Advanced Google Analytics
For an event goal defined as playing a video, how many Goal conversions will Google Analytics record if that video is played three times in the same session?
1
If a user watches a video with event tracking three times in a single session, how many Unique Events will be counted?
1
A session in Google Analytics times out after how many minutes by default?
30
How many segments may be applied at once?
4
What is the maximum duration a user can be included in a remarketing audience?
540 days
Pageview and event hit example
A user lands on the homepage of the Google Merchandise Store. The session begins with a "pageview" hit. Then the user clicks the play button for a video that is being tracked with event tracking. This triggers an "event" hit. Google Analytics will record two hits for that user in that session: a "pageview" hit for the home page, and an "event" hit for clicking the play button.
"processing time" data import
All Google Analytics accounts have the ability to import data that will be matched to collected hits. Note that it is not retroactive, so it won't impact past data and is a permanent part of your data once imported.
Report Dimensions/Metrics
All Google Analytics reports are a single dimension, and the corresponding metrics for each value of that dimension. most reports in Analytics use rows for dimensions, and columns for the associated metric data.
What report analyzes which webpages get the most traffic and highest engagement?
All Pages Report
View recommendations
For every property, we recommend you set up at least three views: a "Raw Data" view, a "Test" view, and a "Master" view.
What four parameters can be included with an event hit for reporting?
Category, Action, Label, Value
What report shows data segmented by channel?
Channels
What report groups an audience based on acquisition date and compares behavior metrics over several weeks?
Cohort Analysis report
To collect data from two websites with different URLs using a single Google Analytics property, what feature must be set up?
Cross-domain tracking
To set up Dynamic Remarketing, what must first be created in Google Analytics?
Custom Dimension
To view data in reports by user categories such as Bronze, Gold, and Platinum status levels, what Google Analytics feature is needed to collect this data?
Custom Dimension
To collect the number of comments users posted to a website page, what feature would be used?
Custom Metric
Custom filters
Custom filters let you include or exclude hits from your data collection, format data to lowercase or uppercase, search and replace data collected in the hit. Custom filters accomplish this by matching a particular filter text-pattern that you identify.
When a Custom Dimension is active, what data will it affect?
Data collected after the Custom Dimension was applied
System Segments
Default (or System) segments are segments already available in Google Analytics and show up under the System section. To select a default segment, click the System section and select the segment you wish to apply. These segments will be applied to every report you open until you remove the segment or exit Google Analytics. To remove a segment, click the down arrow and select "Remove.
Which are Goal types in Google Analytics?
Destination Event Pages/Screens per session Duration
Custom segments may be created using which criteria?
Dimensions Metrics Session dates Sequences of user actions
Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform campaigns served on the Google Display Network are grouped into which channel?
Display
View filters may be applied retroactively to any data that has already been processed
False
To see data for users from the U.S. and Canada only in a view, which filter would be applied?
Filter 1: include U.S. and Canada
To enable Dynamic Remarketing
Find vertical attributes Create custom dimensions Update site tags Create Dynamic Remarketing audiences Create Dynamic Remarketing attributes Create Dynamic Remarketing campaign
What type of Custom Report shows a static, sortable table with rows of data?
Flat Table
What Google Analytics data can be used to define a remarketing audience?
Pre-defined Segment Custom Segment
To pair metrics with dimensions, what should they have in common?
Same scope
Test solution
Testing is the final phase of the process. This is where you try different solutions to the problems you identified in your analysis to see if you can get your metrics in line with expectations. Testing is critical because it allows you to discover opportunities for improvement and decide what is working and what isn't. Then, you can repeat what you learned from this process to continue to refine and improve your marketing
Audience > Benchmarking > Channels
The Channels report compares your channel data to benchmarks for each channel in the Default Channel Grouping. You can quickly see which channels perform better in Acquisition and Behavior based on the green up or red down arrow. More darkly colored cells indicate larger differences in outperforming or under-performing other businesses in the category you selected.
Audience > Benchmarking > Device
The Devices report compares your Devices data to the benchmarks for desktop, mobile, and tablet traffic.
To set up Dynamic Remarketing for a retail vertical, what must be linked to Google Ads?
The Google Merchant Center
If default Google Analytics tracking code is installed on pages with different domains, Analytics will count these users and sessions separately.
True
Custom Reports have which capabilities?
Use multiple dimensions together in the same report Create a report with Custom Metrics Use a Custom Dimension as a primary dimension
To create a Custom Dimension for membership status (i.e., rewards level), what scope would be applied?
User
Segments applied to reports can analyze data for which of the following groups?
Users 25 to 34 years of age who have their browser set to Spanish Users who viewed a webpage, then watched a video Users who engaged in social media or email campaigns
Which users could be targeted with Dynamic Remarketing to bring them back to a website?
Users who viewed a website search result page Users who viewed product detail pages Users who abandoned their shopping carts
Which remarketing audiences can be defined in Google Analytics?
