Recently, Google started to integrate its language processing technology into the Analytics tool, meaning that answers to simple and even complex questions are now instantly available. As a digital marketing agency, this felt a bit like Christmas, and this kind of innovation could be revolutionary to us. We decided to investigate further to find out just what it’s capable of and what it means for the future of digital marketing.
What is Google Ask Intelligence?
Ask Analytics Intelligence is a new search feature for Google Analytics. It allows you to source information in the same way you would use the search engine, simply type in your questions and Ask Intelligence (AI) will serve you with an immediate answer and give the option to see the full report. It’s important to note that only data collected within Google Analytics can be returned. What’s most impressive about this feature is that the more its used, the more it can learn. It can even use historical data to forecast future trends and is even capable of anomaly detection.
How Does Google Ask Intelligence Work?
To use the new feature, simply click the icon in the top right corner, to expand the dashboard and either begin typing your question or choose one of the available options below the search bar.
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If you have used the dashboard before, Google will remember your most recent questions, and provide you with a few ideas to get you started. You can also check any previously saved searches, read suggested insights and discover new developments!
Once you’ve asked a question, you can click the ‘View Full Report’ button to find where this information can be found, and you can save your report by clicking the save button found in the top right-hand corner of the screen. Ask Intelligence will also alert you to issues with the site or within analytics itself. For example, if one of your pages has slower loading time, or your account is not linked with Search Console. Intelligence can also be viewed on the Google Analytics mobile app, which means this data is available anywhere, anytime!
What Questions can I ask Google’s Ask Intelligence?
As a new user to Analytics, you might find yourself lost in a whirlpool of numbers, graphs and terminology not knowing where to start. Here is a handy guide on the type of questions you can ask, as well as a guide for all business owners looking to get more involved in their digital marketing progress!
Ask Intelligence uses a sophisticated language algorithm and recognises metrics such as users, sessions and visits. It combines this with dimensions such as location, time and browser to determine the information such as the amount of UK visitors to the site in the last 30 days, or the average session length for mobile users. It is also able to compare time frames when specified.
One of the most interesting features to note is that the terminology does not need to be exact (although there are some issues with certain words…) This means that asking, ‘what is the average mobile session duration?’ will give you the same results for, ‘how long do mobile users stay on my site?’
Thankfully Google offers insights that will help get you started. These can be prompts to link accounts, set up goals or simply provide you with new ideas. You can also click the related answers button to find more valuable information.
Why was Google Ask Intelligence Developed?
The simple answer to this question is convenience! Thanks to advances in search technology. We have a wealth of information available instantly at our fingertips. Ask Intelligence also makes it easier for novices to find the data they’re looking for, with ease.
What Does Ask Intelligence Mean for the Industry?
In regards to changing the industry, Google’s Ask Intelligence isn’t going to be replacing us anytime soon. However, it is a big step in automated marketing! Now that this information is becoming easier to access and understand, Intelligence can allow website owners to monitor their own digital marketing campaigns with ease.
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What Does Ask Intelligence Mean for Digital Marketing Managers?
As a digital marketing agency, this is likely to cut out a lot more of our admin time when creating campaign progress reports, allowing us to dedicate time to more effective tasks such as optimising, fixing, creating and refining. Data analysts, consultants and digital marketers are valuable to any business, as they are able to interpret findings from Google Analytics and turns this into not only useful information but determinable actions that are needed for continual growth & success. They are also able to run diagnostics and identify reasons as to why metrics increase or decrease.
Running a business is stressful and time-consuming, meaning that many business owners just simply do not have the luxury of self-managing their digital marketing strategies. While this tool is undoubtedly convenient, there is so much more to digital marketing than simply reporting and analytics. Passing on the responsibility to a skilled and qualified digital marketer can be not only profitable, but a weight off your shoulders!
What Does Google Ask Intelligence Mean for Clients and Businesses?
As a client, you can now become more involved with the running and performance of your organic marketing campaigns! You no longer need to contact your account manager to find out how many organic users made a purchase in August compared to last August. That being said, you’ll still need to call them to find out if there’s been a significant change in sessions or traffic.
You could request that your agency or digital marketing manager spend less time creating reports as everything you need to know is readily available, however, it is wise that campaign progress is assessed every so often to measure growth and make refinements.
Ask Intelligence Scope and Future Product Innovation
As a Digital marketing account manager, the biggest and most notable change we would like to see, is full integration with Search Console. Having such a vast depth of information available would completely turn the SEO landscape up on its head! With Google AdWords however, it is unlikely that this will be happening anytime soon. In regards to automation and machine learning however, we would like to see Google Analytics to be able to compare data from multiple time frames for example; the current month compared to the previous and the same month last year. It would also be beneficial to display monthly trends for each year, for example, sessions in AAugust2014 compared to 2015, 2016, 2017 and so on..
A Few Things we Noticed with Ask Intelligence
Terminology – while Google’s language algorithm is very sophisticated, some of the terminology can be confusing, meaning that Intelligence doesn’t always give you the correct answer. For example, the question ‘how many visits did the website get?’ is different to ‘how many visitors did the website get. One of these will provide you with users and the other will tell you sessions.
There are some occasions where Google will give you the data you have asked for, but not the information requested. For example when asked ‘how many sessions per user in August’ Intelligence provides you with a number of users and a number of sessions, but not sessions per user. This may be because this is not a figure that is stored in Google analytics.
This is apparent for the search how much time do mobile users spend on my site’ which produces a trend of revenue graph due to the word ‘spend’ being used.
Conclusion
In conclusion that while Google intelligence is a very clever tool that is sure to make reporting much more efficient for Digital Marketing & SEO Managers. While this is not industry changing, as a first step toward integrating machine learning with automated marketing, we are impressed! For advice regarding your SEO strategy or Digital Marketing Campaign, do not hesitate to get in touch with Ricemedia today.
