R google analytics segment definition - r

I've just started learning a bit of R in order to pull and analyse data from Google Analytics. What I'm struggling with is querying the management API to pull certain account data.
My desire is to be able to pull the definition of a segment or the definition of all my segments. That is to be able to find out how the segment is built e.g. page url contains 'questions'.
I'm using RGoogleAnalyics package. I've found this source code (https://r-google-analytics.googlecode.com/svn-history/r32/trunk/src/RGoogleAnalytics/R/Configuration.R) but not quite sure how to interpret that into script. I've tried experimenting but not getting any success - variety of errors around not being able to find functions such as Validatetoken or RetrieveConfigurationData
Any help as to how I need to format my query to get this would be really appreciated. Thanks

Fox, I am personally using RGA package and it works seamlessly.
See the segments documentation on Google Analytics Developers Site, the code is as follows:
ga$getData(ids, batch = TRUE, walk = TRUE,
start.date, end.date,
metrics = "ga:visits,ga:transactions",
dimensions="ga:keyword",
filter="ga:country==Denmark;ga:medium==organic",
segment="dynamic::ga:medium%3D%3Dreferral")
As a rule of thumb for complex segment I would advise creating them in GA interface and then simply referring them with segment ID.
Also be aware that you cannot reference more than one segment (unlike in GA interface), so for everyt segment you need to analyze, you need to place API request.

Related

where to find google analytics dimensions values

I'm trying to implement my own google analytics reporting UI where users pick metrics and dimensions and then pick the filters according to what the user have already chosen and my question is there any way to get all the dimensions values? for example the dimension "country" can take the value of all the countries(USA,Fance,etc...). I've did some research on google but found nothing. any help is appreciated!
I would suggest using something like Analytics Edge extension for Excel to do exactly what you're trying to do.
If that doesn't completely solve what you're doing, the extension does pull all the pullable fields from GA. It also gives you an insight into what kind of request it sends to G to pull the data. Very useful for debugging, but also for learning the reporting API.
Alternatively, there's documentation on the API here: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/v4
Make sure you know whether you're using GA4 or GA UA. They have different APIs.

How to determine how many free google distance queries are left on my account?

I'm pulling distance/time information for a large number of origin/destination pairs using the Google Maps API in R. I'm currently using the gmapsdistance package but have looked at a few others.
My premium API key includes 100k free queries per day. Are there any packages that can return how many are remaining? For example, the ggmap package has a geocodeQueryCheck(). The problem is I don't think this function actually returns the number remaining on your account. It doesn't ask for your API key. My guess is that it just keeps track of how many it has called today. The latest github version has a register_google() function that does allow you to set your API key, but when I make API requests with the gmapsdistance package, geocodeQueryCheck() doesn't update.
In summary, I just want to know how many are left. Even if I need to construct the URL address directly. When I look at the API documentation, I don't even see URL calls for it, which doesn't give me much hope.
As confirmed by #SymbolixAU, there is currently no way to do this.
Sorry, I guess this is late, but have you tried this?
sum(.GoogleDistQueryCount$elements)

How to include custom segments in the list of segments when querying the Google Analytics API?

This may be a possible duplicate of this question, but according to all the Google Analytics documentation I really should be able to pull my list of custom segments.
Since I have a very large list of them, it would be suboptimal for me to manually copy the segment ids over one at a time.
I'm following this walk through. Steps to reproduce:
Create a custom segment using date of first session in your Google Analytics account.
Authorize the Google Analytics guide to access your Google Analytics account.
Try their on-page query tester, and inspect whether your custom segment is there.
One thing I've already ruled out was the user that created the segment. I've manually created a segment with the same user that I'm querying the API with and it still does not show. Is there a flag I need to set somewhere to include custom segments?
Edit:
It turns out that it will list some custom segments, but not ones created with date of first session, so this is a duplicate of this question, which means that there is a bug in the Google Analytics API.
There was a bug which is now fixed. So it is now possible to list the Date of Session Segments in the Google Analytics Management API by calling the segments.list() method.
So after days of trying to solve this one I've come to the conclusion that it cannot be done as asked.
There is, however, another way to do it. For every segment set up a daily (or weekly, etc) email report to a email as a TSV. In each email body specify the name of the segment so when you're consuming the emails you can know which segment the attached TSV is for. It doesn't look like the daily reports were designed with segments in mind, since non of the metadata included in the TSV mentions which segment it is for.
From there it's trivial. Connect to the email address using an IMAP client once a day and update the numbers.
Note that the daily email only contains the numbers for that day (not a specified range), so you'll need to first generate the report one time with the historical data to load in.
While hacky, one nice thing about this approach is that it keeps your reports in sync with your (faked through email) api code (provided you match the column headings in the TSV). So, if for example, a new filter is included into a report, the new daily fields will continue to update.
Unfortunately though, the past data won't be reflected in the change.
Obviously this isn't great, but if you are monitoring daily cohorts it's the best you've got if you need to stay with Google Analytics. I have raised this as a bug to the Google Analytics developers, but I haven't heard back as to whether or not they plan to fix it.

