Google Takes Programmatic Approach To Real-Time Data Analytics

by Laurie Sullivan, Friday, August 2, 2013 4:53 PM

Google has turned toward automation, allowing marketers to query real-time data and immediately use the information to manage Web content, determine the demand for specific products and monitor key metrics for business to make immediate changes.

While the company launched Real Time Analytics more than two years ago, the new data source, via a reporting application programming interface (API), enables marketers to take action related to that data in real-time. Google's real-time data team calls it programmatically taking action using real-time analytics.

Google will release the real-time reporting API in a closed beta and will not enforce service-level agreements against the data. A family-owned vacation rental site, Twiddy, has been testing the API to understand the urgency by visitors, and will turn that sentiment into higher revenue.

Twiddy's goal to keep visitors on the page as long as possible drove up revenue by 18.6% -- along with the average order value, 11.9%. The conversion rate also increased 7.9%. This was accomplished partly through displaying the number of active searches in real-time on the site and updating the data every 10 seconds. The alert on the site tells the searchers the total number of people browsing on the site looking for similar results.

Google explains that after gaining access to the API, it gives marketers data about active visitors on the pages and the geographic location of these visitors, along with traffic sources. Other platforms with similar capabilities include the data visualization tool from IgnitionOne.

"Google's early step toward making real-time data actionable is smart, but it just scratches the surface," said Roger Barnette, IgnitionOne president. "Our marketers have already seen a lot of success leveraging real-time data to drive sales through lead generation and content personalization."

Barnette said Google's beta might only leverage real-time aggregate data, rather than individual user data.

Live Marketer, a marketing automation tool in the IgnitionOne Digital Marketing Suite, turns engagement with content and pages on a Web site into individual user scores to determine in real-time the need for information or changes to the site and the product. The 15 data points range from product interest and propensity to convert, to cross-channel attribution paths and media exposures.

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