I am setting up different Analytics profiles. The default one that shows everything, the master one that has the custom filters, and the test one where I test filters before moving them to master.
Should I link Adwords to all profiles or just the master profile? Are there advantages and disadvantages to both approaches?
I'm wondering if having it linked to all profiles will pollute or duplicate the data somehow.
The client is not actively using Adwords at the moment so I can't test this myself. But I'd like to set up the profiles correctly now so it will work when the client starts using Adwords again.
It shouldn't matter. You'd link GA to AdWords for two things: get a more indepth view of your paid traffic in Analytics and have some GA information (mainly conversion related info) in AdWords (if you link the two accounts in AdWords, that is). I'd say you're better off linking it always. There are plenty of segmentation/differation possible within GA regardless.
Edit: if anything, it'd make your data more valuable, instead of have multiple sets with several variants, besides just the filters.
Related
With the goal of performing analysis that does not include staff traffic, I started following this guide to exclude internal visits which seemed great but apparently cannot work retroactively. In fact, I've heard differing opinions on if any sort of retroactive filtering of this sort can be done in GA at all. I'm very new to using GA, but one field I noticed is the Client ID, which seems to track browsers. If I could identify which Client ID's correspond to my coworker's browsers, could I use this to retroactively exclude them from analysis? This seems like it may work to me, but I have found no sources online suggesting this as an option.
If it matters, the analysis I am most interested in is tracking exit clicks.
ClientId is not a value normally available in Analytics reports, also if the coworker has deleted the cookies that value will be different.
This solution works for Univeral Analytics and not GA4.
With Google Tag Manager, you can create a configuration that allows you to filter out internal traffic.
In GA, you can create a custom dimension that tells GA which users are internal users and not. This information is passed on by Google Tag Manager via a query string.
For a step-by-step guide read: How to Filter Internal Traffic in Google Analytics with Google Tag Manager
I'm working on the architecture for a project that includes a Android and iOS apps and a web interface with a subset of the mobile apps functionalities. The project is basically a e-commerce solution. In all three interfaces I'm using Google Analytics to track some information. However I'm having an internal discussion about the extent of the information I should send to GA. What should I store in GA and what should I store in my own server?
Let me give you some examples.
Session tracking is clearly something that belong to GA.
ProductDetailViews. Sounds like something that should go into GA, specially considering the enhanced e-commerce module.
Shared item. When a user shares some content over a social network, should I store that information on GA or in my own server? I'm inclined to GA but it becomes more ambiguos.
Do you see my point? Can someone share a general rule or recommendation on what should be saved in GA and what should be saved on the projects own server?
Thanks
For those examples I would generally send all the hits to Google Analytics. Here are a few reasons:
Preventing data silos. You want all of your data in one place and Google provides you with a database reachable via the API where you can keep all your data organised in one place. This is important when you are considering measuring performance, as you want to avoid duplication of conversions or traffic hits
Useage of Google Analytics advanced segments. With all your data in GA, you will be able to create advanced segments for analysis. But the real power is if you are using AdWords or retargeting, as you can send those Advanced Segments to AdWords, and target those users around the web with your custom data
Single point of reference for users All analytics are inaccurate, but you want to make sure they are inaccurate to the same degree. Using GA keeps all your data on the same playing field
Usability and Freedom of information Its easier to serve up your data to users within the GA interface as people are more likely to know how to navigate that than your database. You can also use the GA API to pull out any data you need to push into other visualisation tools.
User session merging With your data and userID tracking in GA, you may be able to track users as they arrive via mobile to desktop and back again, over multiple sessions.
What you need to avoid putting in to Google Analytics is personal info such as names, email address etc. There are against the TOS. But you can capture a unique userID, and match that outside of the tool later.
I need to explore the possibility of passing my existing GA eCommerce data (using Classic Analytics) over to a new universal analytics account.
I do not want to make the full switch as yet for various reasons. I do however want to use universal analytics to track newsletter email opens.
