Is there a way to track UTM parameters with a virtual pageview? When we fire a virtual pageview, the documentation doesn't show UTM and when I manually define it as part of the URL, it gets lost. Am I missing something?
This is the code snippet:
dataLayer.push({
'event':'VirtualPageview',
'virtualPageURL': '/url-collateral-playbook-thank-you-2/',
});
window.location='https://lp.URL.com/rs/804-TEY-921/images/url%20-%url%url%url%20%28new%29.pdf';
Related
I'm using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol to register events with HTTP requests. I'm building this for a Roku app I'm working on. The events are getting sent and registered, but it seems the custom dimensions aren't working.
Here's what I'm sending
Destination URL:
https://ssl.google-analytics.com/collect
POST body:
v=1 // version
&dh=www.my-site.com // document hostname
&tid=UA-XXXXXXXX-X // Tracking ID / Property ID
&uid=(a user id) // user id
&cid=(an assigned UUID) // Anonymous Client ID
&sr=1280x720 // screen resolution of the tv
&t=event // Event hit type
&ec=ExampleCategory // Event Category. Required
&ea=ExampleAction // Event Action. Required
&el=ExampleLabel // Event label
&cd1=WAAA // Custom dimension 1, Station
&cd2=(some id) // Custom dimension 2, User ID
&z=1432199801 // Cache buster
When I go to Behavior > Events > Top Events in Google Analytics and set the secondary dimension as being Station for instance, none of the events show up. The events show up when I take off the secondary dimension though, so it seems like Google Analytics just isn't liking something about the custom definitions.
I've tried waiting 24 hours to see if there's a time delay problem, but that didn't help.
I've also made sure to turn on the custom definitions and set them to "Hit" scope type from the Admin panel in Analytics as well.
When I submit the above to https://ssl.google-analytics.com/debug/collect (the validation server that returns errors if there's something wrong with the request), it says the request is valid.
Any idea what could be going on here?
Thanks for the help!
Situation
On our site we implement virtual pageviews for ajax filters and page scrollings.
When user open Rent page on our site:
real url: "/rent"
send to GA:
ga("send", "pageview", {page: "/rent/"})
When user scroll to second page:
we change real url via js: "/rent/?page=2"
send to GA (we care only about main page):
ga("send", "pageview", {page: "/rent/"})
Or when user drills down:
we change real url via js: "/rent/appartment/?page=2"
send to GA (we care about path):
ga("send", "pageview", {page: "/rent/appartment"})
But we noticed that really GA code does not take current real url (window.location) each time we call ga, but uses first time location. So when user drill down GA code send:
GET collect?...&t=pageview&dl=http://example.com/rent&dp=/rent/appartment&...
....
Referrer: http://example.com/rent/appartment
Here dl parameter is location of our page (not really current location) and dp is a page parameter in ga call. Notice that referrer is ok.
We decided to provide ga with real location (like in referrer) and change code to:
ga("send", "pageview", {page: "/rent/appartment", location: "http://example.com/rent/appartment"})
Problem
From now on I was satisfied, but was not guys that uses GA to analyze Paid Search effectiveness: bounce rate raised drammaticaly (something like 20% to 70%).
Drilling to the problem I've noticed that GA "loses" user when we remove campaign parameters (utm...) and send location without them.
Questions
Should I care about real location in this situation? How does location affects pageviews? How can I workaround or solve this problem?
Additional information
Seems like the main problem is that we drop CPC parameters when we change location for GA:
landing page: /rent?utm_source=...&... (or gclid for Google)
scroll down to second page: /rent?page=2 - there are no CPC parameters.
Additional information here: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1714454?hl=en
But I'm still can't figure out an appropriate solution.
When you send a hit to GA with analytics.js, it's going to send the data it has stored on the tracker object that you created when you invoked ga('create', ...);. You can override those values by passing in an object (as you did), but if no overrides are specified, that tracker data is used.
When the tracker object is created it collects data about the current page (e.g. url, title, window size, etc) and stores that information. It does not recollect that info before you send hits. You have to update it if that data changes.
That means if you're updating the page information in an AJAX site and want analytics.js to "remember" that you've updated the page, you'll have to set it on the tracker. The advantage to setting it on the tracker is that if you send other hit types (e.g. events, social, exceptions), you won't have to specify those new values each time.
So, instead of doing:
ga("send", "pageview", {page: "/rent/appartment"})
Do this:
ga("set", {page: "/rent/appartment"});
ga("send", "pageview");
Now, if you send an event later, the event will be associated with the apartment page.
