Do you ever look at your Google Analytics data and wonder what happened two weeks ago that caused your traffic to spike or drop? Maybe a new campaign was launched or a technical issue was corrected on the site. Unless you wrote it down or have notes about what you did two weeks ago you may have a hard time remembering what happened that day. If you did write it down you may have a problem sharing that information with everyone who has access to your Google Analytics profile because of the where you keep the notes. This causes an issue keeping all of your departments and partners in the loop with developments on your site, updates with your PPC campaigns, and online marketing program.

Google Analytics has taken care of this problem by adding Annotations to their growing list of features. You can now add Annotations to specific dates in your Google Analytics profiles to mark any significant changes or developments. Now, when you want to launch a new campaign or your site goes under construction you can annotate those days in your Analytics account. This is a very useful and simple tool that will allow better communication among your Google Analytics account users. If your IT department or your SEO firm makes a change to your site, they can now annotate the date the changes or events occurred so you can see exactly when something happened and who was responsible for the changes as long as they have access to the profiles in question. Since Annotations are automatically associated with the login responsible for the Annotation, it is easy to see who created the Annotation and when.

Annotations can be made public or private. Use public Annotations to note events and changes that affect multiple departments or use private Annotations to put a note in about when a report was run. Public Annotations can be seen by anyone who has access to the profile.

Google Analytics Annotations are also a great way to explain automatic and custom alerts from your Google Analytics Intelligence. Annotations can be used to explain a specific alert so everyone who has access to the profile can see why a significant change occurred.

Below is a video from the Google Analytics Blog on Annotations:



Using Annotations is a great way to make communication easier across departments and other users of your Google Analytics accounts. It is also a great way to save time and better understand changes that occur with your Google Analytics data.

Labels: Google Analytics