Users who visited a specific page on a website Users who played a video on a website Users who speak a particular language
Multi-channel Funnel reports can credit conversions across which channels?
Website referrals Paid and organic search Custom campaigns etc.
Scope
When Analytics creates dimensions and metrics during processing, it has to determine the scope of those dimensions and metrics in order to know how broadly applicable they are to your data. Some dimensions might organize data about a single hit, while other dimensions might apply to data across an entire session or individual user.
Configuration rules
When Google Analytics processes your data into users and sessions, it will apply additional configuration rules for filters, goals, and other features that you have enabled.
Remarketing can show relevant ads on which Google properties?
Google Display Network Mobile apps Google Search
Which of these scopes could be used for dimensions and metrics?
Hit-level, session-level, or user-level scope
Pageview hit example
If a user visited the homepage of the Google Merchandise Store and then left immediately without clicking on anything, Google Analytics will record one "pageview" hit for that user in a single session.
user-level scope
If the dimension was organizing data for a particular user ex: User Category
session-level scope
If the dimension was organizing data for the duration of a session
Exclude filter example
If there was data you wanted to specifically exclude such as Paid Search (or CPC) traffic, you can set a custom "exclude" filter that will exclude all paid traffic in a particular view, as well.
Paid Search channel
If you advertise using Google Search, that traffic gets grouped in this channel
"query time" data import
If you are an Analytics 360 customer, you can import data that will be matched to past hits when you query a report. It can retroactively affect your data and is not permanent, but be aware that at this time it is still in beta.
Internal Site Search
If you have a search field that lets customers search on your website, you can set up "Site Search" to track what search terms users enter. This can help you identify missing or obscured content, optimize navigation and site layout, improve search results, and even generate ideas for new keywords for marketing campaigns.
Cross-Domain-Tracking
If you have two related websites with different URLs or subdomains that you want to track in a single property, you can set up this. Cross-domain tracking will recognize when a user navigates between related websites in the same session. This is also known as "site linking." To set up cross-domain tracking, you'll need to modify the Analytics tracking code on every page of every site you want to track. Google Tag Manager can make updating that code a lot easier
Custom metric scopes
If you select "hit," the Custom Metric will be incremented with each hit sent over by the tracking code and totalled up in Google Analytics. If you select "Product," the Custom Metric can increment by whatever cost you assign to the product.
Product-level scope
If you want the dimension to group data associated with a particular product
In a "last-click" attribution model, Google Analytics will attribute all of the conversion credit to which source(s)? Correct!
Last marketing activity
Collect data
Measurement is all about collecting the right data you need to answer your business questions.
Create Reports
Next, you'll need to package up data into readable reports that you can send to decision-makers that will allow them to make important strategic decisions. This often includes developing and distributing Custom Reports and dashboards.
Segments and sampling
Note that segments are applied after sampling. So if the data being shown in your reports is a sample, the data shown in your segments will also be a sample.
Custom Dimensions Index
Notice that, similar to Goals, Google Analytics assigns an index (or slot number) for each Custom Dimension you create. Note that you cannot choose which index number is assigned; they are assigned in the order you created them.
"micro" conversions
smaller goals that bring users closer to your main objectives such as signing up for an email coupon or a new product notification. they nudge users closer to your macro-conversions. Measurement plan: KPIs - metrics that help you better understand the user behavior that leads to macro conversions
Event Action
the action the user took when they initiated the event. If you were tracking when users click a video play-button, you might have a category called "Videos" with an associated action of "Play."
Time after Search
the amount of time users spend on a site after performing a search.
Segment importing/sharing
You can also import segments that other users have created or share your own custom segments. You can import segments or share them to the Solutions Gallery by clicking "Share segments." When you share a segment you do not share any of your data. You only share the segment. You can also import new segments that other users create from the gallery.
Lowercase and uppercase filters
You can also use filters to normalize the data in your reports to make them easier to use. Google Analytics data isn't case sensitive, so pages in the All Pages report may show the same URL multiple times. You can quickly combine rows that differ only by case, by using a Lowercase or Uppercase filter. These filters will force the case to all lowercase or all uppercase, thus eliminating duplicate data. This will consolidate that page reporting and make the data in those reports a little neater.
Vertical Attributes
You can see that there are both required and optional attributes. Because we want to track which products the user viewed, which page the user is on, and the total value of the products viewed, we'll need to use all three attributes when setting up the Custom Dimension.
Include filter examples
You can set up a custom "include-only" filter on the view for Device Category and specify a value of "Mobile." The filter will look at the criteria specified and match it to any relevant hits that Google Analytics has collected for that view. If the filter can't match the criteria, the filter will not be applied to that data. Similarly, you may want to show only data for a specific campaign in a view. You can set up a custom filter to include only campaign data with the campaign name or type parameter you specified.
