We have a high-volume site that is exceeding the Google Analytics hit quota. As a solution, we were planning on limiting the sample rate (https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/field-reference#sampleRate) to around 5%.
Before we do this, I'd like to understand what setting a sample rate does to GA reports like pageview or events. Will those reports show only 5% of overall hits? Or will they be adjusted to account for the sample rate?
As a toy example, if our site had 100 users and we set sampleRate = 5, we'd expect only 5 users data to get tracked. Now imagine those 5 users each visited exactly 1 page and generated 1 pageview. When you view the pageview report, would that report show 5 pageviews (only the sample), or would it show 100 pageviews (reflecting the true user pageview estimate)? Or asked differently, once I set sampleRate = 5, do I now need to multiply all count metrics x 20 to estimate overall site usage, or will GA reports do that for me?
The reports will only see around 5% of the hits. You will need to multiply your results by 20 when looking at absolute numbers. GA won't multiply for you.
Related
The total number that was returned from the API is actually higher compared to what's being shown in the UI.
Screenshot attached shows Users total count is 5,275.
(https://i.stack.imgur.com/3DEyB.jpg)
However, the API shows 6152 users in total.
(https://i.stack.imgur.com/bJANs.jpg)
Any ideas on how to get valid users count?
The report you are looking at on Google analytics is
Dimension
Date
Metric
users
sessions
pageviews
You have added datehour in your report the results of the report will not be the same unless the request is the same as the report you are looking at
We have updated Google Analytics sampling rate to 100% for many partners.
ga('create', 'UA-xxxxxxxxx-x', {'siteSpeedSampleRate': 100});
However, for some partners, we observed that all pageviews are not set for page load sampling. In some cases, it is around 80%.
Is there any exact reason for this? Doesn't {'siteSpeedSampleRate': 100} means all pageviews should be sent for page load sampling?
Thanks!
Even if you put the sampling rate to 100 you can still hit quota limits here (Site Speed processing quota limit).
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/user-timings#sampling_considerations
To measure all the site speed hits you can extract the values (different load times) via GTM and some custom javascript and send the values as dimensions or events.
I have an API importer that runs through each day for four different accounts (same user login). It uses the same set of dimensions and metrics for each account.
On random days, for just one account, the AdSense revenue will be 0, but pageviews will appear. When I replicate in the API explorer, I see that AdSense revenue will appear when I have only one dimension.
Two strange things:
Revenue is greater than 0 on certain days. If we hit the API at random times, it will provide the AdSense revenue with all dimensions. Other times it won't.
Adsense revenue returning with one dimension in the API explorer.
It's not the issue if the API breaking with AdSesne, because it does appear from time to time. We know it's getting revenue, just missing from the API.
Anyone seen this before? It's quite frustrating.
Thanks!
We have a client who receives 2-4 million visits a day, so off the bat we can only get unsampled reports because it exceeds google's limit :
500,000 maximum sessions for special queries where the data is not already stored.
We are attempting to collect Unique Visitors and Visits for a 1 day period. Using the Google API has proved frivolous as the data is sampled.
We have set up Unsampled reports on a daily basis that get dumped into Google Drive and our application picks up the new files and downloads them just fine. The problem we are running into is that we need 2 years worth of daily data for 20 reports. The maximum range we can run an unsampled report using google analytics web interface is 1 week before we exceed a query limit. So 52 weeks of reports x 2 years x 20 different reports to set up is 2080 scheduled unsampled reports and this is for 1 client only.
EDIT: Can we automate unsampled reports using GA API or any programming method to pull historical data with the constraints previously mentioned? Also we do have Google Analytics Premium
Cris G, the only way to avoid data-sampling in Google Analytics without having an access to Premium is day-parting technique = you split a data-request for selected time period into shorter period queries (typically days) and then add all the numbers up. If your profiles/views are not sampled if you look at daily numbers, this could solve you issue.
However, this doesn't work on Unique Visitors, since they will be unique every single time (you are running data requests on daily basis), so there will be most likely duplicates and inflated totals if your site is attracting lots of returning visitors.
To automate some of the work, I suggest using tools like Analytics Canvas. It can make your life much easier and I think it could be the perfect tool for what you need to. Bear in mind the limitations about unique visitors (and some other metrics).
Having said that, I still think the best choice would be to use the benefits of Premium and the ability to get unsampled data for your reports.
In report All Traffic,If i choose primary dimension as "Landing Page" i see some (not set) entries.
Why it may happen?
Also it entries have page/visits=0, % new visits < 2% and bounce rate = 0%.
Are you filtering out pageviews, but events or social interactions are still going through the filters and hitting GA, spawning new visits that don't have pageviews? Then (not set) might mean that the dimensions you're combining don't have a real relationship. Another reason might be data that GA couldn't lookup for that dimension and there are some different reasons that might happen.
http://analytics.blogspot.com/2009/08/back-to-basics-not-set-entries.html
http://support.google.com/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=2820717