Google are very much presenting themselves as a “data platform” now. That is, not just a search and advertising platform.

That was always the purpose of the Urchin acquisition back in 2005. But now things are becomeing much more integrated and holistic for marketers and web site owners.

Official explanation from Google is:

„The Google Analytics 360 Suite is a set of integrated data-and-marketing analysis products that are designed specifically for marketers who operate at the enterprise level.

This suite of products lets you analyze consumer behavior, develop relevant insights, and then provide a more engaging brand experience.

The Google Analytics 360 Suite comprises:

• Google Analytics 360 Suite Home: Use the Overview and Admin tabs to manage the 360 Suite.
• Google Analytics 360: Develop insights into how users engage with your business online and offline.
• Google Attribution 360: Model cross-channel, cross-device attribution that focuses on ad impressions and ad clicks.
• Google Audience Center 360: Consolidate audience lists and user data to build new audiences, publish those audiences to your marketing platforms, and report on their performance.
• Google Tag Manager 360: Use an enterprise workflow to manage web and app tags from a single interface.
• Google Optimize 360: Run website experiments and personalize content for different audiences.
• Google Surveys 360: Create online surveys“

Difference between Google Analytics and Google Analytics 360

Google Analytics comes in two flavors – the free version that most people have come to love and the enterprise version, Google Analytics 360.

The free version is great for many use cases, but for companies that need increases in data limits, turnkey data integrations, and advanced reporting and attribution, Google Analytics 360 may be the better choice.

Both versions of Google Analytics enable you to collect data from websites, mobile apps for iOS and Android, and from custom data sources via the Measurement Protocol.

GA360 has much higher limits on the amount of data that can be collected, with a tiered set of limits starting way, way higher!

The main differences between the standard and enterprise versions of Google Analytics deal with handling larger volumes of data, in collection, integrations with GMP and Salesforce products, unsampled reporting, and export to BigQuery.

Short conclusion

If you are an existing Google Analytics user, the announcement of the suite is great news because each product in the suite can be purchased individually.

The biggest thing is that Google is starting to really connect all of their products together, and we are just starting to see the benefits and capabilities.