Google Analytics adds mobile reporting, iPhone/Android app tracking

google-analytics2The ability to keep tabs on mobile visitors is becoming increasingly important as more and more users surf the web via mobile browsers. With that said, there are a variety of website tracking / analytic reporting tools available across the Net that include mobile reporting.

However, one of the more popular (and free) apps, Google Analytics, has essentially been asleep at the mobile analytics wheel…until now. Google has announced the addition of new mobile tracking and reporting features (among other new features) to its analytics suite.

The new mobile features allow website admins to track visitors to their sites who are viewing the content via a mobile browser. The new mobile tracking tools work with both “high-end, Javascript enabled phones” as well as older, non-Javascript equipped devices, thereby providing invaluable data on all mobile visits. How does Google accomplish this latter feat? According to the official Google Analytics Blog:

This is made possible by adding a server side code snippet to your mobile website which will become available to all accounts in the coming weeks. We will be supporting PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX sites in this release.

Along with the new, general mobile analytics tools, big G has also added iPhone / Android app-specific features to “track how users engage with apps, just as with tracking engagement on a website.” But the new Android fun doesn’t stop here. For apps accessed on Android devices, “usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement.”

And finally, Google says it will be adding the ability to see “breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new Mobile reports in the Visitors section” in the near future. While maybe a little late to the mobile tracking game, the new additions to Google Analytics are certainly welcome and should prove to be incredibly useful as more and more visitors access the web via their mobile toys devices.