Using Custom Dimensions in your reports
You can use Custom Dimensions as secondary dimensions in standard reports or as primary dimensions in Custom Reports Note that you won't be able to apply a Custom Dimension to data you have previously collected. You'll have to create the Custom Dimension first and let it be applied to your data during processing in order to use it in reports. At this time, standard Google Analytics users can create up to 20 Custom Dimensions and Analytics 360 customers can create up to 200. We'll look at how to use Custom Dimensions in your analysis a little later.
Segments
You can view your KPIs using different segments to see insights about your business such as what traffic sources are driving referrals or driving conversion rates on your website. To analyze their KPIs, the Google Merchandise Store will use segments for Customer Demographics, Traffic Sources, Device Type, and User Category.
reasons to apply filters
You may need to transform the data that shows up in a view. For example, you might want to include only data from a particular country in a view devoted to reporting on that country. Or you might want to exclude any internal employee traffic from a view reporting on customer data.
measurement plan parts
Your measurement plan should include an overall business objective, different strategies that support that objective, and tactics that will help you achieve your strategies. Each tactic will have key performance indicators (or KPIs) that help you measure your macro- or micro-conversions
What does Google Analytics call a URL that passes data parameters for reporting?
a hit
Custom Reports - Map Overlay option
a map of the world with regions and countries in darker colors to indicate traffic and engagement volume.
Remarketing
a powerful tool that lets you target ad content to users who have already visited your website. When a user visits your site and doesn't make a purchase, you can use remarketing to show them relevant ads on the Google Display Network, on mobile apps, or on Google Search. This can bring them back to your website and encourage them to make a purchase. To enable Remarketing in Google Analytics, you need to first enable Advertising Features in your Analytics property settings. 1. In the Admin section, click on "Tracking Info" and then "Data Collection." 2. Then set Remarketing and Advertising Reporting Features to "on." 3. You will also need to link your Google Ads or Display & Video 360 account to Analytics. Once you've set up remarketing, you can create specific "Audiences" that let you target groups of users based on common attributes. Audiences are made up of browser cookies from users that visited a site with Google Analytics implemented and the remarketing tracking code enabled. Audience lists will populate in the Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform account that you link to Analytics. You can then use those products to create ad campaigns for those specific audiences.
Attribution Modeling
a set of rules that determine how sales and conversions get attributed to your marketing campaigns. The goal of attribution modeling is to help you better understand how different marketing campaigns and different marketing channels all work together to produce conversions. This can help you better allocate and invest your marketing time and budget. For example, a customer could visit the Google Merchandise Store from a Google Ads ad. They could return a week later by clicking on a link in a social network. That same day, they could return a third time through an email campaign and make a purchase. All of those marketing activities worked together to generate the conversion, so who gets credited?
Custom Reports - Flat Table Option
a static, sortable table that displays data in rows. Single table that shows all data
Just event hit example
a user visits the store and lands on the homepage. They immediately open a new tab in their browser to view another website and they spend more than 30 minutes on that site. Then they go back to the tab with the Google Merchandise Store and click the play button on the video. Google Analytics will record two separate sessions for that user. The first session will include a "pageview" hit and the second session will include an "event" hit, since the first session will have timed out, while the user was viewing the second tab.
Segmentation in Google Analytics
a way to view a subset of data in a report. You can create user segments or session segments A powerful part of segments is the ability to add multiple segments to a single report for comparison. You can compare segments of users who made a purchase with those that didn't, to better understand what influences people to buy. Or you might choose to build segments based on a specific traffic source like paid search and compare that to sessions that originated from email campaigns. This helps you see which types of users each source delivers.
Average Session Duration
the average time spent from the first hit until the last hit before a user leaves the site or the session times out.
The Site Search reports show: a) how users search your site b) traffic coming from search engines c) traffic coming from Google organic search d) traffic coming from Google paid search
a) how users search your site
Page timing hits
allow you to report on page timings
Path Length report (MCF)
also shows how many interactions on average it took to convert and how much each series of interactions was worth.
Event Value
an optional numerical value like the amount of time it takes a video to load or how much a specific event action is worth. You can use Value to assign a specific dollar amount when a specific action occurs.
Event Label
an optional value used to further describe the element you're tracking like the name of a video. This can help you make your event reports more readable.
Audience > Benchmarking > Location
compares your Country/Territory data to the benchmarks for each of the Countries and Territories from which you receive traffic. Since we already selected Country/Region of "United States," we'll only see the U.S. show up in this report.
Conversion (for Goals)
counted once per session per configured goal During processing, when Analytics detects hit data for a goal, it calculates the goal completions, goal value (if you've indicated one), and goal conversion rate, and includes these in your reports. Note that in Google Analytics, conversions and Ecommerce transactions are credited to the last campaign, search, or ad that referred the user.