Mixable metrics and dimensions in google analytics

I'm doing some complex reports for google analytics and would like to ask you if the following is possible. The client wants to have just organic data for a bunch of metrics. Like pageviews, visitBounceRoutes, etc. The query I ended up with is the following:
https://www.googleapis.com/analytics/v3/data/ga?dimensions=ga:source,ga:medium,ga:keyword,ga:day,ga:month,ga:year&end-date=2013-11-20&fields=columnHeaders/name,rows,totalResults,totalsForAllResults&filters=ga:medium==organic&ids=ga:79067749&metrics=ga:pageviews,ga:pageviewsPerVisit,ga:visitors,ga:avgTimeOnSite,ga:newVisits,ga:visitBounceRate&start-date=2013-10-20
However the response is as follows:
'{"totalResults":0,"columnHeaders":[{"name":"ga:source"},{"name":"ga:medium"},{"name":"ga:keyword"},{"name":"ga:day"},{"name":"ga:month"},{"name":"ga:year"},{"name":"ga:pageviews"},{"name":"ga:pageviewsPerVisit"},{"name":"ga:visitors"},{"name":"ga:avgTimeOnSite"},{"name":"ga:newVisits"},{"name":"ga:visitBounceRate"}],"totalsForAllResults":{"ga:pageviews":"0","ga:pageviewsPerVisit":"0.0","ga:visitors":"0","ga:avgTimeOnSite":"0.0","ga:newVisits":"0","ga:visitBounceRate":"0.0"}}'
Can the dimensions ga:source,ga:medium,ga:keyword be mixed with the above metrics? It seems they can't since if I omit them the API returns an array of values 1 per each day within the specified range.
Where can I find more information about this and what categories are mixable? https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/dimsmets just shows all the available metrics but do not explains how they are combined and which one would be valid requests. I'm new at the analytics API and would be great any kind of help or guidance
Thanks a lot
Google Analytics Query Explorer is your friend for playing around with analytics dimensions/metrics/filters ;-)
Try http://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/explorer/?dimensions=ga:source,ga:medium,ga:keyword,ga:day,ga:month,ga:year&metrics=ga:pageviews,ga:pageviewsPerVisit,ga:visitors,ga:avgTimeOnSite,ga:newVisits,ga:visitBounceRate&filters=ga:medium%253D%253Dorganic&start-date=2013-10-20&end-date=2013-11-20&max-results=100
Some thoughts:
Those dimensions & metrics should work -- maybe there was no organic data recorded during that time range?
Try removing the ga:medium==organic filter and see what your data looks like.
Does the profile you're using (ga:79067749) have any filters on it? If so, maybe try a different profile that has unfiltered data. (Analytics best practices -- make sure you have a profile with no filters applied that captures all data.)
As Mike said, there is no problem with the combination of metrics and dimensions you are using.
If you are entering the URL query directly in the browser problem might be the lack of URL encoding in your query string. For example, you need to convert == to %253D%253D
For example, instead of ga:medium==organic, you need ga:medium%253D%253Dorganic
If you build your query in the Google Analytics Query Explorer as Mike suggests, you can grab the direct link to your report by clicking the link symbol in the upper left:

Google Analytics Custom Variable/Value Report (How?)

I was able to setup Google Analytics to send custom variables that I can track.
I'd like to generate a report with UserId / Value and Display all of the pages
that user viewed. (Similar to reports I have seen with IP address on one column,
and viewed pages on the other)
Custom Var 1 : label:'userId' value:'17' scope:'1' (from Chrome Analytics tool)
Google Analytics reporting is pretty complex, so I'm hoping I can get some suggestions on how to create such a report.
i'm battling through google analytics aswell it can be really useful but to get exactly what you want can take some time. This isn't an answer as much as its a list of a few links that i have used along the way and hope they help
http://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/explorer/
In here if you put ga:source ga:referralPath ga:customVarName(n)
This stack overflow answer may also help
Create google analytics profile by filtering using a custom variable
i'll have to look into this myself when i m using custom variables but it look like the advanced segment section may be the way to go.
And you ve probably already seen this but its quite a nice article on custom variables
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/gajs/gaTrackingCustomVariables
Let us know hwo you get on...
I think you're going to want to create an advanced segment including your custom variable. This should narrow the data to only that which includes the variable. You can then look at whatever reports you want within that segment.
Using regular expressions should let you better tune the scope of the segment.
You can do this easily in the Megalytic reporting tool. There are widgets that let you create reports which segment data by custom variable. For example, Traffic by Custom Variable, Conversions by Custom Variable. Disclaimer: I am a founder of Megalytic.

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