Measurement protocol Usage - google-analytics

I am completely new to the Google Analytics Measurement protocol.
Trying to fetch the results and load it in iframe of an registered tid domain.
My query string looks something like this:
http://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XXX-1&cid=555&t=pageview&dp=%2Fauth"
But i get the response as : GIF89aÿÿÿÿ,D;
What am I doing anything wrong? I also tried passing domain name with it and its title. Still no success.
And also do I need to call this get or post from the origin domain or can I do it from Postman-Rest client?

I think your having an issue with understanding what the Measurement Protocol is.
You said:
Trying to fetch the results and load it in iframe of an registered tid
domain.
What the measurement protocol is for:
Measurement Protocol Overview
The Google Analytics Measurement Protocol allows developers to make
HTTP requests to send raw user interaction data directly to Google
Analytics servers.
The measurement protocol is for sending hits to Google Analytics, If you want to get your Google Analytics data out you use the Reporting API
Response
The response you are getting back from the measurement protocol is good it means it recorded your message. GIF89aÿÿÿÿ,D;

What you're seeing is the content of the 1x1 GIF pixel that Google Analytics uses, which you can safely ignore. As long as the response code of your request is 200, you should be fine.
The origin domain of the request doesn't matter; you can—for instance—also send Measurement protocol requests from server-side scripts and it still works.

Related

How to send basic geo data in the measurement protocol api?

I'm sending ecommerce data using the google analytics 4 measurement protocol and I also load the basic ga4 js snippet to track geo and other flow data.
The only issue is, as expected, I don't get any geo location data when the user is ad blocking and the ga4 js doesn't load.
Is there a way to send basic geo location data using the measurement protocol api so the realtime map works even when js is being blocked?
You need to develop your own server-side service using the GA4 Measurement protocol, and make a fetch() yourself in javascript to that web-service:
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/ga4
But some user_properties parameters, like geolocation, are not documented (or do not exist) yet.
See question here: How indentity user country through GA4 measurement protocol

How can I use Google Analytics without its gtag.js library

I am having some pages where I need to track page views and get data for reports. So I need to use some tracking events without using gtag.js.
I have tried solutions like GIF Request Parameters
But this solution was there in ga.js and its a legacy
The format used in your linked documentation is deprecated since Google introduced Universal Analytics in 2012.
However the current solution to send requests to Googke Analytics without a library, the Measurement Protocol, works broadly the same way. You have an endpoint (google-analytics.com/collect) and add the necessary parameters as described in the reference, depending on what kind of interaction you want to track. The endpoint returns a 200 http status and a gif (no matter if the request has actually been logged in analytics, this just confirms that you actually hit the server).

Google Analytics view all raw requests

Is there an place to view all raw request received for a Tag in Google Analytics; send though Measurement Protocol
For example if the request is
https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?tid=UA-12345-67&ea=Purchase&el=Code1&v=1&t=event&ec=OrderBook&cid=0eshxa2zyhqyt3hw54w1qxwn&dp=OrderBook.aspx
see the exact raw request in Google Analytics
No, you cannot see raw data in Google Analytics, it shows aggregated data only.
In a GA36 account you could use a BigQuery integration to access raw data (although not as a continous string but broken up in single fields), but GA36 comes with a hefty price tag.
If you are creating the requests yourself your best bet would be to write your own logger that stores every request before it goes to GA.

How is Google Analytics Measurement Protocol different?

I was checking GA Measurement Protocol to send data to GA from backend.Which is working fine.Url i am using is:
https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?tid=UA-XXXXXXX-1&v=1&cid=9350&dp=home&t=pageview
(Please replace UA-XXXXXXX-1 with your own tracking id.)
Now i have a website which is GA enabled using javascript way.I checked in Chrome inspect that it sends information to google through url:
https://stats.g.doubleclick.net/__utm.gif?utmwv=5.6.5dc&utms=4&utmn=1588741400&............
I can use this url too to send information to google from backend. What's special and new in Measurement Protocol because using this url too i can send data to google for analytics purposes?
I need to send data from backend to GA so please guide.
The measurement protocol is now the "backbone" for data collection for Universal Analytics for all versions (web, mobile etc). Unlike the gif-method it is well documented and it can be called from every device/programming language that can send http requests (it will still return a transparent gif, though).
The main reason for using the measurement protocol is that everything else is deprecated and Google has announced that support for older tracking methods will be dropped. It looks like your second example uses an older version of the Analytics tracking code, current versions send their calls to the https://www.google-analytics.com/collect endpoint. You should not invest a lot of effort in developing solutions based on deprecated technology, especially if it offers no advantages over the current versions.
Google measurement protocol is very useful when implementing distributed solution of a service like restful APIs.
The client is not known by the server, each client world wide can call the rest API so no javascript code is possible to be injected at the client.
Measurement protocol enabled us to track which kind of devices are calling our API, how many requests per endpoint, etc...

How to correctly use google analytics measurement protocol?

I'm learning to use google analytics for apps. For test purpose i have created a new google account, enabled analytics for apps and issued following command from terminal to test is it working:
curl "http://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-12345678-1&cid=123&an=myapp&t=event&ec=action&ea=click"
Unfortunately, this request don't affect any numbers i see on analytics page - it's all zeroes. Any request to google analytics results in "200 OK" and 1x1 pixel gif image, so i can't figure out the problem: is the request incorrect, or i need to somehow preconfigure google analytics, or it have days delay before data is displayed etc.
Any suggestions?
It looks like your issue was solved. Some pointers for other people coming to this page:
Look in realtime reports.
Try to send pageview or screenview instead of event. They show up in more places.
The cid should be a UUID v4.
For debuging your requests you can use this URL:
/debug/collect
instead of
/collect
In response body you will see details.

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