Event Reports
found under Behavior. When you open the "Top Events" report, events are organized by category. You'll see metrics for Total Events, Unique Events, and Event and Average Value (if applicable) for each event category you set up. You can jump to the category, action, or label simply by clicking on the navigation links at the top of the table report.
Smart Goals
goals automatically generated by Google's machine learning algorithms
Event Tracking
great way to know if users are engaging with your website and performing intended actions. To collect Event data from a website, you'll need to add JavaScript to the individual elements on the site you wish to track. Note that you'll have to set up separate event tracking for each element or state you wish to track. For example, if you want to track when videos are both played and paused, you will need to set up separate event tracking for the play and pause states of the button. Once the event tracking code has been added to the navigation element, every time a user interacts with that element it will pass the parameters that were assigned to Google Analytics, which will appear in the Events reports.
Measurement Plan
guides what configuration settings you'll need to collect the data for analysis. You'll want to take some time to define your business objectives and how you expect to measure those outcomes. Once you've defined your macro- and micro-conversions, you can start putting together a measurement plan. A measurement plan is a way for you to align your business objectives with your Google Analytics configuration settings.
Predefined Filters
have already been created for you in Google Analytics, you just have to select the filter you wish to use. These allow you to include or exclude data based on traffic from the ISP domain, IP addresses, subdirectories, or the hostname, and designate how the filter will match that information.
Custom Dimensions
help you define a group of metric data that's specific to your business and then apply that as a dimension across your reports. Custom Dimensions can be used as a secondary dimension in standard reports, a primary dimension in a Custom Report, or as a segment.
Enhanced Ecommerce
helps you collect behavioral data for your ecommerce business. This includes how users interact with on-site marketing, product pages, and the checkout process. But it can also measure very specific things like: - Clicks on a product link - Views of the product detail pages - Impressions and clicks of internal promotions - Adding or removing a product from a shopping cart - Initiating the checkout process for a product - And purchases and refunds
Metric scopes
hit product
Dimension scopes
hit user session product
Custom Metrics can have which scopes?
hit product
New vs. Returning Users
When a user arrives on a page with tracking code, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID that gets associated with the user's browser cookie. Analytics considers each unique ID to be a unique user. Every time a new ID is detected, Analytics counts a "new user" and sends it over with the hit. When Analytics detects an existing ID, it sends a "returning user" value with the hit.
4 Event tracking parameters
When a user performs an action on an element with event tracking, the event tracking code will pass four parameters along with the event hit. These parameters are: "Category," "Action," "Label," and "Value."
Hit-level scope
if you want the dimension to include every time a user visited a particular page or performed a singular action
Assisted Conversions Report (MCF)
shows the total number and monetary value of assisted sales and conversions broken out by channel. The higher these numbers, the more the channel helped assist with conversions. You can break this out by the Day of Conversion, the Day Before Conversion, and the Path Position, which is the number of interactions involved in the conversion.
The User ID Coverage report
shows what percentage of your traffic is authenticated with a user ID. If you are introducing loyalty incentives or a more personalized site experience, you want to see the percentage of logged-in traffic rise over time.
Custom Dimensions
similar to default dimensions except that you define what they are and their value. This let's you collect data that's customized specifically for your business. This can be incredibly powerful because it enables you to report on particular characteristics of your users or their behavior within the Google Analytics data you've collected. You collect data for a Custom Dimension using JavaScript tracking code that's implemented on a page. When a user lands on that page or performs a specific action, the Custom Dimension will capture that data and send it over as an additional parameter attached to the existing hit. You can then use these Custom Dimensions in your reports.
Pages per session
simply the average of how many unique pageview hits the user generated during their session.
Categorizing into users and sessions
When the tracking code sends over hits, Google Analytics adds other user information it can detect and then processes that data into reports. It's important to know how data gets processed in order to make informed decisions about your data collection.
What is "remarketing" in Google Analytics?
When users are shown targeted ads to bring them back to a website and encourage a conversion
User ID Reports
When you enable the User ID feature, Google Analytics adds a User ID Coverage report. It also adds cross-device reports in the Audience section and modifies the User Explorer report. You could also create segments that compare authenticated users with non-authenticated users. For example, can create two segments to compare authenticated users and non-authenticated users. For authenticated users select User-ID status and then type "assigned" in the text field. For non-authenticated users, type "unassigned" in the text field. We can then apply these segments to the Channels report to find out if unauthenticated users arrive through different acquisition channels than authenticated users. We can also apply these segments to the Behavior Flow report, to see if there's a difference between how these users navigate through the site.
MCF Overview Report
you can see the Store's total conversions, as well as click-assisted, impression-assisted, and rich media-assisted conversions. You can look at Ecommerce transactions or individual Goals if you've set them up. If you've linked your Google Ads account, the report will also show specific Google Ads data. You can also set a lookback window of 1 to 90 days. This will determine the period of time prior to conversion used in the report. Below the timeline, you can visualize how much each channel contributed to overall conversions and where those overlapped.
