Audiences: a new Google Analytics report and dimension

Between last night and today Google is rolling up a new report, named Audiences, just few days after the release of the new multi-account interface. You can find the new feature following the path Audience > Audiences, as you can see in the screenshot below.

Once inside you will see the default report is empty, because the main dimension – namely the Audiences – is missing. But let’s see how it works.

Google Analytics Audiences

First of all you have to build the Audiences: you only need to follow the same steps in order to create remarketing segments into Google Analytics.

1. Section Admin > Property > Audience Definitions >Audiences
2. Click on + New Audience
3. Select the view for which you want to build audiences
4. Build the custom audience. As an example we built an audience including returning visitors. Please note on the bottom right, inside the “Eligibility” list you’ll find the element “Google Analytics”, that usually doesn’t show up.
5. Select the destination and, as you can see, besides AdWords you can go with Analytics and publish. You can select one or more destinations for each audience.

You can use Audiences

• in the dedicated report
• as a secondary dimension – even though at the moment it is available for some reports only
• in the custom report
• in the segments

Limitations

At present there are two limitations for the new feature:

1. Current data are not available
2. You’re allowed to build 20 audiences for each single property

How to make the most of Audiences

According to Google Analytics report and its ABC (Acquisition, Behaviour, Conversion) structure, the audiences are very useful to better understand:

• how many users, both total and new, the audience conveys
• the level of engagement of the users coming from the audience we built
• the users’ response in terms of goals and transactions accomplished

If we go into detail, we suggest to match the Analytics Audience with an AdWords Audience so you can get precious information in order to:

• Increase or reduce the advertising budget set for a specific segment
• Remove underperforming segments
• Evaluate what, during browsing, attracts users of a specific audience
• Build let us say “lookalike” audiences to increase conversions
• …

We’re looking forward to see if the feature will be definitely developed, perhaps creating a cross-dimension report.