While announcements and changes pour out of Mountain View everyday, this week featured two big announcements around Google Analytics.  Small cheers and possibly even some misty eyes from the Spyder Trap team ensued as our analytic gurus gained access to website data faster.

Right Here, Right Now For Google Analytics

The first change, Real-Time, is a much needed and asked for upgrade to the newest version of the standard Google Analytics platform.  As its name implies, Real-Time returns results faster (as in instant) than standard reporting, which is ideal for tracking social media impact, online campaigns, recently installed code, filters, and website launches.

While real-time analytics services have existed for years in tools like Woopra and Chart Beat, making it’s way to a free stat platform with a mass audience like GA is big news.

Google Analytics is already a more comprehensive tracking and reporting application than most organizations require, and this new upgrade makes GA even more versatile.

Premium Offering Increases Reporting & Service

For those organizations whom have more extensive reporting needs, Google has introduced Google Analytics Premium.  Unlike the standard GA, Google Analytics Premium is a subscription application.  With Premium Google is offering:

• Processing power: increased data collection, variables and unsampled reports
• Advanced analysis:  modeling tools for testing and conversions
• Service:  expert service for installation, support and account management
• Guarantees:  service level agreements for all of the above

The increased processing power, advanced analysis, and live customer support make it a more viable option for large enterprise organizations who are currently using Omniture, WebTrends, or various other subscription based web analytics applications.  The price rumors have it at a six figure price tag though, yuck.

It will be interesting to see how strong the level of support is, an area that Google has struggled across many of the products and services (example: Places).

Many have been waiting for a next level offering like this from GA, especially the real-time reporting.

Quality decisions can only be made from quality data, and these new updates from Google will definitely help!