Website data collection
website data collection begins with a snippet of JavaScript tracking code that's included on every web page of the site where you want to collect data. The goal of the tracking code is to track each user interaction that occurs on your website. The Analytics tracking code uses the domain of the website you are tracking to define it as a "site" in your reports. With the tracking code installed, Google Analytics will drop a cookie in the user's browser for that website and any related subdomains. This makes it easy to track traffic on a single website URL domain or subdomain by default. Note that if you install the same default tracking code on pages with different domains, Analytics will count these users and sessions separately. If you need to track users across different domains, you will need to set up cross-domain tracking
Product Impression
when a user views a product on your website. Product impressions can occur on product pages, in a product carousel, or in a related products unit. If you want to track a product impression, you can use the "add impression" method to pass product data to Google Analytics. Note that you will need to customize this code to include data for your specific products. (enhanced ecommerce)
Display channel
when your Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform campaigns are served on the Google Display Network, that traffic gets grouped in this channel
The three most common types of hits
"pageview" hits "event" hits "transaction" hits
Group Using Rule Definitions
(Content Grouping) creates a group based on simple logic rules. For example, you can define one or more rules such as "page contains Android" to group any pages that are related to Android. Analytics evaluates the rules in the order in which they're set.
Group Using Extraction
(Content Grouping) creates a group using the URL structure of your pages. To use this method you will add a regular expression that extracts the name of your group from the URLs of your pages.
Group by Tracking Code
(Content Grouping) creates a group using your Google Analytics tracking code
enable "session unification."
(User ID) To avoid a situation where you have multiple User IDs associated with a single user, you can enable "session unification." This associates the User ID with hits collected in the same session before the User ID was assigned. With session unification, Google Analytics can associate some hits that were received prior to setting the User ID. Note that Analytics will only associate hits collected in the same session and it must be in the first session where the User ID is set.
Cross Device Reports
(User IDs) Once we know how much of our traffic is authenticated, we can switch back to the User ID view and use the Cross-Device Reports under Audience to see how authenticated users behave across devices. The first report is the Device Overlap report. Device Overlap helps you understand how many users viewed your site on desktop, tablet, and mobile. It can also give you a sense of how many users access your site with more than one device. The Device Paths report shows the sequence of device categories used to view your content. This can help you discover the order that people tend to move between devices. Lastly, with this report, you can toggle to "mobile device info" to show the name of the device. This can help you understand the behavior of users across devices. The Acquisition Device report helps you understand whether the user's path to conversion involves multiple devices. For example, you might find that one group of users who express interest on a desktop device, purchase an item in a later session using a tablet. This insight into user behavior across devices can help you craft your marketing strategy.
User segments
- Multiple sessions; maximum date range 90 days - Such as by demographics
two types of filters
-predefined filter: are templates for one of the most common filters -custom filter: let you truly customize filters to fit almost any unique situation
First steps in Google Analytics data processing
1. Analytics determines new vs. returning users. 2. it categorizes hits into session (or periods in which the user engaged with the site). 3. it joins data from the tracking code with other data sources.
Analytics Process
1. Collect Data 2. Create Reports 3. Analyze Reports 4. Test Solution
New/Returning User limitations
1. Cookies: Since Analytics uses a browser cookie to determine unique users over a given session, this information will be lost if a user clears or has blocked that cookie in their web browser. If a user clears their browser cookies, Google Analytics will set a new unique ID the next time a browser loads a tracked web page. Analytics will then count that user as "New," rather than "Returning." 2. Different Devices: Analytics doesn't recognize users who visit your website from different devices by default and will count each device as a unique user. If you wish to track users across devices, you'll need to turn on the User ID feature
Benefits of Custom Reports
1. Use a Custom Dimension as your primary, rather than your secondary dimension. 2. Include more than two dimensions per row, which can be helpful if you need to export the data table into another software for analysis. 3. Report on any Custom Metrics you have collected.
Dynamic Remarketing Set up
1. link your Google Ads and Analytics accounts, and enable Advertising features, 2.Retail businesses will also need to link their Google Ads accounts to their Google Merchant Center. The Merchant Center is a website that lets shoppers see your online and in-store inventory. Dynamic remarketing campaigns can use this product data to better customize ads.
Remarketing audience set up
1.Click "Admin" and then "Audience Definitions" under the property you wish to use for this audience list. 2.Click "Audiences." 3.Then click "New Audience." 4.Select the view and account you want the audience list attached to. Click Next Step. 5.Now you can define your audience from a preconfigured list of audience definitions. You can mouse over the question mark next to each Audience to learn more about the users that those Audiences target. If you click on an Audience, you can see an estimate of the users in that audience over the last seven days. 5.You can set how long users are eligible to be served remarketing ads using the membership duration. You can set Membership duration for your audience from 1 to 540 days. *If you wish to design a more specific audience for your business, you can import a Segment to use as the basis for that audience. Click Import Segment and choose from the segments that are available in the current property or create an audience directly from the segment picker itself. *You can also define a new Audience from scratch. Notice that the Audience Builder is very similar to the "Custom Segment" builder. When you finish configuring your audience, click "Apply." You can see the estimated number of users in the audience you just defined. Audience lists will populate in the Google Ads or Google Marketing Platform account that you link to Analytics. You can then use those products to create ad campaigns for those specific audiences.
