Can I give Google Analytics data to my customers?
Can I give Google Analytics data from the API as a free gift feature to my customers that are paying for a monthly subscription service? Or would this be outside of Googles terms of service.
API Analytics Google Business Services
3 Answers
The short answer is, "yes." You can add anyone you want to an analytics account so that they can access the data. Also, you can set up automated reports to be emailed to them on a regular basis.
However, I think think there is a danger to listing this as a "free gift" because it is already free. If your customers gain access to this feature and realize that they could be accessing it for free without you, it may create ill will. I'm just saying be careful how you present it to them.
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It isn ot free, as the customers pay for a service. There are a number of sceanrios where the custoemrs could not setu p google analytics as they lack the control of the webstie to implement it or to authorize it. – Net Tecture 13 years ago
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I don't disagree with that. There's nothing wrong with charging for the service. I'm just saying be open about the fact that you're using a free analytics tool and that it's just part of an overall package of services. – Jon Di Pietro 13 years ago
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Users won't be able to access the Analytics without paying for my service firstly. I would then be displaying Analytics Data API calls from my single account to their pages they own on my service. So in the future around 100~ customers would be querying the single Data API on behalf of my account? This Allowed? – Daxon 13 years ago
As Jon pointed out, you can have regular reports emailed to customers. The great thing about this (as opposed to giving direct access) is that you can create simplified reports that are easy for non-technical people to grasp - and you retain control.
Also, you don't need to reveal who's providing the service - Google does insert a "Google Analytics" at the very bottom-right of the report, but I'm not sure if you can remove this or not. Not a lot of your customers might realize this or even care.
Thirdly, there are other options besides Google Analytics - your hosting provider (if you're using shared hosting or reseller accounts) often will give you access to your logs and stuff as well as some software for processing that. Check that out as well.
Lastly, you can check out the open source Piwik app; it's a PHP app that offers a lot of analytics functionality, and you can rebrand it yourself. I liked what I saw when I evaluated it a while back - check that out as well.
Hope this helps!
Depending on how many users you have accessing it on behalf of your account, you may quickly run into the limits put on the API. Basically it states:
Each API request is limited to a maximum number of 10,000 entries per response. The default is 1,000 entries per response and can be increased using the max-results query parameters.
Data Feed
- 10,000 requests per 24 hours per web property (i.e., all the profiles/table IDs within one web property). This quota is replenished every midnight, Pacific Time.
- 10 requests in any given 1-second period (10 qps) per IP address across all Data Export API queries
- 4 concurrent requests at any given time per IP address (i.e., you must wait until your 1st request completes before making a 5th request)
- 10 requests in any given 1-second period (10 qps) per IP address across all Data Export API queries
