checking analytics setup for page I do not own - google-analytics

I'm a consumer data analyst who is not very familiar to coding other than occasional encounters with HTML and Python, and I'm just starting with the coding part of Web Analytics. In particular, I need to learn about checking websites I don't own (therefore I don't have access to their Analytics accounts) for tracking info, but it has been phenomenally hard to find information on which tracking function each component of code stand for, or to what extent it is visible from the page source.
For a project, here is a page I'm trying to check for Google Analytics/Tag Manager/alternative analytics setup, and see what is exactly being tracked on it. Other than the source code, I checked it with Ghostery, which gave me this Tag Manager code page. Is it possible to check tracking info from these two (events, pageviews, URI and how many custom dimensions there is, specifically), and which part of the code includes that info (particularly URI and dimension info - the first two, I have more idea about)?
This is a page I'm also looking into. I can see that this one has Google Analytics/Tag manager, but again, I can't make sure of what is being tracked, and whether the Analytics/Tag Manager setup is looking -potentially- problematic in any way. Here is the Tag Manager page for this one that I obtained through Ghostery.
Any help would be much appreciated...

Looks like what you are looking for is Google Tag Assistant extension for google chrome: https://get.google.com/tagassistant/
you can download it from here: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tag-assistant-by-google/kejbdjndbnbjgmefkgdddjlbokphdefk?hl=en
When you install it it will appear as icon on any page you visit and it will show you all GA implementations on a page:
You can select tracking ID you are interested in and it will tell you how many Page Views/events were fired for that particular tracking ID only:
Then you can select individual tracking event/page view and see all data that are being sent with that tracking request. Just Click on URLs and click the icon to put the data in table:
Here "cd" stands for Custom Dimension, so here you can clearly see 2 custom dimensions that are being tracked:
Hope this helps, good luck!

Related

Viewing Google Tag Manager tracking info

I feel like this is a very dumb question, but here we go: I've set up two simple tags. Both are to track a page view – one to track if a certain page URL contains "utm_souce," and one to track if it doesn't. I previewed everything, and it's showing that the tags are working on their triggers...
My question is: where does this data go, and how do I view the results of the tracking – is it through the Google Analytics dashboard somewhere? I feel like I'm missing something, but I'm super new to GTM, so bear with me!
Thanks!

GTM / GA: Cross-Domain Tracking (VIEWS & GOALS)

Situation: I have used Google Tag Manager to set up Google Analytics (GA - Universal) on a multisite network. There is one GTM container, and each website has its own GA property. I used a GTM variable to reference all of the GA properties. I am able to track cross-domain sessions. In testing, I am able to follow a user's session across multiple domains under the same session / client ID.
Problem: I'm stuck with what to do next. I'd like to create some Goals and Views that track a user's journey through my sites and measure the usual stats (bounce, drop-off points conversions, etc.). However, I'm not sure where to begin. I see plenty of information on the Internet for how to set up cross-domain GA tags in GTM. However, I don't see anything out there for how to create Views and Goals for cross-domain setups. A few questions that come to mind are:
Do I create Goals in the destination site's GA account (e.g. mycheckout.com), or the site where the session begins (e.g. myproductinfo.com)?
When creating Goals, do I only use the permalink slug, or the entire link? I thought I could only add the permalink.
How does this information roll up into one report?
I found this link, but I'm not sure if it's the 'best practice'. I would greatly appreciate it if someone who has previously implemented this could provide an outline of best practices, or a link to a good tutorial on the subject.
Thanks for your help!
Chris
You need to understand GA definition of Views and Properties. Views are like database table views: you can either show the whole table or a sample of it.
To have all data collected without sampling a "Raw Data" view (no filters) should always be used. Each view has its own conversion goal definitions. So in the "Raw Data" view you can create a goal for any page tracked. If you filter a view for one domain (e.g. "confirmation.com View with appropriate filters"), only goals for this domain should be created (otherwise they will never count a conversion).
When creating goals you can define filters for the "ga:pagePath" parameter. So it depends on your GA tracking setup, what part of the URL it tracks. Go into chrome web developer toolbar and hit the "network" tab. Open your page in this tab. Then search for requests ending with "collect", these are the data trackpoints send to GA. There you can debug what URL information is sent to GA (search for the "dl" parameter within the query string parameters list).

