Businesses...Stop Giving Away Your Google Analytics: 

I strongly advise businesses to not let people talk them in to giving them their Google Analytics reports. When online marketing companies, ad networks etc. pick up accounts many business owners agree to let them run or see Google Analytics on the business' web site. The business owners don't understand that a ton of their information that should be kept secret is in those reports. Information on Google Analytics includes:

• How many people search yourdomain.com                                                                                    and anything else that leads to your web site
• The keywords that are performing the best to the worst for your company 
• How many people are visiting your web site 
• If they went to more than one page
• What page they exited from
• The bounce rate
• What page they landed on
• What pages they are visiting
• What your ranking is for all of the keywords (Webmaster Tools)                                           Which tells them which keywords you are focusing on
• How long people are staying on your site
• Which browsers they are using
• How many people are using mobile, tablet, or PC to find your site
• What referral sites (sites like abcradio.com) are working for you

...and a whole lot more.

They can use the data to get sales from competitors or manipulate inside info to make money from you. 

Hers an example:

An Ad Network asked a client to give them a report. The client asked me and I said, "Don't do it". The ad network went to a different person in the company and got the report. They noticed that thousands of people a month were searching the clients name directly (probably to get the phone number). So they used the clients name as a keyword for paid ads and when people clicked on that ad instead of the client's #1 ranked organic ad, the ad network got paid. Then, when they would meet with the client they would say, "Wow, look at all those clicks we are getting for you at only $1 each." 

They did the same thing with all of our highly ranked keywords. The client wasted $2000 a month. His clicks had not increased when he hired the company. They just got clicks we always got anyway. Clicks stayed the same after he quit using them as well. They are ranked #1 in organic search.

You should receive reports from these companies and use Google Analytics to verify what they submit and strategize from your side. If we had the Google Analytics from our competitors there is much we could learn from it. I would immediately say, "Wow, look, this or that is or isn't working for them. And look, they're not taking advantage of x that is working for us.  

Ad Networks, like many media reps share information with competitors. They do it to get sales. 

We put a flooring client on a radio station that had no flooring clients on, and it worked well. Two months later 5 other flooring stores were on. When the client asked the other owners they said, "the radio station called and said how well it was working for you. Imagine if they also had his inside analytics to show just how well it was working. We see this happen with new clients all the time. They gave away their Google Analytics and paid dearly for it. 

Analytics reports should be used to verify what your online marketers are showing you in their reports, for strategizing and then giving companies direction for campaigns from your side. 

There are ways to check and see what keywords your competitors are using etc, but let them do it the hard and less accurate way. Keep your analytics reports to yourself.

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