I would very much like to include the transaction data to this new universal analytics account so that I can put opens and revenue side-by-side. I know it is possible to aggregate analytics accounts to one profile but because classic and universal are different I wonder if there is any way we can aggregate data from Classic to universal?
Or do I place two tracking scripts on the thank you page?
Any tips or advice will be much appreciated.
From official help page "Set up Universal Analytics":
Best practices
If you want to try UA on a website you’re already tracking with Google
Analytics, we recommend you use the ga.js and analytics.js tracking
code concurrently to maintain continuity in your first account. Send
the data sets to separate properties: UA data to a dedicated UA
property, and ga.js data to a non-UA property. Data cannot be merged
or reprocessed after it’s collected. Alternative configurations are
not supported and can result in corrupted or incomplete data.
In the coming months, look for documentation to help you migrating
your existing Google Analytics web properties and data to UA.
So you can place two tracking scripts on the page.
I'm creating an auction site and would like to provide my sellers with analytics related to their product pages - visitors, search terms, etc. I could roll my own analytics but want to know if it is possible (or forbidden) to use google analytics within my application and present that data to my users. Is this possible, has anyone done this and, if so, how did you go about it. Thanks in advance
Sure, you can do this.
The easiest method is to give your sellers direct access to GA. I have no idea how you have your GA interface setup but you can setup profiles in lots of different ways (filters, segments, etc..) to have the profile show data only for the specific seller, and give their GA account access only to their profile.
Alternatively, GA provides an API for retrieving data from them and displaying on your own site.
Also you can provides Real time data reporting via Google's Real Time API - https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/realtime/v3/devguide
Which will provide several data in the manner of dimensions and metrics
I'm using both on a site and getting very different numbers from each. Why is this?
The discrepancy is also mentioned in a Quora answer (Which is better, Facebook Insights or Google Analytics?)
Footnote: if you decide to use both, do not report them side-by-side,
and never expect them to match. Trying to explain the differences will
drive you mad.
Could someone explain?
This problem is quite common, and very hard to explain to clients why numbers do not reconcile amongst different analytics platforms.
Firstly, I believe that because there are remote connections to google or facebook some user sessions will get lost (What happens when they hit stop on the Browser page before the .js downloads for instance).
Secondly I believe ad blocking software may stop the file from being downloaded therefore the session is not captured.
Most hosting providers will have their own analytics platform with your hosting package. This is what I rely on as a true indicator for actual page views etc. These are usually generated directly from your web server logs so they are more accurate. Sadly I've never seen one of these packages have as many features as google or facebook.
There are tons of possible reasons. They might identify returning visitors in a different way or users might block scripts from a specific domain (e.g. *.facebook.com but not *.google.com). In general, ignore the discrepancy. Just pick one solution and use it. You'll always have visitors blocking all such scripts or just one or two specific trackers. The only (almost) 100% accurate way to do it, would be using local scripts, but even those could be blocked. You could as well look at open source solutions such as Piwik
Different web analytics products use diferent methods to track data on the site.
These differences between them is the reason why is hard do do a side-by-side comparison.
On the two links bellow you can find more info about that:
Why does Google Analytics report different values than some other web analytics solutions?
Using Google Analytics & Facebook Domain Insights to Track Social Actions on Your Website
In addition to the notes above, I also wanted to mention Google samples data when there are large volumes & dimensions. This may be a contributing factor.
Facebook reports on clicks and Analytics reports on pageviews.
The amount of pageviews might be less than the amount of clicks for a number of reasons:
There are filters on your Analytics that are blocking the pageviews from being recorded
The user left the page before the Analytics code could be recorded
Or the ads being clicked by bots and the Analytics isnt recording them
This seems to be a big problem with Facebook ads. I run a number of campaigns with facebook and I only see 30-50% of the reported traffic actually make it to the site. I cant believe this is due to only the first two reasons.
I have gone into more details on my blog http://www.bradtollefsen.com/facebook-ads-adding/