site’s essential stats, powered by AI. Over time, this panel will be populated with auto insights generated by Google based on your usage history.
Creating Custom Insights
From the “View all insights” view, you can generate your insights by creating new rules to monitor specific elements.
Anomaly Detection
Analytics Intelligence can detect anomalies in your site data using statistical analysis, alerting you of any unexpected changes.
Recommendations
Lastly, Analytics Intelligence offers customised recommendations based on your property’s history, settings, and trends across GA4.
Formatting Your Queries
The beauty of Analytics Intelligence lies in its ability to understand plain English, meaning your queries don’t need to be perfectly grammatically correct for Google to comprehend what you’re asking.
While AI is becoming increasingly competent at understanding your queries, it does have limitations, particularly when it comes to answering “why” questions, giving advice, forecasting, or answering generic, non-analytics related questions.
Exploring Analytics Intelligence
Experiment with Analytics Intelligence (and explore your site’s stats) by asking some of the questions below:
- Which of my website’s landing pages are currently drawing the highest volume of traffic?
- Can you show me the overall bounce rate of my website?
- Can you identify the primary sources directing traffic to my website?
- How many active users are on my website right now?
- What’s the conversion rate for my visitors that originate from social media platforms?
- Have my website’s pageviews shown an upward or downward trend over the last year?
- Can you display the geographical distribution of my website visitors?
- How much revenue has my website generated in the past month?
- Can you determine the percentage of visitors accessing my website via mobile devices?
- Can you compare the current performance of my website with the performance of the previous month?
Each question mentioned above allows you to explore a different aspect of your website’s data, helping you to gain insights and make data-driven decisions. Use these questions as a starting point and then explore further with your own set of questions tailored to your specific needs and objectives.
The Pros and Cons of Using Analytics Intelligence
While Analytics Intelligence is highly intuitive and easy to use, and can auto-generate insights, it can sometimes struggle to understand questions in plain English, provide strategic advice, or answer general support-related questions.
Optimising Your Use of Analytics Intelligence
To make the most of Analytics Intelligence, continuous usage and feedback are key. Each time you query Analytics Intelligence, you’ll be asked to rate the helpfulness of the provided answer. This feedback informs new feature and optimisation developments.
In conclusion, harnessing the power of Google Analytics 4 and AI is an indispensable aspect of thriving in the digital arena. The capability to track, analyse and interpret the wealth of data provided by these tools paves the way for strategic decision-making, website optimisation, and improved performance. Bear in mind that the questions we’ve explored serve as valuable guidelines, but they should not limit your curiosity. Adapt these enquiries to your unique circumstances to delve deeper into your audience’s behaviour and the effectiveness of your digital presence. By diving into Google Analytics 4 and utilising AI, you’ll unveil critical insights and unexplored opportunities within your data. With determination, inquisitiveness, and the right queries, the scope for advancement is virtually limitless in the era of data-driven growth..