Google Analytics Benchmarking Feature: Key Benefits and How to Get Started

Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes
February 4, 2025
Google Analytics Benchmarking Feature: Key Benefits and How to Get Started

Benchmarking has been a long-anticipated feature since the release of the new Google Analytics. Many of my clients were asking for it—and now it’s finally available within your reach. 

Prerequisites

To be eligible for benchmarking data in Google Analytics, your property must have the Modeling contributions & business insights setting enabled in Admin > Account Settings.

Access

Located only in the first overview card within Home, you can select from a list of metrics to see how your metrics compare to the peer group. Let’s use the Google Merchandise Store property as an example below. When you arrive at the report, the benchmarking icon is gray, indicating that the feature is not activated. Select one of the metric drop-down menus, and you will see “benchmarking” listed as the second choice. The complete metric list is available at the bottom of this article.

Use

Once you have selected a metric from the benchmarking list, notice that the icon turns blue, indicating that the line chart displays three metrics: your metric as the solid blue line, the 50th percentile as the dotted line, and the 25th and 75th percentiles within the shaded area. You can also adjust the time period by changing the dropdown menu in the bottom left.

Some other highlights:

  1. This industry category is determined by a combination of factors, including the broad industry category provided in setup and signals from things like a property’s URLs and App attributes.
  2. You can switch to another peer group, and this does not affect other users.
  3. Your data is encrypted and protected.
  4. Data is refreshed every 24 hours.
  5. Benchmarking data is available starting May 30, 2024 onwards.

Benchmarking Metrics

Benchmarking in Google Analytics is a powerful and valuable tool for businesses to gain insights on performance and user behavior. This new feature allows for valuable comparisons that can aid in improving your overall strategy and enhancing your business’s overall outcomes.

Do you have questions about the new Google Analytics benchmarking feature?

Our team of data experts is here to help whenever you need us.

Author

  • Hong Cheng is currently a digital analytics consultant at InfoTrust. In this role, she helps D2C and retailer clients collect robust data across platforms and devices. She is committed to helping clients have a solid tag implementation, an essential first step for making data-driven decisions. She is a life-long analytics learner, digital marketing enthusiast, and she always wants to learn more about consumers and businesses.

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Last Updated: February 4, 2025

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