I need to track events in Google Analytics from a server through the Measurement Protocol. I can do this just fine, but my problem is that I want to send additional/custom data along with the event. Specifically, I want to send a UUID along with the event so that it is possible for me to fetch data from the Google Analytics API in the future and correlate events with rows in a relational database.
Is there any decent way to send custom data along with events? I looked at using the event value, but it must be an integer, and it is not intended for things like this. The event category, action, and label are reserved for other purposes.
I am not that proficient in Google Analytics, so the solutions off the top of my head would be:
Send an additional event containing the UUID in the event label or something like that. Seems like a bit of a hack/workaround to send two events, with one being used exclusively behind the scenes.
Perhaps using a custom dimension or metric. I am not 100% sure about the implications of this and if that's a decent approach or not.
So basically my question is: what would be the best way for me to send a UUID along with a Google Analytics event from a server, taking into consideration that I cannot use the event category, action, and label for the current event? Is there any other way in which I could link events retrieved from the Google Analytics API to rows in a database?
So let's say I trigger a "Completed Order" event to GA, and I also have orders in a MySQL database. So what I want to do, is to link an event to an order row in the database.
There are several things that you can do and it pretty much depends on what you want to do with the information you are storing. For starters, all your requests should include the uid field with the value being the user ID within your system. This way all Google Analytics data will be calculated on the same user. Note: this is an internal value used within Google Analytics and you won't be able to see it.
Second, I would create a custom dimension of the name user_id and store the user information in that. You will then be able to use this information within your reports to see what each user is doing. Note: it's against TOS to send user name, email, or any other PII (personally identifiable information) to Google Analytics. But you can send your internal user ID.
I have done both of these in the past and found it to work quite well.
More info on User-ID.
Related
So Let's assume I have a custom event inside my APP and I push custom dimension that has a certain value,
Is it possible through GA Management API to get that Custom Dimension by the value and then update it to the new value?
What I'm trying to achieve is, I want to track when user do his first paying process inside the app and to compare how many users that hit the first Goal (Signup) ended up paying it, what's the best way to do that thru the GA?
Thanks!
You cannot update historical data in Google Analytics.
You can track userId, sessionId and hitTimestamp information as custom dimensions and work on it: https://www.simoahava.com/analytics/improve-data-collection-with-four-custom-dimensions/
I'm trying to set up an events tracking pipeline for my website to track different kinds of events like button clicks, page views, capturing form fields etc. Now, I'd like to store this data somewhere, one way is to send this data to Google Analytics but it doesn't store string type of data like form data.
Is there some way to send DataLayer data to other third-party platforms and store it?
If not, what's the best way to access/export this user-level data
dataLayer is an object loaded on a page. This means that you can access it and pick it up with Javascript and pass it on wherever you like.
However, the fact that there is a dataLayer, makes it probable that there is Google Tag Manager installed on those pages. If that is true, you can use GTM to pass on those values from dataLayer (even if they are the contents of the form, like name, email, etc. which you must not push to Google Analytics) to whichever other platforms.
Is it possible to use a single google analytics account, in particular, e-commerce, for more than user? I fact, I need it to be used for as a lot of users. What I want in a nutshell is this:
The users come to my web site and provide me their e-commerce data in json or any other format somehow. I have a google analytics, so I take that e-commerce data and send to google analytics. And then show them the reports for their data from google analytics by google analytics API (I guess it's reports API?)
The question is not whether or not it is profitable, makes sense, etc. The question is, can I use my, single google analytics account to achieve what I've described above?
Yes you can. Since you need to keep the users apart in a way that does not allow them to look into other users data you can use a single account for up to 50 users, since this is how many data views you can have per account (view permissions can be set at account level)1. Filter the view by hostname (or whatever) to record only the current users data per view.
If you do not need the interface (i.e. if you want to query GA via the api and build custom dashboards) you can have even more - simply store in unique id per user and use that to filter the data before displaying it in a dashboard. So as far as that part of the question is concerned you are safe.
