Google Analytics Breakthrough

16 Advanced Reporting and Visualization with Third-Party Tools

In this chapter, we turn our focus to advanced reporting techniques, including data extraction and cleanup, as well as reporting automation. We’ll also continue our discussion of data integration from Chapter 15.

To put it bluntly, advanced reporting—and report automation specifically—can be a bit of a bird’s nest. Advanced reporting is a series of sometimes very manual steps that combine to form a report/chart/dashboard or enable deeper ad hoc analysis. The end product, which may look simple and elegant, is the outcome of a complex process.

With all the data being collected and all the different segmentation features available in GA, you would think that reporting and dashboarding data would be a problem solved long ago. Advanced reporting, however, remains one of the biggest challenges facing organizations today. Certainly, GA (among other tools) makes it easy to construct a basic report. Designing a reporting solution, however, that takes data sampling and automation into consideration is an entirely different matter. An effective report has the following characteristics:

• It takes data accuracy into consideration (no sampling).
• It has an elegant and simple presentation.
• It is automated so it doesn’t require hours and hours of construction time.
• It delivers at strategic intervals in an easy-to consume format.
• Most importantly, it provides business insight.

Producing a report or dashboard that excels in all the ...