Analytics calculates the metrics that get grouped in various dimensions in two ways.
1.Metrics are either calculated in aggregate such as total sessions, users, or pageviews, 2. or specific dimensions (like Sessions or New Users per country). These are based on calculations Google Analytics performed during processing when it categorized the data it collected into users and sessions.
3 types of scope (of dimensions or metrics)
1.hit-level 2.session-level 3.user-level You can only pair metrics with dimensions if they are both in the same scope.
How many user cookies does an audience list require to be eligible for Google Ads Search Ad remarketing?
1000
Which would prevent data from appearing in a Custom Report?
A filter that filters out all data Dimensions and metrics of different scopes
What does Google Analytics use to differentiate new and returning users?
A randomly-assigned unique identifier
User ID
A user who visits your website from desktop and mobile might be signed in on desktop, but not signed in from their mobile device. If you want to be able to track them across devices for a more accurate user count in your reports, you can use Google Analytics to collect User IDs. Remember that Google Analytics sets an anonymous identifier that's stored in a browser cookie to recognize unique users. The User ID feature lets you override this default behavior letting you instead associate your own anonymous identifier from a CRM system or customer database. User IDs allow you to connect an ID from your database to your website when your users interact with that content. You could pull a User-ID from your database, pass it through web servers to your website, and then the Google Analytics tracking code can include that ID with its data hits.
regular expression filter (regex)
A way to validate a string using formal language by looking for string patterns A basic regular expression on a filter can be something as simple as a word or a more complicated combination of characters. you can use regex to find much more sophisticated strings to apply your filters. removes text that matches a specified regular expression and used if repeated segments of text w/ slight variations like Bates numbers.
What report shows users who initiated sessions over 1-day, 7-day, 14-day, and 30-day periods?
Active Users report
To enable remarketing in Google Analytics, what must first be enabled?
Advertising Reporting Features Google Ads or Display & Video 360 account linking
What will happen if a user clears the Analytics cookie from their browser?
Analytics will not be able to associate user behavior data with past data collected by the tracking code Analytics will set a new unique ID and browser cookie the next time a browser loads a tracked page
How would Google Analytics credit a channel that contributed to a conversion prior to the final interaction?
Assisted conversion
Benchmarking reports
Benchmarking reports enable you to compare your data with anonymized aggregated industry data from other companies who share their data. This can help you set meaningful business goals, gain insight into industry trends, and give you a baseline to measure your own business. At the top of each report, you can select from over 1600 industry verticals to compare your business against. You can also select a particular region and a daily session size that's comparable to your own. you must first enable Benchmarking. An account admin can find this feature under Account Settings. Checking the box to enable Benchmarking sets your account to share your own data anonymously. Data will populate in the Benchmarking reports in the Audience section.
Add segments to reports
Both user and session segments can be built using dimensions, metrics, session dates, and even sequences of user actions. In a report like the Audience Overview, notice that the "All Users" segment is automatically applied and will include every user within the selected date range. To add additional segments, click "Add Segment" to open up the segment builder. There are two types of segments: default segments and custom segments. To remove a segment, click the down arrow and select "Remove. Click the Plus icon to add additional segments. You can compare up to four segments at one time. Notice that there's an Actions drop-down menu on each segment. "Copy" lets you copy the segment and edit it for customization. "Build audience" let's you build an audience for remarketing
Measurement Plan layout
Business Objective Strategy Tactics KPIs
When defining a measurement plan, what is the order of steps?
Business objectives > key actions > KPIs
Accounts
But depending on your objectives and the complexity of your business, you may need multiple organizations, accounts, or properties, and additional views. For example, if you're an agency managing marketing for multiple companies at once, you can set up different Organizations for each company with separate Google Analytics accounts under each Organization. When you create an account in Google Analytics, the account is assigned a unique ID. You can see this ID in the Analytics tracking code. This is how the tracking code knows to send hit data to the correct Analytics account. You don't need to sign in separately for multiple Analytics Organizations or Accounts. You can simply select any of the Organizations or Accounts by using the account selector. You can also select accounts that belong to your current Organization in the Admin area.
Custom Reports
But you also have the ability to generate more customized reports in Analytics using features like secondary dimensions or by creating a Custom Report. When you do this, Analytics checks to see if there is an aggregate table with the appropriate data. If the table doesn't already exist, Analytics goes back to the raw session data to process and create the report from scratch.
When does the Google Analytics tracking code send a pageview hit to Analytics?
