Google Analytics is introducing a number of new technologies, collectively called Universal Analytics, that will create a better way for businesses to measure their digital world. The cornerstone change in Universal Analytics is that Google Analytics is becoming user or customer centric rather than visit centric. The main difference with Universal Analytics is that it tracks much, much more than just visits to a website. Offline Conversions This is going to be a major factor in driving organisations to migrate to Universal Analytics, and a major benefit they’ll see as a result of doing so. It’s all thanks to the Measurement Protocol which is one of the core components of Universal Analytics. Custom dimensions to create the reports you want Another huge change is the ability to set multiple custom dimensions in reports. Think of a dimension as anything to which we assign a number, we can use certain behaviours to trigger dimensions around which we can structure reports. Link your CRM data to logged-in users Universal Analytics can be fed information from your backend customer tracking database to give additional context to your reports. For example, by tying age demographics to user IDs, you can see how different age groups access different types of content, and which campaign sources are best at engaging with different groups of users. Advanced segments can be created across sessions Part and parcel of a move away from visit-based analytics is the ability to segment based on multiple visits. So, if you want to create an advanced segment around people based in Sydney, that first arrived on your site on a Saturday between 2am and 4am, then returned via a remarketing campaign and spent $100 online, nothing's going to stop you now! Configure session timeouts, with a maximum of four hours The previous limit was a non-customisable 30 minutes. This is useful for sites like office supply stores where users might keep the website open for long stretches of the day while they coordinate a company-side purchase, and few 30-minute visits were showing up with conversions. Add custom search engines and have visitors show up as organic search You might decide that YellowPages is more like a search engine than a referring site. Now you can bucket these visitors in your organic search segment. Exclude certain organic search terms from your reports You might want to take your brand or domain name and remove those from your organic search reports, since their use implies that users already know who you are. Anyone searching on an excluded search term will show up as Direct Traffic, enabling you to drill deeper into customers that don’t already know your brand.