Google Analytics Begins To Roll Out New Benchmark Reports

Google Analytics announced today its new benchmark reports will be rolling out over the next few weeks, allowing users to compare their results to industry standard acquisition and engagement metrics.

According to the announcement, users can select reports from among 1,600 industry categories, 1,250 markets and seven size-buckets, with metrics by channel, location, or device category dimensions. Along with benchmark data, the reports also include a heat map feature to identify any areas where more time or resources could be applied for better results.

Vacation rental company Twiddy.com claimed the Google Analytics benchmark reports helped the company vastly improve its email marketing efforts.

“It was clear we were missing a huge opportunity in email marketing,” said Ross Twiddy, the company’s CMO. Google claimed the vacation rental company used the new reports to evaluate data-points that impacted conversion rates.

[blockquote cite=”Google Analytics”]Their analysis helped them zero in on the factors that were most consistent in repeat bookings: the price range, location, rental type, and even the vacation week that would be most likely to convert for each customer.[/blockquote]

Twiddy claimed the company’s email marketing average open rate jumped to 48 percent and earned a 40 percent click through rate after using what he learned from the benchmark reports.

Here is a snapshot of the benchmark report used by Twiddy.com:

The new benchmark reports are located in the “Audience” section of the reporting interface and will be available to users who have opted-in to share data anonymously.

To access the reports, you must first check the “Share anonymously with Google and others” box in your Google Analytics account settings tab on the admin page.