Welcome to our App of the Week series where we highlight Smartphone and iPad applications for business.
Like many others across Canada, I grew up in a family where the fridge was covered in magnets. There were probably 20 or 30 of them from all kinds of companies around the city and they valiantly held up shopping lists and pencil crayon art. I don’t remember what most of the magnets said, but there is one that still stands out. It was for a company that made exterior signs and the magnet simply said: “No sign is a sign of no business”. It’s a simple, but strikingly relevant slogan.
While traditional signs are still important, websites have become the “virtual sign” where customers and prospects can learn and interact with a business 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. However, like an exterior sign, a website is only good when people look at it. Data such as hits, visitors, location, bounce rates and time on site all tell you if people are visiting your website, staying around to interact and coming back for more. Google Analytics is one of the more popular tools for tracking and if you already have it setup on your website, you are going to love this week’s app.
Analytics for iPhone ($6.99 from the iTunes store) provides surprisingly comprehensive access to your website Google Analytics data while on the go. $6.99 may seem high, but in return you receive access to 55 different reports, the ability to login to view multiple sites under your Google account and an app that is a pleasure to use.
The power to access analytics from a mobile device can be of strong value to business users. Everyone is tight and on time and it’s not always top of mind to find out how your website is performing. Now, you can pull out your iPhone and with a few touches view comprehensive reports. It saves time, improves productivity and supports decisions with real data.
Using the App
After logging in to your Google account and selecting one of the domains you are monitoring, an easy to navigate main screen appears. The first three items are logically presented and likely the pages most users will want to see first. Dashboard presents a spectacular view of the past 30 days activity on the site (date ranges can be adjusted). It includes a visit overview of all the key site performance metrics including hits, unique visitors, bounce rate and more. It’s a nice bonus that whenever one of these top metrics is touched, a corresponding bar graph will be generated.
The Dashboard also includes data such as referral type, referral sources (telling you if those ads or LinkedIn posts have been effective), location data such as country and city of viewers and which of your pages is the most popular. The ability to view a snapshot of this data through a mobile device is extremely valuable to prepare for meetings or support decisions wherever you are.
Moving away from the Dashboard and back to the main screen you will find two extremely valuable views – Today and Yesterday. While providing similar information to the Dashboard, these views provide fast access to what is happening on your site right now. This is especially useful if you are running promotions on your website or want to judge the success of an advertising campaign that is currently in motion.
(this website had a bad day!)
Going deeper in the app, there are literally dozens of data points that can be analyzed from basics such as location and browser type to more complex operations such as eCommerce reports and Ad campaign results. Very easy to use
Conclusion
If you use Google Analytics for your business, Analytics for iPhone is the must have app to access data on the go. The app very is easy to use; in fact it’s easier to use than a laptop to monitor day-to-day trending.
The real value of the app comes with use. You will find that since it’s so easy to check your traffic data, you will be more likely use the information to positively influence or support decisions around your business and website.
