Google Ad Planner show some site visitors demographic data, like the visitors gender.
Take a peek at Stack Overflow's Google Ad Planner.
As a Web Developer I'm concerned where we are leaking this data to Google. This has anything to do with our use of Google Analytics or it is unrelated?
There is anything we can do to prevent Google to obtain such data?
I have found this site with an answer:
http://www.google.com/support/adplanner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=98132
Google Ad Planner combines information
from a variety of sources, such as
aggregated Google search data, opt-in
anonymous Google Analytics data,
opt-in external consumer panel data,
and other third-party market research.
The data is aggregated over millions
of users and powered by computer
algorithms; it doesn't contain
personally-identifiable information.
In addition, Google Ad Planner only
shows results for sites that receive a
significant amount of traffic, and
enforces minimum thresholds for
inclusion in the tool. For more
information about how Google protects
privacy, please refer to our privacy
policy.
The more specific demographic data won't come from actual users visiting the site, but will come from mixing together all of the various subject matter variables with market research data to come up with a set of approximations.
Related
I'm (very) new to Google Analytics and somewhat to API's - so excuse my ignorance.
I'm trying to understand if there is a way to get a list of all users (who visited our site) that have an accompanying unique ID. A unique ID that would allow me, for example, to create a relationship between the user and their location, or the user and their device.
Using the query explorer I cannot see if this is possible.
No, Google analytics does not store user identifiable information in this manner.
If you are storing your internal system user id ad a custom dimension then you could get that back.
You should consult Best practices to avoid sending Personally Identifiable Information (PII)
To protect user privacy, Google policies mandate that no data be passed to Google that Google could use or recognize as personally identifiable information (PII). PII includes, but is not limited to, information such as email addresses, personal mobile numbers, and social security numbers. Because laws across countries and territories vary, and because Google Analytics can be used in many ways, consult an attorney if you are in doubt whether certain information might constitute PII or not.
I've been looking at my statistics and lately, I found a difference between the number of sessions in Google Analytics and Shopify.
Google Analytics reports 20% fewer sessions than Shopify...The implementation between Analytics and Shopify seems to be ok, as there isn't any duplicate code or tag.
Do you know how I can solve this?
I've read some similar questions but I haven't found an answer yet.
There are many possible reasons for differences in tracking results:
Differences in how page reloads and unique visitors are counted. Google counts every page reload, but a browser doesn't count reloads of cached pages.
Differences in how sessions are defined. For example, some analytics software counts search bots as visitors, while other software doesn’t.
Google can only count visitors with JavaScript and cookies enabled. Some visitors might not allow cookies or JavaScript.
Customers can use browser extensions to block Google Analytics from tracking their sessions and purchases.
Discrepancies might be introduced because of different reporting time zones. Read about changing your Google time zone here.
It’s unlikely that identical tracking mechanisms are being used by each of the services, so your visitors aren't recorded equally. Details of recording mechanisms are proprietary information and are never shared.
When a visitor lands on my website i want to track the user data such as age, gender, etc. so that i can personalize the page he/she is viewing. Is there any analytics API or GA script available?
Since this is tagged with google-analytics I can at least answer that this does not work with GA for a variety of reasons.
demographic data is not available in realtime with GA the realtime
realtime API has usage limits that would quickly be exceeded by such use
in GA demographic data is not available for small user segments (including segments of one), AFAIK for privacy reasons
Any system would need a data source for demographic information. If you're not Google or Facebook with a large advertising network then you usually need to collect the data yourself and feed it to your analytics system (I think e.g. Mixpanel works like this).
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 have a PHP (5+) based website.
I want to track registered users of my site using Google Analytics. I basically just wish to grab their session id (or some way to identify each specific user)and view their movements and site usage from my Google Analytics dashboard.
Can this be done? If so, any guidance would be most welcome.
I believe the best way to do this is via a custom variable:
_setCustomVar(index, name, value, opt_scope)
It would be up to you to identify the 'value' as a unique session id for the user.
The scope in your case would be either session(2) or visitor(1) depending on how you want to track it.
http://code.google.com/intl/en/apis/analytics/docs/tracking/gaTrackingCustomVariables.html#setup
Technically you are able to store the username as a custom variable, but doing so violates the Google Analytics Terms of Service (ToS). Among other things, the (paraphrased) ToS states that you aren't allowed to store anything in Google Analytics that allows you to identify who the visitor is. This typically applies to usernames, IP addresses, phone numbers, etc.
If you decide to ignore the ToS and store the data anyway, it exposes YOU (not Google) to all kinds of data protection & PII laws. Especially in the EU.
If you have some budget money to work with, the best way to see the information you're looking for is to use an on premises web analytics software package that can process Google Analytics data. When you keep your data on premises, it alleviates many of the data privacy / protection / PII laws.