Google Analytics Premium: Google's Black Card of Web Statistics

When Google called this service "Premium", it wasn't kidding. The service costs $150,000 per year--far out of the reach of most small and midsize businesses (SMB). But it is an extremely robust tool. One feature alone--downloadable unsampled reports--sounds temptingly like it would let you . The 24-hour live technical support is attractive--especially to the less tech-savvy at larger corporations who may miss out on key data with the current Google Analytics.

Google Analytics Premium may be a no-brainer for high-end advertising agencies tracking campaigns for multiple clients, but keep in mind that they are already employing high-end analytics and . It may be hard for these products to compete with an enterprise-level solution from the search engine with the highest market share. However, Omniture and WebTrends have the added benefit of being legacy solutions embedded with their customers.

It will be interesting to see if Google Analytics Premium becomes the dominant player in this space or if it has to grasp for market share. It all depends if Google Analytics Premium gets the same in-depth and user-friendly features that Omniture and WebTrends have been developing for years.

So, are Google Analytics Premium and other higher-end analytics products only for enterprise-scale business? Not necessarily. It depends on how much volume you do in online sales and marketing. If your online sales dollar volume is extremely high, you may want to consider them as a tool to pinpoint sales conversions.