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Analytics has always been tied to AdWords. There used to be a page-view-per-month hard cap that could be removed by linking to an active (spending $) AdWords ac

by lmkg 16y ago

Analytics has always been tied to AdWords. There used to be a page-view-per-month hard cap that could be removed by linking to an active (spending $) AdWords account. AdWords integration is also pushed pretty heavily in the GA training material, and even in the certification exam. In the real world, there are quite a lot of people whose only experience with GA is optimizing CPC campaigns. Personally, I've never used it for that purpose, but Google pushes them as a bundle.

jacquesm 16y ago
Funny, I've been using analytics, adwords and adsense for years (adwords not so much for the last two years or so) and I never clued in to that. I wonder if I'm alone in that perception or if this is more common.
liedra 16y ago
That's curious, because I was just at a talk by Alma Whitten who said that Google didn't use any of the GA data for profiling or ad-related stuff, and simply provided it as a service. Did I misunderstand her, or, possibly, you?
- sounddust 16y ago
  Even if they don't use it from their side to maximize the efficiency of displaying ads, they want you to use it to maximize your AdWords performance and/or AdSense revenue. They make it easy to link your account to your AdWords/AdSense account so that you can run tests and reports.
- 124816 16y ago
  Alma Whitten might be uninformed. (Was this talk recorded? Do you have a link to it?) There are some options in the account UI that, if enabled, allow Google to do some analysis of your data. Link directly to their help center: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87515 http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
  - liedra 16y ago
    Ooh, okay, I think I see where the misunderstanding is: I was asking Alma (in questioning time at a talk at the IFIP/PrimeLife summer school ( http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/program.html http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/program.html ), which was unfortunately not recorded) about website users' information, not the data of the website itself. Though it's a pretty fine line there, isn't it! I told her that I blocked google analytics because I didn't want it to find out things about me for advertising etc. She responded saying that Google doesn't do that, but now that I think about it she was probably saying that Google doesn't profile me specifically, nothing about anonymised data... yeah, now I'm not so sure. :)

by lmkg 16y ago

jacquesm 16y ago

Funny, I've been using analytics, adwords and adsense for years (adwords not so much for the last two years or so) and I never clued in to that. I wonder if I'm alone in that perception or if this is more common.

liedra 16y ago

That's curious, because I was just at a talk by Alma Whitten who said that Google didn't use any of the GA data for profiling or ad-related stuff, and simply provided it as a service. Did I misunderstand her, or, possibly, you?

sounddust 16y ago
Even if they don't use it from their side to maximize the efficiency of displaying ads, they want you to use it to maximize your AdWords performance and/or AdSense revenue. They make it easy to link your account to your AdWords/AdSense account so that you can run tests and reports.
124816 16y ago
Alma Whitten might be uninformed. (Was this talk recorded? Do you have a link to it?) There are some options in the account UI that, if enabled, allow Google to do some analysis of your data. Link directly to their help center: http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=87515 http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&...
- liedra 16y ago
  Ooh, okay, I think I see where the misunderstanding is: I was asking Alma (in questioning time at a talk at the IFIP/PrimeLife summer school ( http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/program.html http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/program.html ), which was unfortunately not recorded) about website users' information, not the data of the website itself. Though it's a pretty fine line there, isn't it! I told her that I blocked google analytics because I didn't want it to find out things about me for advertising etc. She responded saying that Google doesn't do that, but now that I think about it she was probably saying that Google doesn't profile me specifically, nothing about anonymised data... yeah, now I'm not so sure. :)