I've been asked to set-up some custom variables but as I'm new to it, have no idea on how to get started. I have researched as much as I can but am getting confused.
Here's what I need to do:
An app generates a unique URL in the form http://www.example.com/folder/?userID=12345&BookTitle=ABCDE&DateAndTime=201208080800. I then need the custom variables from the URL ('UserID',
'BookTitle' and 'DateAndTime') to be passed to Google Analytics so I can track which users of the app are visiting the page at that URL.
I've looked into setting up custom variables but don't understand if I need 3 separate lines of code for the 3 separate variables nor how I can pass the various elements of the URL through to these.
Can anyone shed any light on how I might go about doing this?
Many thanks for any help in advance.
-Jack
Never mind. It turns out this kind of usage is against Google Analytics' TOS.
Going about it a different way by asking the user for some info up-front instead.
Google's ToS has changed. You can do this now as long as the UserID is internal to you and cannot be used to identify the customer (by Google).
Related
So the following which I'm writing is just to discuss whether something like this is even possible or if any of you would have any better ideas/suggestions or understanding how this might work. I thank anyone who takes time to read this in advance and I hope I don't explain myself too incoherently:
Let's say I have a page in WordPress which has a little bit of text and a video. Basicly I would like to share that page's link or I'd want to forward that page via e-mail to a certain group of people (let's say 10-50 specifically chosen people) and I want to track who of them opened the link and for how long they were on the page or watched the video.
I would like to make this happen in a way that I wouldn't have to make 50 different pages or 50 different URLs for each person (or 50 different tracking strings for that matter). Or that I wouldn't have to take a newsletter-mailer type page in between this process.
Basicly, I would like to make the sharing/forwarding and analytics overview process as easy as possible, so that an admin or moderator wouldn't have to check too many different pages to get the info.
I really appreciate any and all feedback.
[Also really sorry if I posted this in the wrong place. Please feel free to redirect me to a corresponding slot].
Technically, Google Analytics isn't meant to be used to track this specifically- it's typically meant to track groups of anonymized users. That being said, it is capable of doing this (but may not be as automated as you had hoped).
You are correct in thinking that you'd either need to duplicate the pages or create multiple different campaign URLs.
The other thing to keep in mind is that as emails are forwarded, there is no way to update the URL after the email has been sent, so if you email me and I forward it to someone else who clicks through, you're going to think someone else is me.
One way around this would be if you know your users IP addresses (not only is that a big "if", but it can also be spoofed), or some other uniquely identifying feature (any chance these people have signed-up through your website and have actual user IDs? That'd make things infinitely easier!).
Maybe you could customize the email to add their email address as a query string? That could still require a lot of work (and you couldn't just share a single link).
Now, you can not store personally identifiable info in GA (including IP and email addresses), but at the server-level you could assign a custom dimension with a uniquely generated ID and send that to GA. Now you've got all the info you need!
Unfortunately this method only works if you can detect some kind of "fingerprint" of your users.
Unfortunately what you described isn't quite what Google Analytics was designed to do. If you wanted to get into detailed user-specific tracking, I'd advise you look into a CRM. Those systems are designed specifically for user tracking as you described.
Hope that gets you pointed in the right direction.
We were checking newly implemented Google Analytics for our mobile app and surprisingly there are a lot of visitors from multiple countries but in actuality, we haven't released our app for any store and it's just beta between 5 main users.
After checking Google Analytics report in details we have found that it got spammed by Bot call "Trumps Bot" when something happens on your account you can see following lines in your language section.
“Secret.ɢoogle.com You are invited! Enter only with this ticket URL. Copy it. Vote for Trump!”
There are a lot of solution available to avoid this data in your reports using the filter but i was just wondering if there is any concrete solution on permanently remove this data from my reports and also is there anything we can do to avoid such data in future as its seriously affecting business strategy.
Due the tecnology used on Google Analytics the only way to eliminate this referal is using a filter, check one common point of all this hits . In this case is a hard one, because all the parameters changes , exept for the language, for a well know reason, to see the spam.
So try to use this one, in my case works
I highly recommend you read the community policy, this can be considered as off-topic question
Analytics spammers are always trying to find new ways of getting attention, and with this one, this spammer hit it big.
It is not possible to permanently remove it unless you delete the whole property. But you can create and advance segment to get a clean view.
But the most important part is blocking it so it doesn't pollutes your data. For this particular type of spam you should create a custom exclude language filter with this expression:
\s[^s]*\s|.{15,}|.|,
That expression will block any hit that doesn't use a proper language. That combined with a valid hostname filter should prevent most of the current spam and save you a lot of headaches.
If you need help, you can check this step by step guide for building these filters and creating the advanced segment to remove it from your historical data.
Here is also a related question.
Login in to Your Google Analytics account
Select ADMIN Section
Click on All Filters -- Add Filters
Give a filter name such as -- Include only website traffic
In Predefined section, select Include Only
for more... Click Here
I am trying to create a work around for Google not allowing anyone to add to a global calendar, so I started doing research and found eventbot, which allows me to add a meeting based on an email that I send.
Here is what I imagine, but I don't know how to work it.
I have two different global calendars
Using a QR Code and that email address eventbot gave me, the code is scanned, the type in the needed subject line, and the event is created on my personal calendar.
Here comes where I am in need of advice:
Each event will have a phrase (Sisters/Brothers), if my calendar sees the word "Sisters", it will change the default calendar from my personal to the "Sisters" Calendar, or "Brothers" same thing.
It seems like a simple enough task, I am just not familiar enough with Google to know where to start, or to put my script in my google account. I also don't know if there is an API I could use.
Has anyone else thought of this? Any ideas on where to begin?
I found something that works better for me and is a better approch, but doesn't answer my original question:
http://librariansonthefly.blogspot.com/2013/12/creating-google-calendar-appointments.html
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.
Having looked through the questions already on SO, I can't seem to find the answer on how to track a form that has multiple steps on one page. I saw an example that Google gives but could not really understand the way they were presenting it. What we have is a one page order form and need to track the users that come from a website and end up ordering. the whole ordering process is done with one file so I don't know how to track whether or not someone has actually completed the order. Any help would be great, even directing me to better examples than what Google has shown to me.
Thank you
Rob
Just call the JS function _gaq.push([trackPageview,'/form/stepXX']); each time the process reaches a new step.
You can pass any text string you want as a parameter.
Then you can configure a Goal and a funnel in GA with all the major steps of process
You can also track Events in case of errors for example.
(this uses the GA Async syntax)