Get sessions info in #google-apis-explorer - google-analytics

I use unique IDs for clients. Once user enters the site, I use google tag manager to save client ID in analytics dimension3.
Once an e-commerce event is triggered, I use google analytics API to request info for that particular user sessions using filter dimension3==XXX (client ID)
For every session of the selected user I want to get from Google Analytics:
When the session started
Landing page
Session duration
Operating system, browser, screen resolution, referrer, medium and some other general parameters.
What I'm looking for is a way to get information like in Google Analytics -> Audience -> User report (where you can see what a particular user was doing).
But as far as I can judge Google Analytics API can provide only summarized info (metrics divided by dimensions). It's more like SELECT GROUP BY statement but I meed more like SELECT WHERE.
Is there a way to get what I need?
PS. I request the following dimensions:
ga:fullReferrer, ga:landingPagePath, ga:operatingSystem, ga:mobileDeviceMarketingName, ga:source, ga:dateHourMinute, ga:dimension3, ga:screenResolution, ga:browser, ga:browserVersion, ga:medium, ga:dateHourMinute, ga:sessionDurationBucket (2 requests in a batch)
The metric I use is: ga:sessions
What I get is not really what I need for I need information on SESSION (eg there were 30 sessions, I need 30 rows in the result, instead I may get 1000 rows result because analytics splits the metrics into dimensions... ))))

Related

Can google Analytics track a unique users that using our app

I'm new when using google analytics for App and it make me quite confused, I have several question that I want to ask:
Is Google Analytics still track unique users? some of source that I read say no but and some say yes I'm quite confused about this
Let say if I want to search a Unique users can I use User Type dimension with users metric to get the right value for new users (Not with session but users)
for question number 2, let say it have New Users and Returning Users as user Type dimension and users have a metric and from google analytics itself give an explanation such as this:
Users who have initiated at least one session during the date range. Learn more about how Analytics calculates the number of users.
Can someone help me to understand this? I'm already using it for 2 weeks and still confused with this
By default, Google Analytics track unique users by setting an unique id (clientId) in device memory (a cookie in web tracking). This method isn't accurate because cleaning a cookie or device cache would reset clientId, causing the tool to identify a new user in the next session. To avoid it you can collect User Id, a built-in dimension specific to user tracking.

Google Analytics - measuring returning customers after abandonment

I’m wondering if anyone can help me. I’m currently working on a project which involves trying to understand customers who have abandoned one of the stages within a checkout but then returned to the site at a later stage and converted. I would then break this down to the number of days before they returned. I’ve tried creating segments however the data doesn’t seem to be making sense. Has anyone any idea how I’d go about this? Is this even possible in GA or is this something I can only accomplish in BigQuery if at all?
Your help will be very much appreciated.
Google Analytics(GA hereafter) is counting a visitor as a new or returning user by persisting cookie values in client side(in the browser). So once a user is visited, It stores an id which is specific to that user (actually this user means the browser which had been used to visit the website). So when a user visits the site for the first time, GA will store a specific id in a GA related cookie in the client side. If the user visits the website again later in another session, then GA check if there is a client.id for that user stored in the client side. If it found then that user is count as a returning user or New user otherwise.
In Google Analytics, goto Audience -> User Explorer. In there you can see an aggregated view of each user(client.id) interacted with your website and clicking on one client.id will show each user's activities with the website(differentiated by sessions) and will show all the sessions related to that user with the information like time, URL and some other dimension values.
Also if you want to separate out New users or Returning users from each other, you can create a new segment with a condition checking for the User Type dimension against the values "New Visitor" or "Returning Visitor".
To measure returning customers after an abandonment and converted, you can create a segment as follows,
It seems that it's not possible in GA.
There are no metric like "Days between abandoned funnel and conversion" (only "Days before transaction" - between acquisition day and transaction day). So you need a date for abandoned funnel and a date for conversion separately: i.e. you need two reports.
I know solution, but Excel or smth like this is needed if you want to calculate days before conversion.
At first you need to have Client ID as a custom dimension.
Then create custom report contains dimensions Client ID and Date and metric [Your Goal] Abandoned Funnel (Goal with Funnel needs to be set).
And the second report - Client ID, Date and [Your Goal] Complection.
And to merge these tables using Client ID parameter.

Getting google analytics data per user

I'm looking to get information about users sessions from google analytics. Things like:
date of visit
referral
device type
exit page
browser
time on site
etc.
However, Analytics API seems to only offer this data as totals, and not per user. So I can't know how much a specific user stayed on the website for example.
The final result I'm looking for is to tie this data from analytics with the user id from our CRM platform using the google UUID saved in cookie.
Is it possible to retrieve this data from Analytics or you can only access it with Analytics 360?
User level data is not available in standard GA (except in a limited fashion via the User Explorer report which cannot be exported). You'd need to store user id or client id in a custom dimension (you must not store personally identifiable data in GA, even in hashed form, so take care what you use as user id) and then select this as first dimension when you export the data. Obviously this does not help you with data that's already been collected.

