Google have given their Google Analytics service an upgrade with a bunch of new features including an ‘intelligence engine’. This will help website owners identify any important changes in their data by creating alerts when something significant occurs.

Here’s what Google had to say about the intelligence engine:

Now, for the new feature you’ve been waiting for! Wouldn’t it be great if Google Analytics could tell you what to pay attention to? Beginning today, it can.

Analytics Intelligence: We’re launching the initial phase of an algorithmic driven Intelligence engine to Google Analytics. Analytics Intelligence will provide automatic alerts of significant changes in the data patterns of your site metrics and dimensions over daily, weekly and monthly periods. For instance, Intelligence could call out a 300% surge in visits from YouTube referrals last Tuesday or let you know bounce rates of visitors from Virginia dropped by 70% two weeks ago. Instead of you having to monitor reports and comb through data, Analytics Intelligence alerts you to the most significant information to pay attention to, saving you time and surfacing traffic insights that could affect your business. Now, you can spend your time actually taking action, instead of trying to figure out what needs to be done.

Custom Alerts make it possible for you to tell Google Analytics what to watch for. You can set daily, weekly, and monthly triggers on different dimensions & metrics, and be notified by email or right in the user interface when the changes actually occur.

Watch this video on Analytics Intelligence and then look for the feature to appear in your account in the coming weeks!

Google have also expanded the level of data manipulation available with some advanced filtering options and the ability to track extra variables. These include:

• Expanded Mobile Reports – Analytics can now track mobile websites and iPhone/Android applications.
• Advanced Analysis – Users can now perform additional filtering within rows of data, without having to export everything to a spreadsheet.
• Multiple Custom Variables – Create your own variables (eg: members vs. non-members) and compare these against groups of other custom variables.

For a full rundown on the new features, visit the Google Analytics blog at http://analytics.blogspot.com/

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