Nearly two years ago, Google Analytics was noticeably absent from my review of available mobile analytics packages. It was still possible to use Google Analytics to track smartphones, to some extent, but my unscientific test showed their solution wasn’t as accurate as mobile analytics packages that didn’t rely on JavaScript for tracking. Omniture and Coremetrics had since developed a mobile tracking solution, and the mobile analytics-only players that were developed in the absence of a prior mobile analytics solution for Google Analytics and other web analytics players had improved their solutions over time, but Google Analytics was late to the game.
This week they’ve arrived. According to the Google Analytics blog, Google Analytics will soon be able to track mobile devices and applications by adding a server side code snippet to a page. Great news for mobile marketers and SEOs on Google Analytics who have been holding out for a mobile analytics solution that was integrated with their desktop analytics.
The expanded reporting hasn’t appeard in my Google Analytics yet, but when it does I will have more information on how to use Google Analytics to get insight into mobile users.
Andy Bovingdon has blogged about this – and he even mentions Bryson!
http://blog.bango.com/2009/10/21/google-analytics-plays-mobile-catch-up%e2%80%a6%e2%80%a6and-still-manages-to-come-last/
Thanks, Larry. I saw that too, and appreciate the attention from the good folks at Bango, as always. It’s important to note, however, that the study of mine that Andy mentions happened prior to the GA mobile tracking announcement, and didn’t account for the improvements I’m mentioning here.
Point taken, though. There will likely still be inaccuracies with Google Analytics, even with the improved mobile tracking. From the “known issues” included with the tracking tag:
More later as they roll this out…