UPDATE: there is now an official guide for how to properly track single page applications with Google Analytics.
we are seding requests like this throught the google analytics measurement protocol to track user interaction there. For us its important to be to link a interaction to a specific user so we where happy to be able to set the "cid" attribute of the protocol.
my problem is that I cannot find this Client ID somewhere inside the reports of google analytics. Even when customizing the reports I cannot find a Dimension which allows me to display this information.
http://www.google-analytics.com/collect?
v=1 // Version.
&tid=UA-XXXX-Y // Tracking ID / Property ID.
&cid=555 // Anonymous Client ID.
&t=event // Event hit type
&ec=video // Event Category. Required.
&ea=play // Event Action. Required.
&cm18=8000
&cd6=crocodile
Do you have an idea of how the cid could be found there?
Client id is assigned to a user(client) viewing your site by google analytics. Here is an example of how you can get the client id if you're using jQuery.
$(document).ready(function() {
setGaClientId();
});
var setGaClientId = function(){
if(typeof(ga) != 'undefined'){
ga(function(tracker) {
console.log(tracker.get('clientId')); //actually do something here
});
}
}
Let's say a user gets to one of my pages with all the utm data (utm_campaign, etc.). On the page they land, a session is created in Google Analytics with all this info.
Then, they browse my site and get to another page. On that page, the utm_campaign isn't in the query string anymore.
Is there a way I can fetch the utm_campaign data?
Please note I use Universal Analytics, so it's ga instead of _gaq.
UPDATE: In case anyone is wondering, this code doesn't work:
ga(function(tracker) {
alert(tracker.get('campaignName'));
alert(tracker.get('campaignSource'));
alert(tracker.get('campaignMedium'));
alert(tracker.get('campaignKeyword'));
alert(tracker.get('campaignContent'));
alert(tracker.get('campaignId'));
});
our marketing consultant has asked me to help with configuring google analytics to setup Goal Tracking for User Signups... from what I've read this is accomplished by assigning the URL of the page the user is directed to after a successful signup to the Goal you are trying to track.
but what if the URL your user is directed to is a URL they regularly visit? e.g. after signing up they are directed to their profile page - which is the same page they visit every time they login. is there some way to configure a referer to go with the goal URL so that it is the pair of them that define the goal? e.g. user visits /profile and is referred by /signup.
further complication: what if after signup the user is directed to a different page depending on the user type? it would be nice to configure a single Goal with multiple URLs (but still using the referer restriction described above).
an alternative would be to use an event... if the server creates a user then it could signal the view to output the javascript code that generates the appropriate event.
or... is there a way for server-side code to send events to google analytics? is there an api?
If your users are directed to is a URL they regularly visit you can make a conditional statement for the goal occasion with a virtual pageview, have a look at this: http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/et_vps/index.html
If after signup the user is directed to a different page depending on the user type, you can use regular expressions to set goal URL pattern, like this ^user./login./(type1|type2|type3)/$, look here for more info: http://services.google.com/analytics/breeze/en/regex_ga/index.html
I came across this question in google and believe I found a more appropriate answer.
Google Analytics now provide a service called Analytics Measurement Protocol.
This will allow you to send server-side requests to track your users activities in your analytics account.
To track a sign up event as mentioned in the question, the best way I can see would be to first create an event based goal in your account with the category set to 'users' and an action as 'sign_up' (you can optionally provide a label and value). Then in your code once a successful sign-up occurs (maybe when a user confirms their activation email link?), send a POST request to www.google-analytics.com/collect with the following payload:
v=1 // Version.
&tid=UA-XXXXX-Y // Tracking ID / Property ID.
&cid=555 // Anonymous Client ID.
&t=event // Event hit type
&ec=user // Event Category. Required.
&ea=sign_up // Event Action. Required.
&el=label // Event label.
&ev=1 // Event value.
A full list of the parameters and their meanings are defined here: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/parameters
You could use an event that is triggered when the user submits the sign-up form :
onsubmit="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Category','Action','Label','Value']);"
and use the Category / Action / Label data model in Google Analytics to pass whatever data you need to pass, for example :
onsubmit="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Sign-up','Premium','6-month',6]);"
You then have to configure this Goal in Google Analytics as an Event, which lets you choose which combination of each of the fields Category / Action / Label / Value you want to use.
Another option, maybe less maintenance-heavy, is to use a query-string to identify people that get back to the Profile page after having just signed up. So instead of sending them back to /user/profile after they sign up, you send them back to /user/profile/?sign-up=true.
You will then be able to track these pages as a URL goal in GA using a Regular expression like :
\?sign-up=true
I wrote a helper function for tracking GA events.
function trackGoogleAnalyticsEvent(category, action, label) {
try {
ga('send', 'event', category, action, label);
} catch (e) {
console.warn('Google analytics error: ' + e);
}
}
Usage:
trackGoogleAnalyticsEvent('Signup', 'Signup Success', 'Facebook');