Every time a user loads a webpage
When does the Google Analytics tracking code send an event hit to Analytics?
Every time a user performs an action with event tracking
Because segments are applied before sampling, segmented data will not be sampled.
False
By default, Google Analytics can recognize returning users over multiple sessions from different browsers and devices.
False
If data is excluded from a view using a filter, it may be recovered within thirty days.
False
Regular expressions and identical web pages
For example, if you have technical query parameters passed in the URL of your website, you might have identical pages with different addresses. Because the URL is different, this page will show up multiple times in your reports. But since they're the same page, it may make sense to filter out the query parameters, so that it doesn't appear multiple times in a report. You can include a regular expression that recognizes the main part of the URL before the query parameter, puts it in a variable, and overwrites the entire URL with that variable. This renders these page URLs identical in reporting. For businesses that collect data from multiple domains, it can be hard to distinguish page names in Google Analytics. In the "All Pages" report, "googlestoreamerica/index.axd" and "googlestoreeurope/index.axd" will both show up as "index.axd."
when data is collected and processed, it can't be changed
For example, if you set a filter to exclude data on a view, that data will be permanently removed during processing from the reports in that view and cannot be recovered.
Can't mix scope
For example, pairing a "hit-level" dimension like "Page Title" with a "session-level" metric like "total number of Sessions," wouldn't make sense, since "Page Title" changes with each hit, but the "sessions" count changes with the completion of each session.
Tracking Outbound links
For example, the Google Merchandise Store has a live chat button in their top navigation bar that opens a pop-up window when clicked. However, this pop-up window was implemented by a third-party vendor and goes to a different URL that the Google Analytics tracking code won't track by default. We can set up event tracking on this button with the category "Outbound links," an action of "Live Chat," and a label of "Home" (or wherever the live chat button was clicked from). That way, we can tell how many times the live chat button was clicked and from what page. We can then know which web pages were causing users to seek help and work to better optimize those pages.
Custom Channel Grouping
If you'd like to customize how Google Analytics groups channels in your reports, you'll need to set up your own Channel groups. If you wish to label your traffic in other ways for analysis, Google Analytics lets you edit the default Channel Grouping, create a new Channel Grouping, or create a Custom Channel Grouping. Channel Grouping configurations are set in the Admin section at the View level under Channel Settings. Here you can see a list of the Default and Custom Channel Groupings that exist. Clicking into the Channel Grouping will show you the list of channels and how they are currently defined using specific rules.
Google Ads Remarketing
If your Audience in Analytics meets the requirements for Search remarketing, it will be eligible for both Search and Display remarketing in your Google Ads account. An Audience list for Google Search ads must have at least 1,000 users before it can be used. Note that Audiences that include the Google Display Network's demographics dimensions "Age, Gender, Interests" are not eligible for Search remarketing.
Advanced Filter
In addition to include, exclude, and lowercase filters, there are other advanced filters that allow you to remove, replace, and combine filter fields in more complex ways using what are called "regular expressions."
Session sampling
In some instances, there is so much data to be joined that Analytics will show a sample of the data in the returned report, rather than calculating all of the data that was collected. For standard users, session sampling occurs at the property level, not the view level. This means that the sample set will be determined at the property-level before view-level filters are applied. So views that have filters applied may have fewer sessions in the sampled calculation. For Analytics 360 customers, sampling occurs at the view level, so view filters won't impact the sample size.
Assisted Conversions
Interactions that a customer has with a website leading up to a conversion, but not the final interaction
Create Dynamic Remarketing audiences
Once you have added the code to your website pages, you can create your Dynamic Remarketing audiences using the Custom Dimensions you've defined. These audiences can include: *General users who viewed your homepage or any category or product pages *Users who viewed a search results page on your website *Users who viewed product lists or product detail pages *Users who abandoned their shopping carts *Users who previously converted You can create these Audiences the same way that we created Remarketing Audiences earlier, using segments from Custom Dimensions. You can also import a preconfigured Remarketing Audience into your Analytics Account based on your business vertical using the link at the end of this lesson.
Custom dimension set up - Dynamic Remarketing
Once you know the vertical attributes you need to use, you can set up your Custom Dimensions using each vertical attribute as the name of each dimension. This is how Google Analytics will know what is being stored in the Custom Dimension. When you save your Custom Dimensions, Analytics will provide you with tracking code to place on the pages where your products appear. But you'll also need to create some additional code to pass information like product ID, page type, and total value. Once you have added the code to your website pages, you can create your Dynamic Remarketing audiences using the Custom Dimensions you've defined.
