I have to set a goal after user successfully signed up
I don't send user to "successful signup page.html" , User returns to dashboard , I read that GA can read Parameters in URL, but does it read fragments ?
as I use fragments on my website can I use (/dashboard#Success) as my destination to count success goal ?
or only parameters that can be red (/dashboard.html?signup=success)
Google analytics, as you've already pointed out, disregards fragments, but you can still override the default URL to include the fragment in your page views so that your goals will still work:
ga('send', 'pageview', {'page': document.location.pathname + '#' + document.location.hash})
Related
Let's say I have a site and the user comes into it with a parameter:
http://example.com&url=blahblahblah
How do I go about passing along the url value from the parameter into Google Analytics?
1) User comes to the page with a url in the params
2) User clicks a download link with a ga tracking code attached to it which was generated from ga account like this:
http://example.com/download/param1=dkljdf&_ga=1.149898996.39207121.1424368466
You have to create a custom Dimension and a metric for that.
About custom Dimensions and metrics:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/platform/customdimsmets
After you have created a Dimension, you can add metrics to it by view, in example.
Follow the steps here for Universal Analytics:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/custom-dims-mets
Note that due to not have 10 point of reputation, I wrote the a "_" in http like "ht_tp"
BUT:
I think what you want to know is the number os visitors that clicks a download link in your site that comes from, lets say "blahblahblah" as web origin or other methods.
For that, you have the param utm_source that you can receive directly in the url.
So instead of ht_tp://example.com&url=origin you should receive ht_tp://example.com&utm_source=origin
In this way, you have no care about it. Analytics is going to take care for you so you can get a report of clicks by source.
Or, just use the referer in case all the incoming visitors are from webs:
ga('set', 'referrer', 'ht_tp://example.com');
And a final option, to use Events:
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'ReferencedVisitors', jsVarWhereYouHaveTheOrigin]);
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.
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');
We have tracking in our emails to track clicks back to our site through Google Analytics. But is there a way to track opens? I would imagine I have to add a google tracking image to the email somewhere. Possibly javascript too?
As others have pointed out, you can't use Javascript in email. The actual tracking is done by a request for __utm.gif though and the Javascript just constructs the GET parameters.
Google supports non-Javascript uses of Google Analytics per their Mobile web docs:
http://code.google.com/mobile/analytics/docs/web/
They document the full list of parameters, but the only necessary parameters are:
Parameter Description
utmac Google Analytics account ID
utmn Random ID to prevent the browser from caching the returned image
utmp Relative path of the page to be tracked
utmr Complete referral URL
The reference that describes all of the parameters that the Google Analytics tracking GIF allows is here. Use it to build an <img> tag in your email that references the GA GIF.
According to this post, the minimum required fields are:
utmwv=4.3
utmn=<random#>&
utmhn=<hostname>&
utmhid=<random#>&
utmr=-&
utmp=<URL>&
utmac=UA-XXXX-1&
utmcc=_utma%3D<utma cookie>3B%2B_utmz%3D<utmz cookie>%3B
It sounds like you are using campaign tracking for GA but also want to know how many opens there were. This is possible to do with Google Analytics, since they track pageviews or events by use of pixel tracking as all (I think?) email tracking does. You cannot use javascript, however, since that will not execute in an email.
Using Google Analytics pixel tracking:
The easiest way would be to use browser developer tools such as Firebug for Firefox or Opera's Dragonfly to capture a utm.gif request and copy the URL. Modify the headers to suit your needs. You can count it either as an event or pageview. If you count it as an event it should look something like this:
http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?utmwv=4.8.6&utmn=1214284135&utmhn=www.yoursite.com&utmt=event&utme=email_open&utmcs=utf-8&utmul=en&utmje=1&utmfl=10.1%20r102&utmdt=email_title&utmhid={10-digit time code}&utmr=0&utmp=email_name&utmac=UA-{your account}
You can use this to understand what describes what in the headers.
I better post this to save everyone the trouble of trying to construct that monstrous UTM gif URL.
