Up until recently, Google Analytics’ data was the basis for most website marketing campaigns. With it, business were able to tell if someone came to your website with the search term “Danbury cheese shop” or “cheesy Connecticut stores”. It let you know how customers viewed your business (ie. “best Milford dentist” or “cheap Milford dentist”). It let you know what marketing campaign was working best (“organic dog food coupon” or “organic dog food sample”). It provided you with valuable data to focus your SEO and to reach your clients… and now they are taking it away.
Google has reduced their Google Analytic offerings to “protect the privacy” of their users. Of course, this is only part of the story… Instead of offering organic search data to all website users as they had previously, they are limiting access to Google AdWords advertisers only. Doesn’t sound like much privacy-protection to us; Sounds more like a tactic to get more advertisers for their search engine.
The big question is, how will this change businesses online? Unfortunately, many businesses will be flying in the dark. The organic marketing data allowed small businesses the opportunity to communicate with their clients using terms and messages that were focused to particular target markets and clients. Now, it is likely that these same businesses will broaden their website text and keywords to be inclusive of all markets, for fear that they may be using poor SEO. And this has the potential of making all online searches less focused and effective.
So what can you do? Stay focused and use a different data-tracking service. Where many businesses will not adapt, we are advising our clients to use Piwik to fulfill their online data-tracking needs. Piwik still provides the valuable organic search data, along with a number of other unique features like tracking outbound links, tracks cart abandonment and tracks file downloads. By using Piwik, you will have the opportunity to continue your marketing with single-mindedness, while many businesses will fall to the side blind.
So, don’t get discouraged by Google’s “privacy” initiative, or fooled by it for that matter. Just find a data-tracking service that works for your business.
If you enjoyed this blog, you might also enjoy reading, “What is DNS and Why Do I Need It?”
