I want to use Google analytics or Google Data Studio (or both) to create a Time Series graph that shows the count of referrals by social network over time.
As you can see in the picture, there is a color for each social network, and the lines of the graph allow me to compare how much traffic is coming from each network.
It seems like this should be simple, but I'm obviously missing something.
Picture of the graph I want to create:
You could also use "social network" as your breakdown dimension, instead of source/medium (which might get you too many options that aren't granular enough). Just keep in mind that with some GA/Data Studio accounts, there are two dimensions called "social network." One works and one doesn't. No idea why that is.
Standard Google Data Studio Time Series graph.
Dimension: Date
Breakdown Dimension - Source / Medium (to see only social networks, make a filter to only include the sources you want)
Metric: Entrances or Sessions
One way that it can be achieved is by using a Time Series Chart with a Control:
1) Time Series Chart
Data Source: Google Analytics
Dimension: Date
Breakdown Dimension: Source
Metric: Sessions
(Optional): Optional Metrics
2) Control
Type: Drop-down list
Dimension: Medium
Default Selection: referral
Google Data Studio Report and a GIF to elaborate:
Related
Our main challenge in Google Analytics at the time is to measure the success of our magazine articles.
The problem is that views grow over time so in any timeframe we always have the older articles overshadowing the newer ones. Sidenote: The same problem occurs for measuring social media post success.
My idea of a solution is to measure the rate by which views on articles grow. An article that has a higher growth of views is much more successful than an older article with more views, but with a lower growth rate.
Alternatively something like "views within the first week(s) of publishing this individual article" would also be a good metric.
Unfortunately to some extent also the growth rates rely on this publishing period of individual articles if we are interested in an eternal high score of articles. But since we are mainly interested in recent articles, growth rate would still give us the desired result of showing the most successful recent articles.
Has anyone dealt with the same challenges and found any solution to this, in best case with Google Analytics?
These examples may help, of which I have direct experience.
In the data layer we included a date of publication for the article and then used this to determine growth. This was taken from the CRM and was relatively straightforwards for the dev team. This was stored as a custom dimension in Google Analytics.
We had nothing in the data layer but instead a I just used the date on which page views started appearing as a proxy for date of publication. Not entirely reliable, and you may want to filter by views >5, or whatever is appropriate, to avoid any hits from editors or staff before a page is visible in the site navigation.
In both cases I was exporting data either to Google Sheets (using for example the Google Analytics API addon for sheets) or BigQuery, where it was relatively straight forwards to identify the first date and then calculate, for example, views per day. In your case it would be having a function which looks at the date of publication + 7 days. You may also be able to achieve this with Google Data Studio or similar dashboarding platform.
I'm very aware that my title isn't very "problem solving" oriented. However I' like to understand the issue I have and I hope that it might help others.
I'm connected to a Google Analytics view. I've created three different sources in Power BI from the same view:
Sources with:
date, sessions and source / medium dimension
date, sessions and a hit level custom dimension
date, sessions, hit level custom dimension and source / medium
date, sessions
Sources 1,2,4 return the same total amount of sessions (which match Google Analytics numbers) however the source 3 return only half of the sessions.
So I guess something is not working between the source / medium dimension and the custom dimension however I'd like to understand why.
Thanks.
In Google analytics how can i get a metric to put "number of active users on website at any one time". I want to put it against past date periods.
I.E I was scrolling through the metrics, trying to add a widget to my dashboard but, I can't find this metric!
It looks like it's possible because google analytics uses it on their standard report, real-time, "current active visitors on website"
How can I achieve this?
Simply, you can't out of the box. There are some limitations in real-time reports and the ways GA counts unique visitors.
However, if you do not need a detailed analysis, this custom report might do the work (just import it for your Analytics Profile/View and click Customization tab). It basically shows the generic numbers (you can change them to fit your needs) according to hour of a day.
Add any secondary metrics to find out how numbers change in days/weekends etc. Or you can slice the data with segments and see if some traffic is more active in the morning etc.
Hope hits helps.
PS: Beware of data sampling...
For a client of ours, we're looking for a matrix from the Google Analytics reports that shows the best day and time with the most visitors on the website, measured by page views.
I've been inspired by SocialBro, which shows this awesome grid with dots indicating the best time to tweet, depending on how many of your followers are active at a given time.
Is it possible to generate such a view with Google Analytics custom reports?
Really looking forward to any suggestions!
Image attached with SocialBro layout.
You can get the hourly traffic breakdown from Twitter as a table easy enough example here. On the visualisation front, will have to be a case of roll-your-own.
I want to see how many transactions Facebook provides and the value of these in a webshop.
I have tried to do this in two different ways:
When I use the filter box and write facebook, i get 20 transactions from 30.000 visits.
But,
When i add an advanced segments (Include source containing facebook), I get 60 transactions from 25.000 visits.
How can i verify which one is true?
Check your tracking code for proper setup, in most cases it is a reason for this kind of trouble (use ga debugger for chrome or at least firebug's network monitoring).
Check that you're comparing the same time periods. Consider data sampling inaccuracy if you deal with a high traffic volume.
For verification purposes try to mark your facebook links with utm tags and track your visits/transactions in Campaigns report.