Google Analytics is a data analytics service that Google provides for websites. It tracks and analyzes visitor data for target websites, offering a variety of parameters for site owners to use. Google Analytics is also my most-used Google product aside from Chrome. Unfortunately, GA has never had a convenient way to view data, especially on mobile. This has been particularly frustrating for me — at school, there was simply no way to check Google Analytics data. But now Google Analytics has launched an Android app, available for installation on Google Play.
Let’s take a look at what features the Google Analytics Android app offers.
1. Real-Time Statistics
The web version of Google GA lets you see active visitors and the pages they’re viewing. The mobile version isn’t quite as powerful, but it does show visit counts by time period and the most active pages.
2. Dashboard
The mobile dashboard displays features like “percentage of new visits per day.” Users can adjust the time range — the app defaults to 15 days, but I recommend changing it to 30 days or more for a better view of your data.
As you can see from the chart above, my blog’s traffic in July is lower than June due to a long period without updates — barely reaching half of June’s levels.
3. Automatic Alerts
This real-time alerting feature may become a flagship feature of the mobile client in the future, though a screen full of automatic alerts has low readability. Custom alerts would be far more practical. You can add custom alerts in the web version under “Home > Intelligence Events.”
Overall, the Google Analytics Android app not only helps GA users stay informed about their website statistics anytime and anywhere, but also enables them to devise timely response strategies. Of course, I look forward to the Android app eventually showing more data — such as visitor session duration, keywords, and other features — becoming as powerful as the web version of Google Analytics. I’m also quite excited about a potential iOS version of the Analytics app.