Analytics Benchmarking

Google Analytics has become the weapon of choice for one of my clients as it does an admirable job of splitting their paid and non-paid traffic, particularly helpful seeing as they're runnning an Adwords campaign or two.

Today I noticed in Google Analytics' menu there's a Benchmarking (Beta) button under the Visitors heading.

"Benchmarking is a service that lets you see how your website's statistics compare against industry verticals. Use benchmarking data to gain a broader context for your site and identify additional opportunities to improve your site's metrics."

Getting further into the Benchmarking (Beta) I had to allow Google to anonymously collect & share data and I've enabled Benchmarking (Beta) for the client's site. When I attempt to use the service, Google's now telling me that benchmarking data is being collected & combined and that

"Industry statistics will appear in this report within two weeks"

Tres cool, now I just have to sit and wait for up to 2 weeks to see how this site is performing against industry verticals. And this is where I'm very curious... Not knowing how Google knows which industry you're in I did a little search amongst all their FAQs and it appears that you have to set the industry vertical yourself... by going into "Open category list" and selecting a category... and yet I'm not seeing that function either in Firefox or my IE6 browser.

This is going to be interesting comparing visits, page views per visit, bounce rate and average time on site with others in the industry... I wonder how we will fare? I'll keep you posted.

Labels: google, seo, services, stats, tools