Can i create custom dimension or metric with google analytics Management API? (Or other API...)
On January 23, 2015 the Google Analytics team released a change allowing for the creating of custom dimensions and metrics via the Management API.
Custom dimensions and metrics in the Management API allow you to create, get, list, update and patch custom dimensions and metrics for a Google Analytics property.
It is split up into two sections of the api Custom dimensions and custom metrics.
Not sure what language you where using so I cant help you with any sample code. I suggest you check the documentation.
Nope. Full reference for the Management API is here.
It doesn't include custom dimensions. Would be nice though, I agree.
The Provisioning API lets you create accounts, but that is in closed beta to AdWords partners at the moment. But however an account is created, the Management API is the one that lets you edit features such as filters at the moment, so would be where custom dimensions/metric control should also sit when available.
The collection APIs then let you send data to your custom metrics and dimensions once you have created them in the admin section of your web property.
Custom Dimensions and Metrics can be created in php for sure https://github.com/google/google-api-php-client
$dimension = new Google_Service_Analytics_CustomDimension();
$dimension->setName('[name]');
$dimension->setScope('[scope]');
$dimension->setActive(TRUE);
$client->management_customDimensions->insert('[webPropertyId]', '[analytics-account]', $dimension);
"$client->management_customMetrics" can be used in a similar way for metrics.
Gathering Data
In order to send data Google provides collection APIs and SDKs.
Configuring Accounts
Google Analytics provides programmatic access and management to configuration data through the Management API and account creation capabilities through the Provisioning API.
Reading Data
Google Analytics provides a simple and powerful APIs to retrieve report data from Google Analytics.
To answer the OP: you create custom dimensions and metrics via the collection API.
Dimensions: Describe data
A dimension is a descriptive attribute or characteristic of an object that can be given different values. For example, a geographic location could have dimensions called Latitude, Longitude, or City Name. Values for the City Name dimension could be San Francisco, Berlin, or Singapore.
Browser, Exit Page, Screens, and Session Duration are all examples of dimensions that appear by default in Google Analytics. Dimensions appear all of your reports, though you might see different ones depending on the specific report. Use them to help organize, segment, and analyze your data. In some reports, you can add and remove dimensions to see different aspects of your data.
Metrics: Measure data
Metrics are individual elements of a dimension that can be measured as a sum or a ratio. For example, the dimension City can be associated with a metric like Population, which would have a sum value of all the residents of the specific city.
Screenviews, Page per Session, and Average Session Duration are examples of metrics in Google Analytics.
Dimensions vs Metrics: What’s the difference?
Definitions: Goals, Metrics, KPIs, Dimensions, Targets
Related
Google Analytics (particularly version 4, "GA4") has various predefined events, each with its own parameters. E.g. the purchase event has an items parameter, which contains data such as item_id and item_name for each purchased item. JS code on a website can send these events and pass the extra data, and I can actually see the data in the "Analysis hub" in the Google Analytics interface.
Is there a way to also fetch this extra data using the Google Analytics Data API? There is a way to retrieve some predefined dimensions and also "custom dimensions" (via customEvent:parameter_name), but e.g. purchase item data doesn't seem to be a part of that.
Do I have to define custom dimensions (e.g. a purchasedProductId) and send them in addition to the items parameter, if I want to access this data via API?
Jan,
Ecommerce reporting is not yet supported in the Google Analytics Data API. I will update this question once I have more information about the timeline of this feature implementation.
Thanks,
Ilya
The Google Analytics Team
I'm New when it comes to google analytics and I have an Apps that use google analytics, but I got some question, Can we use google analytics to track paid and free user separately? If it can where I can find it in google analytics? I'm quite confused with a lot of information in there to use it in data studio
some metrics that I used right now from Google Analytics:
users -> to get all unique user that come to my apps
You can distinguish whether sessions that came or not from paid campaigns, but a user can have more than one session and each session could have been started by different channels, for example from a pay channel and another from an organic channel, but the user is always the same. So, with basic tracking, I'd talk about sessions and not users.
Yes, you can track such details, but you need to let Google Analytics know, who do you consider to be a free or a paid customer, as this is not a standard dimension. This can be achieved with Custom Dimensions.
Key steps involve:
Creating the custom dimension in Google Analytics administration. This is a property level setting. Based on your description, this will likely be a user level dimension.
You need to adjust your tracking code (or Google Tag Manager settings) to include the customers' level among the data, which is sent to Google Analytics. You need to refer the proper dimension ID, which you get during the creation of it.
You need to apply the given custom dimension to your reports. This can be done by using a secondary dimension within the standard reports, or by creating a Custom report. It is also possible by creating a segment of different users, and to apply this segment to various reports.
Further reading is available in this support article.
I am trying to get to a point where I can identify visitors who are generating website Goals. And identifying them via their Pardot ID-s in GA.
Do you think that's possible?
On the site every visitor gets a Pardot cookie and in that there is a readable Visitor ID which via an API query can be turned into a Pardot ID.
But how can this piece of information get stitched to the rest of the GA parameters? How to push this into GA as a custom data point so I can create a report on who are the Pardot IDs that completed a certain goal this week?
Is there any guidance you can give?
Assuming, that Pardot ID itself is not a Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in terms of Google Analytics, there are several ways to accomplish this.
You could provide this data as User ID, which helps Google Analyitcs to identify users across several browsers and devices. However, this dimension is not exposed on the reporting GUI or the reporting API. (Available dimensions and metrics can be browsed here.)
Instead, or in parallel, you could store this information in a custom dimension, which, can be used in standard or custom reports, or via the reporting API as well. There a couple of things to consider. According to the Measurement Protocoll reference, the maximum length of this field is 150 bytes. You should also decide, if this dimension is most useful for your needs and possibilities on hit, session or user level, about which you can read here.
I'm looking to download hit data from a Google Analytics view for a small period of time that includes unique ID for a session and URL that was viewed. I believe I could do this going forward by setting something in Google Tag Manager to a Custom Dimension, but I was looking to avoid that (we have a good number of custom dimensions) and because I wouldn't be able to go backward.
Is it possible in the free version of GA to do something like? I picture the output being the URLs in my x-axis and my users in the y-axix with counts.
I'll be looking to take this data and do a cluster analysis to determine user behavior types.
Nope. Google Analytics does not expose a user specific id via the API or via data exports in a standard account (in GA360 you could use BigQuery to extract the client id).
You either have to set up a custom dimension (as you said this does not work for historic data), or try and use calcuated fields in Google Data Studio in the hope that if you aggregate enough different dimensions into one field you will end up with something specific per user.
Does anyone know if the Google Analytics API exposes the compatibility data for selecting a set of dimensions and measures? For example, if I select the "ga:adGroup" dimension, then I can't select any of the Goal Completion dimensions. This compatibility seems to be based upon the data cubes that are defined in Google.
Is this list of what dimensions and measures are compatible with each other programmatically available from the Google API?