Where things probably start to fall apart is data collection. Is looks like you want to do some sort of batch processing of accumuluated e-commerce data. Since you cannot send a timestamp for a user interaction all dates within GA will be off. Plus you have data limits (I'm thinking of max interactions per minute that you can send), so your insertion process might be not very efficient. It would probably be better to create something on top of the measuremnt protocol that allows your clients to send data in realtime.
1 To make this a little clearer, you can set up 50 entities whith different access permissions. Of course every view can have as many users a you like, but they will all see the same data.
Is there a way to query results using the Core Reporting API (v3) and filtering those results by the User ID assuming that it is being sent to Google Analytics properly?
I've googled this question a lot and read a whole bunch of articles but I did not find one place that does that. Moreover, the fact that I cannot see the User ID anywhere in the reporting interface makes me doubt that this is even possible. I'm guessing I will have to dome something similar to what is recommended here in order to do it?
UPDATE
Apparently, the purpose of my question is not very clear as highlighted by Eike's comment below. What I want to do is generate a report for a specific user with a specific Id using the client API and then combine those results with information I have about this user in my system's database to do something as per my business requirements.
The best place to turn to for such questions is the Dimensions and Metrics Reference. If the dimension you're looking for is not there then you cannot query it or use it in a filter.
The list is really well maintained, so it's not very likely there are as-of-yet undocumented dimensions you could use.
User id is not there.
Well there is a way now.
The docs says the following steps
Set up User-ID in your account
Agree to the User-ID Policy
Read the User-ID Policy. Under I agree to the User-ID Policy, set the switch to ON. Agreeing to the policy enables the feature in your account.
Click Next Step.
2. Set up User-ID in your tracking code
After you enable User-ID by agreeing to the policy, you must implement User-ID in your tracking code.
To employ User-ID, you must be able to generate your own unique IDs, assign IDs to new users and consistently reassign the same IDs to returning users, and include these IDs in the data you send to Analytics.
In this step, you can see the line of code that you have to add to your Analytics tracking code:
ga('set', 'userId', {{USER_ID}}); // Set the user ID using signed-in
user_id.
3. Create a User-ID reporting view
User-ID data can appear only in a dedicated User-ID view.
Click Create.
Enter a Reporting View Name.
You might want to include the term "User ID" in the name to help you remember that this is a special User-ID view.
Select a Reporting Time Zone.
Under Show User-ID Reports, set the switch to ON.
Click Create.
Related resources
https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3123666?hl=en
I have a website that allows people to create an account (that is the conversion I wish to track).
I wish to know where a specific person is coming from. I have google analytics installed and have set up the registration page as a goal, but the reporting tells me traffic sources as an aggregated pie chart. It doesn't report down to the user account level to say that 'person with email xyz' came from 'facebook' for example.
What custom variables or mark up would I need to add to GA to report at that detailed level, if that is at all possible?
Otherwise, I will just have to record the first http_referer in a cookie and stick it in a database during the registration process.
Any advice?
Firstly I must ask you, how actionable do you think it is to look at data at that granular of a level? Finding out what % of people who registered came from facebook or some other place is actionable, because it helps you do things like determine where to focus marketing efforts. But individual users? How is this actionable to you? (hint: it's not)
However, if you are still determined to know this, you should first note that it is against Google's ToS to record personally identifiable data both directly (recording the actual value in GA) or indirectly (e.g. - recording a unique id that you can use to tie to personal info stored within your own system). If this is something you don't want to risk, I suggest moving to another analytics tool that does not have this sort of thing in their ToS (e.g. Adobe SiteCatalyst, which costs money, or perhaps you may instead prefer to choose an "in-house" approach, like Piwik)
If you are still determined to follow through with this and hope not to get caught or whatever, Google Analytics doesn't record data like what info a visitor filled out in a form (like their email address) unless you populate that data in a custom field/dimension/metric/event to be sent along with the request. Usually you would populate this on the form "thank you" page (which is usually the same page you use as your goal url or goal event if you're popping and using an event for your goal). So you would populate the email address in one of those custom variables and then have it as a dimension to break down the http referrer by.