Google Analytic's / Duplicate entries / Google Tag Manager

We have Google Analytics on our site. This site also uses Google Tag Manager (unsure whether this is causing the issue or not).
The issue is that within Google Developer on the Network tab it looks like Google Analytics is being called three times, therefore messing up the actual analytics side.
I have searched the web for this issue but most put it down to the page refreshes etc. This is not the case with ours. This happens when it is first loaded.
Each URL is different slightly. I looked through the site code hoping to find duplicate data (script for Google Analytics), sadly I haven’t. Neither have a found duplication when I 'View Source'.
At this moment in time I am puzzled as to why this is happening.
I have noted the parameters are slightly different between the three, I am thinking this is why it looks like its being called three times, why would it do this?
DP: Document location URL (The call which doesn't contain GTM, contains this)
GTM: Google Tag Manager (Two of the three
have this in the third doesn't)
CD1: ? (The call which doesn't contain GTM, contains this)
Z: Cache
Any ideas will be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Clare
Most definitely possible that GA and GTM both sending page views. If you are using GTM then you should remove ALL GA code from your pages as GTM replaces all GA.

Tracking conversions from another property

I have one website and 2 blogs. Everything is working for years and till recently we were ok with setup.
I am promoting one of the blog pages on Twitter,Facebook,LinkedIn. I can see conversions on main property but I cant tell how many conversions were from each of the sources. I just can see blog page as a source. When i switch to blog property in GA i can see segmented traffic by sources but ofc no conversions (goals are defined only on the main site)
I am reading for tracking goals from multiple properties but it only confuses me more and more. Is this possible to pass data from one property to another and be able to see what I want to see (segmentation by sources and conversions) ?
I am new to Google Analytics, and when I walked through the setup process, there was a lot of explanation about Social settings. I suspect this is new. Google has put in fields for you to track traffic to your blogs that comes in from your other social presence(s).
You'll want to identify your profile URLs for Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook so that it can break it down for you correctly.
They state:
If you leave the Web Property Prefix blank, you'll see Activities data for the domain you are tracking with Google Analytics (e.g. example.com). If you also wish to see Activities data for properties such as your YouTube channel, enter your prefixes here; for example, youtube.com/example. Make your prefix as specific as possible (i.e. do not simply enter youtube.com). Activities data is only shown for properties from which your domain has received hits.
Source: Google Analytics Social Settings: Web Property Prefix Help

Tracking email clicks with tagged links (could be google analytics or custom)

I'm trying to track a series of emails and where users are clicking. I really only have google analytics to work with. I'm attempting to use google analytics to tag my links but all I'm getting is the campaign, all the other tags are coming up (not set).
example of the links I am using:
http://www.example.com/en/secured/rewards?entity_id=<%~user%>&pw=<%~pw%>&utm_source=confirmEmail1&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button1&utm_campaign=ssconfirmEmail1
This part of the link HAS to be there.
http://www.example.com/en/secured/rewards?entity_id=<%~user%>&pw=<%~pw%>
I believe something with the entity_id and pw tags are creating a conflict with google's tags. Currently I'm testing weather doing this to the link will work or not.
http://www.example.com/en/secured/rewards?utm_source=confirmEmail1&utm_medium=email&utm_content=button1&utm_campaign=ssconfirmEmail1&entity_id=<%~user%>&pw=<%~pw%>
My question is, first: Does anyone know a reason why this would be happening?
second (forget google analytics and do something custom): I know I could track the link by creating a redirect through a page and then having it redirect to the correct url, but I'm too new at this to know if I can carry the entity_id and pw through the redirect. If so, how?
Thanks!
Since the link was picking up everything but the content, I just eliminated that and changed the source to what I was using in the content. It's working now
http://www.example.com/en/secured/rewards?entity_id=<%~user%>&pw=<%~pw%>&utm_source=button1&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ssconfirmEmail1

Resources