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As part of the initial research I conducted for this article I made stops at Wikipedia, Google and Twitter. I used the same search term on each platform and was able to find some valuable information, but this took quite a bit of time. Wikipedia and Twitter didn’t have much information at all and it wasn’t until I dug deep into Google’s results that I found what I was looking.

This is a perfect example of how the integration of multiple channels could have saved me time and perhaps given me more complete insights. In the Analytics world, this is known as “Unified Analytics”.

Unified Analytics is the ability to access visitor/user data from multiple channels (Social, Mobile and Web) in a single interface. From this aggregation comes the ability to correlate and compare data that would otherwise be found in isolation. Being able to easily intertwine multiple sources of data has many distinct benefits What follows are four insights into how Unified Analytics can help an Analyst perform their work.

1. Unified Analytics allows the Analyst to monitor traffic peaks and dips from one platform or site to another. For example, if the customer has a mobile, a web and a social destination it is possible to observe how and when traffic moves from one property to the next. This is especially helpful for content sites to know when and where to publish certain pieces of media.
2. Having access to Social, Mobile and Web Analytics gives the Analyst the ability to apply demographic data to otherwise anonymous traffic sources. For instance, having access to demographics through Facebook and Twitter allows the Analyst to apply this information to otherwise vague traffic sources.
3. Through the use of Unified Analytics the value of Path Analysis becomes increasingly valuable as traffic moves and consumes/shares content from one platform to another. This is especially true for a login system that is able to identify users over multiple channels.
4. Unified Analytics also implies new KPIs for visitor metrics such as length of stay, average page views and others.

In addition to providing new insights there are open ended questions that I think are important to consider when contemplating the value of Unified Analytics.

1. Does the term “Unified” really imply a single interface for accessing all the various Analytics channels?
2. Does the value of being able to identify the individual become more or less important as a result of Unified Analytics.
3. If  Unified Analytics does imply a single interface, then which factors would determine the importance of one Analytics channel over the other?

Unified Analytics are emerging as a powerful tool for both Analysts and customers. The ability to understand how multiple channels are interacting with each other is increasingly important to the inquiry process for developing a multiple-channel strategy.

Are multiple channels important to you? How do you measure them?