Google Analytics Reporting API V4 Lifetime value requests - invalid dimensions/metrics - google-analytics

Question

I'm trying to make calls the Analytics Reporting API V4 and keep getting back unspecific error messages when trying to use certain dimensions and metrics. For example, I consistently get
{
"error": {
"code": 400,
"message": "Unknown dimension(s): ga:acquisitionTrafficChannel",
"status": "INVALID_ARGUMENT"
}
}
when passing ga:acquisitionTrafficChannel, despite it being documented as a valid dimension. Similarly, I get
{
"error": {
"code": 400,
"message": "Selected dimensions and metrics cannot be queried together.",
"status": "INVALID_ARGUMENT"
}
}
when passing ga:acquisitionSourceMedium (documented here), even when not passing any metrics whatsoever.
Are the docs out of date? Is there some documentation elsewhere about valid combinations of dimensions and metrics?

Answer 1

All the Lifetime Value reports and thus ga:acquisition... dimensions are only valid for App views not web views.
Secondly the cohort/LTV dimensions can only be queried in within a cohort requests for example:
POST https://analyticsreporting.googleapis.com/v4/reports:batchGet
{
"reportRequests": [
{
"viewId": "XXXX",
"dimensions": [
{
"name": "ga:cohort"
},
{
"name": "ga:acquisitionTrafficChannel"
}
],
"metrics": [
{
"expression": "ga:cohortSessionsPerUser"
}
],
"cohortGroup": {
"cohorts": [
{
"name": "cohort 1",
"type": "FIRST_VISIT_DATE",
"dateRange": {
"startDate": "2015-08-01",
"endDate": "2015-09-01"
}
},
{
"name": "cohort 2",
"type": "FIRST_VISIT_DATE",
"dateRange": {
"startDate": "2015-07-01",
"endDate": "2015-08-01"
}
}
],
"lifetimeValue": true
}
}
]
}
The error messages should probably be a bit clearer.

Answer 2

I ran into this problem as well. When I was in the Google Analytics Dashboard, I clicked on Acquisition->All Traffic->Channels and was fooled into thinking that I needed to combine the ga:acquisitionMedium dimension and ga:newUsers metric together.
When I clicked on ga:acquisitionMedium, it said that combining it with ga:newUsers was valid, despite the error that you mentioned in your question! In reality, I just needed to combine ga:medium and ga:newUsers together.
I know this is not the exact query that you were doing, but here is an example of how I queried New Users count where the dimension channel equaled "organic" (note that I am forming the JSON request with Javascript and then using JSON.stringify(req) to send it):
var req = {
reportRequests: [{
viewId: '<Your Google Analytics view ID>',
dimensions: [{ name: 'ga:medium' }],
dimensionFilterClauses: [{
filters: [{
dimensionName: 'ga:medium',
operator: 'EXACT',
expressions: ['organic']
}]
}],
dateRanges: [{ startDate: '2019-11-01', endDate: '2019-11-30' }],
metrics: [{ expression: "ga:newUsers" }]
}]
};
The above query returns 5,654, which is the same as seen in the "Acquisition" section of Google Analytics.
I definitely think the documentation and error message around this could be improved.