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Google Analytics: Account and Profile issues
Saturday, 16 June 2007 — by Wayne Smallman
I manage over a dozen Google Analytics Profiles for my clients. Some like to be able to go into their Profiles and generate their own report, while others prefer me to simply summarize things for them in simpler terms. For me, either option is fine, because either way, the client gets exactly what they want. A couple of weeks ago, I had a client in to discuss their Google Analytics Profile and how to make the most of it. They’re also running some Google AdWords Campaigns, so here was a chance to see if Google had made that all-important update. Sadly, no…
You see, what I wanted to be able to do is have my clients Profile listed under my company Account and then be able to link through his AdWords to his own Profile.
But that’s not how it works. I can link his AdWords and Analytics Accounts together, but to do so, I have to give him Administrator privileges, which means he’s got access to all of the Profiles for all other clients under my Account, too.
Now, some of you will be wondering why I have any clients at all listed under my Account. And that’s a good question.
The answer is actually quite simple: when Google rolled out Analytics way back when, they restricted the number of Accounts and the number Profiles you could have in each.
That means I couldn’t have just created new Accounts and listed those Profiles for my clients within them.
Additionally, some clients didn’t want to go through the process of creating themselves a Google Account, so I had to do it for them. And to do that, it was much easier to just add their Profile to my Account.
To compound this problem even further, there doesn’t seem to be a migration tool to move a Profile to a new Account. So those clients that want to link through their AdWords and Analytics accounts together can’t.
Having read through their recent ‘blog post, which lists new features for Google Analytics, there’s no mention of any additional changes to how AdWords and Analytics link together.
This isn’t the first time I’ve had cause to take issue with Google Analytics, which I reviewed recently.
The first time around, I was just offering Google some ideas about how to integrate some of their other applications with Analytics.
The second time around, I was suggesting to Google ways of extending existing features of Analytics.
So if you’re listening, Google, let’s have something done about this new situation, please!
Recommended reading
- Yet more Google Analytics feedback
- A message to Google Analytics
- Google put the anal into analytics
- New version of Google Analytics
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Agreed. I have the same problems with linking my accounts. I set up a bunch of analytics profiles within my account before I knew I needed AdWords to have their own analytics accounts… now I’m screwed because I’m collecting data to profiles I can’t link.