Google Analytics API is Rocket Fuel For Guided Selling Widgets

Today’s announcement by Google that Google Analytics APIs are available for public beta has the potential to revolutionize channel management analytics as well.   It’s been six months since Google made the commitment to go public with these APIs, so it’s a big deal in the Google developer community. TechCrunch has an excellent analysis of the announcement Google Analytics API Now In Public Beta, Desktop Reporting Takes Stats Offline. The popular blog Google Operating System also has an excellent post on the APIs’ potential, API for Google Analytics.

The implications for creating customized Web gadgets using XML to link with analytics data in conjunction with AJAX are significant to managing channels as well. Imagine being able to see how cross-shopping behavior is being impacted by a microsite’s launch, or being able to see the impact of multi-channel promotional strategies on loyalty rates?  This API would make that possible across channels and in the end get close to defining cause-and-effect of marketing strategies to strategy performance.

Given how channel management strategies are increasingly reliant on analytics, the Google API is going to lead to entirely new apps relatively quickly.  The following are a few apps that most likely will launch within a relatively short period of time due to the API being available:

• Cross-shopping Widget. Being able to track cross-shopping during a product introduction would be a fascinating to watch over time using Google Analytics data.  This API would make it possible to isolate the most critical factors in enabling cross-shopping and closed sales.

• Guided selling effectiveness index. There is such a wide variation in how guided selling apps are constructed.  Some are based merely on a catalog and others are based on configuration engines including Cincom Socrates.  The effectiveness of these guided selling strategies can now be indexed across all microsites.

• Optimizing Channel Spend By Strategy. Over time analyzing data across all channels tracked on Google Analytics would provide an assessment of how optimal the mix of spending is by return or leads generated.  There is the potential of creating dashboards that will allow for tracking optimization and long-term effectiveness of not just a single strategy, but the combined effects of the entire set.  That would provide insights into which set of synchronized strategies make the most sense or not - and deliver the best results.

Bottom line: It is feasible that within a year to eighteen months the traditional concept of the large, cumbersome and high-maintenance dashboard will give way to a series of widgets based on Google APIs, XML integration and the advances made in AJAX programming today.

Courtesy – Louis Columbus at Guided Selling Blog