Track individual via Google Analytics

I am new to Google Analytics. I have a conversion set up, and I'd like to capture demographics for individuals who convert at e individual level. When a user converts, I'd like to pass the statistics from Google Analytics into my own database, or keep a record of the ID assigned at conversion in Google Analytics and download the data. Is this possible? I want to do analysis on who is likely to convert versus not - age, shopping habits, etc - and link these details back to the type of specific conversion.
Thoughts?
We if want to add add track users at individual level, try creating a Custom diamension and passing the userID everytime you make a GA call.
Next to view the same :- in tables that you view your analytics data, there will be this option called 'Secondary diamention', from the list that appears.. Choose the custom diamension name that you had assigned. Now you will be able to see each row with the userID along slide.
Add user ID to your tracking script
The first step to your question is to add the user ID to your tracking. If you have some way to identify users on your website (ie: through email marketing tool, your CRM, etc), then you should set up user ID tracking. Here is the Google Dev article about that:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/cookies-user-id?hl=en
However, basically... you just have to add this to your tracking script (replacing the 'create' line you currently have, replacing "USER_ID" with the user ID your system gives them.
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', { 'userId': USER_ID });
In addition, I usually include this UserID as a custom dimension, so that I can view it in Google Analytics and other reports. To do this, first set up a custom dimension for your ID, as a "User-level" dimension. Then just add this after your user ID is available (assuming this is your first custom dimension):
ga('set', 'dimension1', USER_ID);
Connect User ID to Demographics
Unfortunately, the demographics information that Google Analytics provides (under "Audience") is not compatible with custom dimensions (like userID). So, the API only allows you to pull the audience data in aggregate (ie: connected to City, number of users, pageviews of those types of people... etc). If this works for you, check out the GA Query Explorer (below) to try out different combinations of dimensions & metrics to drill down as deep as you can and maximize the information you gain from this demographic info.
Connect Google Analytics Data to Your Database
In order to connect GA data to your database in an automated fashion, you will need to set up some kind of scheduled process that runs a query off of the Google Analytics API. To explore what combinations of metrics and stuff are available, I'd suggest checking out the Google Analytics API Explorer and the Google Analytics API reference material. What I did was set up an SSIS package (using SSIS GoogleAnalyticsSource) as the data source, which made it fairly easy. Then just scheduled that to run daily, populating the data I want into my database.
Alternatively, you could download less complicated reports directly from Google Analytics and import them into your database with something like SQL Server Management Studio.

"There is no data for this view." in reports with custom dimensions in Measurement Protocol of Google Analytics

Our application needs to gather usage data through the Measurement Protocol of Google Analytics.
We can successfully send "appview" hits to the Google Analytics server, and get a proper response by it (a GIF image). The appview hits appear on the GA Dashboard, along with the country of origin, session duration, etc.
We also have several custom dimensions and metrics that we want track for each hit. We have set those up in the GA Admin panel with the correct scope, index and active state. We have 3 Hit-scoped dimensions, 3 User-leveled dimensions and 1 Hit-scoped metric, all set to Active state.
We send the dimensions and metrics as described in the docs at
Custom Dimensions / Metrics
attached to the hits they apply for, like so:
...&cm1*=3 <--for the metric
and
...&cd6*=15 <--for the dimensions (some dimensions have numeric values, others are text)
The problem is that those metrics and dimensions don't show up in our custom reports: the reports always say "There is no data for this view.". For example, we have a report that has one dimension and one metric, without any filters, set to "Any view". It doesn't matter if the Type of the report is Explorer, Flat Table or Map Overlay, it never shows anything.
There have been several days since the hits were received and appeared in the dashboard, but the reports are still empty. So scratch out any processing lag.
We tried sending "event" hits instead of "appview" hits - again, the hits show up in the Dashboard, but the reports are empty.
We cannot get any useful insights without using dimensions and metrics - so there is no way to get by without this.
Because of reasons too long to describe, we cannot use any of the Google-provided Analytics libraries.
Is there anything else we need to do to see data in those reports?
When using the measurement protocol you need to that the profile is not set to exclude bot and spiders.
Go to the google analytics website under the admin and the settings under the profile in question.
Beyond that check the realtime reports you should see the hits coming in. You will need to wait 24 -48 hours for data to appear in the standard reports due to data processing lag.

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