It’s time for higher ed to plan the move to universal analytics
1. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 1
It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to
Universal Analytics
2. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 2
1) Universal Analytics
2) Making the Move to UA
3) Upgrade Complexity
4) A Consensus?
Overview
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
3. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 3
About a year ago, we published a post introducing Universal
Analytics, (UA) describing what it is and some of the
implications of its use in higher education marketing.
Flash forward to May 2014 and Universal Analytics is now officially
out of beta, has roughly equivalent feature parity to classic Google
Analytics and a clear upgrade path is available.
There is still not a hard deadline from Google on when you must
upgrade to UA, but they are making it pretty clear that everyone will
have to make the move at some point in the near term.
If you doubt Google’s resolve on this, please note that
classic GA is no longer available for use with new website
properties.
1. Universal Analytics
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
4. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 4
So if you haven’t begun thinking about how and when to
make this move, it is time to start!
Many higher ed institutions have made the move to UA but
there is still very little publicly available information about
their experiences.
There is quite a bit of conversation on this topic out there in
the larger web world from individuals who have made the
change from sectors outside higher ed whose experiences
we can learn from.
2. Making the Move to UA
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
5. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 5
Upgrade complexity to Universal Analytics is closely related
to the overall complexity of your web ecosystem, including
the number of domains, pages and amount of custom
tracking you have set up under your current, “classic”
analytics.
Universal offers a whole new world of user centered tracking across
multiple devices but the bad news is that since it is based on a
completely different method of tracking your sessions, all of your
current custom tracking, including event tracking, call tracking and
cross-domain tracking, have to be updated to work under UA.
You will also have to make sure that any 3rd party tools like CRMs,
shopping carts, etc. that currently plug into your website will also
operate under UA.
Given this complexity, give yourself lots of time to plan, learn about,
implement and test UA before you make the transition.
3. Upgrade Complexity
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
6. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 6
Some consensus is emerging from web managers that the
best upgrade strategy is to run Universal Analytics in parallel
with classic Google Analytics on your site for some period of
time to ensure everything is configured properly before you
fully commit to UA.
Once you switch over to UA there is no going back, so you
need to make sure you have everything in place and
operating as required before you switch over or you’ll lose
the data and reporting you have come to rely on.
4. A Consensus?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
7. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 7
UA operates on a completely different data set from classic
GA so it will take some effort to migrate any tracking
elements that you had customized in GA.
When announcing that UA was officially out of beta, Google
provided one case study of a “successful” upgrade to UA.
Rather coincidental to our interests, it was Beckfield College,
a private college from Florence, Kentucky, who migrated to
GA over the last year.
It provides some particular insights into how the new
capabilities of UA can be leveraged to improve your
marketing ROI.
4. A Consensus?
Source: Higher Education Marketing – It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal Analytics
8. It’s Time for Higher Ed to Plan the Move to Universal
Analytics
Slide 8
Questions?
1.514.312.3968
info@higher-education-marketing.com
Visit our Website: Higher Education Marketing
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