You can now use the new Measurement Protocol API to send a POST request and easily record events, page views, hits, or almost any other type of measurement. It's super easy!
POST /collect HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google-analytics.com
payload_data
For example, here's a code snippet to send an event in C# (using SSL endpoint):
public void SendEvent(string eventCategory = null, string eventAction = null, string eventLabel = null, int? eventValue = null)
{
using(var httpClient = new HttpClient() {BaseAddress = new Uri("https://ssl.google-analytics.com/")}) {
var payload = new Dictionary<string, string>();
// Required Data
payload.Add("v", "1"); // Version
payload.Add("tid", "UA-XXX"); // UA account
payload.Add("aip", "1"); // Anonymize IP
payload.Add("cid", Guid.NewGuid().ToString()); // ClientID
payload.Add("t", "event"); // Hit Type
// Optional Data
payload.Add("ni", "1"); // Non-interactive hit
// Event Data
if (eventCategory != null)
{
payload.Add("ec", eventCategory);
}
if (eventAction != null)
{
payload.Add("ea", eventAction);
}
if (eventLabel != null)
{
payload.Add("el", eventLabel);
}
if (eventValue != null)
{
payload.Add("ev", eventValue.Value.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture));
}
using (var postData = new FormUrlEncodedContent(payload))
{
var response = httpClient.PostAsync("collect?z=" + DateTime.Now.Ticks, postData).Result;
if (!response.IsSuccessStatusCode)
{
throw new Exception("Could not send event data to GA");
}
}
}
}
Way easier than the hack with the __utm gif.
Helpful Example
You can easily add this to emails by doing this:
In an email:
<img src="{url}/newsletter/track.gif?newsletterName=X" />
In your MVC site, for example, NewsletterController:
public ActionResult Track(string newsletterName) {
using(var ga = new AnalyticsFacade()) {
ga.TrackEmailOpen(newsletterName);
}
return Content("~/images/pixel.gif", "image/gif");
}
In your Global.asax or RouteConfig:
routes.MapRoute(
"newsletteropen",
"newsletter/track.gif",
new
{
controller = "Newsletter",
action = "Track"
});
BOOM, done, son. You can now track email opens using a much nicer API that's supported and documented.
Is your requirement is to track how many times an e-mail is open by given user. We have similar problem. We are using SMTP relay server and wanted to track how many times our marketing e-mails are open in addition to google-analytics which register an even only when someone clicks inside link to our site in e-mail.
This is our solution. It is based on making a REST call by overriding image element of html (our e-mails are html base)
where TRACKING is dynamically generated url which points to our REST service with tracking information about person to which e-mail was send. It is something like that
//def trackingURL = URLEncoder.encode("eventName=emailTracking&entityType=employee&entityRef=" + email.empGuid, "UTF-8");
trackingURL = baseUrl + "/tracking/create?" + trackingURL;
It will be something like "https://fiction.com:8080/marketplace/tracking/Create?eventName=email&entityType=Person&entityRef=56"
When when actual e-mail html is generated it, TRACKING will be replaced by
Important point is to return a response of type image and return a one pixel transparent image with REST response.
So i'll assume that the email contains a link to your Site. Certainly GA can record how often that link is clicked because clicking the link will open the page in turn causing the function *_trackPageview()* to be called, which is recorded by GA as a pageview.
So as long as that page has the standard GA page tag, no special configuration is required--either to the GA code in your web page markup or to the GA Browser. The only additional work you have to do is so that you can distinguish those page views from page views by visitors from another source.
To do that, you just need to tag this link. Unless you have your own system in place and it's working for you, i recommend using Google URL Builder to do this for you. Google URL Builder is just a web-form in which you enter descriptive terms for your marketing campaign: Campaign Source, Campaign Medium, Campaign Content, Campaign Name. Once you've entered values for each of these terms, as well as entered your Site's URL, Google will instantly generate a 'tagged link' for you (by concatenating the values to your Site's URL).
This URL generated by Google URL Builder is the link that would be placed in the text of your marketing email.