Google Analytics Rollup Reporting Without Buying Google Analytics 360? Yes!
Note: This is NOT a post about setting up Rollup Reporting. It is about why you need it and if its possible to do without paying tons of cash for Google Analytics 360. You can either try and set this up yourself or hire us- we know how and its super complicated.
So...
What is Google Analytics (GA) rollup reporting, and why might you need it?
What is Rollup Reporting?
All your yummy data rolled up in one place!
Rollup reporting sounds like it is, rolling up multiple websites a business may have into one Google Analytics view. Think of it like this: Each of a companies websites is like the ingredients in a burrito- chicken, guac, beans, rice. The Rollup site is like a burrito all those delicious data from all of a companies websites are "rolled up" in a yummy data burrito!
Why might you want to use it?
For example a company may have 3 websites and they want to see analytics info for not just one website, but 3. They would create a Rollup view of all 3 sites ("rolled up") to do this (see image to the right).
Or, a company have multiple websites that all use the same tool. And that tool (for example, Hubspot) only allows for one Google Analytics ID to be put in. So they will either need to buy 3 licenses for the tool, or they can create a Rollup GA view and then they can use the one tool with all 3 sites and not lose tracking or conversion tracking.
Is this hard to do? Yes. Can you do this with regular (standard) Google Analytics? Not out of the box. In fact, if you want the ability to do this out of the box, you would need to upgrade to Google Analytics 360, their premium analytics suite. But that costs $150,000 a year.
So, in these two instances, its very useful to either set up a Rollup GA view yourself or pay a pro to do this for you - recap of Benefits:
- Get all your different websites data in one place.
- Save a ton of $$ by not having to shell out $150k/year for Google Analytics 360.
- Save money by not having to buy multiple versions of a tool you use when you only need one.
- If you use a tool that only allows one GA ID to be plugged in, get back all that conversion data by using the GA ID of your Rollup view in the tool.
The last point is huge for alot of companies. We actually had a client where they purchased and setup a tool they needed that they used for all 5 of their websites. But it could use one GA ID in it. So we set up a Rollup view for all of their 5 websites. Now they have the conversion data they were missing for so long back.
Its complicated!
To set up Rollup GA reporting without GA 360, it takes a combination of Google Tag Manager (GTM), GA, access to all a companies sites, relevant tools they want to track, and tons of testing and debugging. One tiny mistake and it simply won't work.
But if this is something you think your company needs, we can set it up in most cases. And when you compare the cost of hiring a pro to set this up using standard GA vs. paying for GA 360, buying multiple licenses for a tool you need, or not having the crucial conversion data so you know what is working in your online efforts and what is not, its worth it!