I heard from Search Engine Journal (Industry Benchmarking and Data-Sharing Features in Google Analytics) Google Analytics set up industry benchmarks using comparative data from other sites using GA and took a look for myself just now - move over Coremetrics.
Too bad they didn’t do my idea and buy Quantcast to integrate audience measurement in with Google Analytics and let everyone opt into that. Still, as it is, this is a big step and one in the right direction. The only thing I’m wondering is - how do they know what Industry Vertical a site is in if you haven’t identified it deliberately?
Here’s the answer - you can self select the vertical you want to compare with BUT you may have to wait up to two weeks if you just opted in to Benchmarking:
“..Benchmarking has been enabled for your site. Data from other sites that have enabled benchmarking is now being collected and combined. Industry statistics will appear in this report within two weeks.”
Are they using the same kind of Crawler Technology similar to AdWords to determine what a site is about and then auto-categorize it into a vertical?
Right now, the comparisons are rather limited but I’m sure they will improve in time and I bet there will be announcements of enhancements at the next Emetrics Summit taking place in San Francisco from May 4th-7th.
Posted in Google Analytics Benchmarking