Site Search reports
Once you've set up Site Search, new metrics will appear in the "Site Search" reports under "Behavior." The "Overview" report shows how many of the users who visited your site used Site Search within the report time period. The "Usage" report splits site search out by Acquisition, Behavior, and Conversion metrics. To view your search terms data in more detail, click on the "Search Terms" report. The Search Terms report shows all of your website search terms in a table view. The "Pages" report will show you which pages users most commonly searched from. If you add a secondary dimension of "Search term" to this report, you can find some potential areas for site optimization. For example, if many searches start from a particular product page, there may be a disconnect between what users expect to see on that page and what they actually find. You may want to optimize that page for the terms being searched for.
hierachy
Organization > Account > Property > View
Custom Reports for analysis
Select Customization. Then select Custom Reports. Any Custom Reports you've previously created are located here. Select "New Custom Report." Give your report a meaningful name. Select report type. There are different Custom Report types: Explorer, Flat Table, and Map Overlay Specify at least one dimension and one metric to save a Custom Report. You can add up to five dimensions and 10 metrics to a Custom Report. - make sure they're of the same scope or no data will appear in the report. You can also add filters to the report. When you're finished creating your Custom Report, click Save. Custom Reports are a good alternative to secondary dimensions if you want to use a Custom Dimension as your primary, not your secondary dimension. They can also be useful if you want to see more than two dimensions per row, which can be helpful if you need to export the data table into another software for analysis. And finally, Custom Reports allow you to report on any Custom Metrics you have collected.
Session segments
Span single session - By user behavior during a session - Such as a goal a user completed or revenue generated
Data Import Setup
The first step when importing data is to define the data set you wish to import. In Google Analytics, click Admin. Then select the property to which you want to import the data, and under Property select "Data Import." To begin, select "New Data Set." You can import different types of data into Google Analytics. For the Google Merchandise Store, we can select Cost Data and click 'Next Step' to continue. Name the data set. Then select which views should include this data. Each data set type has a specific schema, which determines the format and key for your data. For the Store cost data, the data set must include the Medium and Source keys. Beneath the keys you can view which dimensions may be imported such as Referral Path or Google Ads Content ID, or which metrics may be imported such as clicks, costs, and impressions. If your cost dataset contains multiple rows with the same keys, Google Analytics can either summarize the data or overwrite the data. Summarize means to sum the metrics for all the rows with duplicate keys. Or choose Overwrite to have Google Analytics use the newest data in your data set. Once you have defined the data set, Google Analytics will create a data schema that you can download. We recommend downloading the schema template and opening it in a spreadsheet. In the spreadsheet, you can enter all of your key values and imported metrics. Once complete, you can save this file as a CSV file. When you are ready to upload it to Google Analytics, go back into the Data Import section on the Admin screen, and next to the data set you created, click "Manage uploads." Click "Upload File" to upload your data set to Google Analytics. It can take up to 24 hours for this imported data to be processed. Once processed, you can build custom reports, advanced segments, or remarketing lists using the data. Note that this data will only be available from the moment the data import gets processed. This data will not show up in date ranges prior to the data import.
What are macro-conversions in a measurement plan?
The main website actions users take that accomplish stated business goals
To send data to Google Analytics from a web-connected device like a point-of-sale system, what feature must be used?
The measurement protocol
Analyze Reports
Then you'll go in and analyze the data. Sometimes, analysis will be as basic as identifying larger trends, but it can also include more complex segmentation of your data or competitive analysis that compares your company's performance to industry benchmarks. Analysis is the process of developing hypotheses based on your expectations and figuring out why your metrics match or don't match those expectations. When you find data that doesn't align with your expectations, your analysis can help you figure out the cause.
"macro" conversions
There are key actions that users take on websites that fulfill your business objectives like making a purchase. they represent the broader goals of your business ex: ecommerce transactions Measurement Plan: usually measure the tactics that support your various strategies
Multi-Channel Funnel reports
These reports can tell you what role prior marketing activities played in the conversion process. A channel that contributed to a conversion prior to the final interaction would be credited with an "assisted conversion." MCF reports can also indicate the time it took to go from initial interest to purchase. This conversion path data includes interactions across virtually all digital channels including paid and organic search, referral sites, affiliates, social networks, and email campaigns. To use multi-channel funnels, you'll need to have first set up Goals or Ecommerce. You can find Multi-Channel Funnel reports in the Conversions section.
Google Analytics Core Reporting API
This allows you to build your own reporting tools or extract your data directly into third-party reporting tools.
Last Click Attribution
This is the default of most systems, including Google Analytics. In this model, the channel that the user saw right before visiting your site is the channel that gets the credit for the sale or conversion.
Enhanced Ecommerce Set Up
To begin, you need to turn on Enhanced Ecommerce in your Google Analytics settings. In Google Analytics, select the "Admin" tab and navigate to the view where you want to turn on Enhanced Ecommerce. Under the View column, click Ecommerce Settings. Under Step 1, Enable Ecommerce, set the status to ON. Note that you can also enable related product data if you wish. Click Next step. Under Step 2, Enhanced Ecommerce Settings, set the status to ON. Optionally, you can enter labels for each of the checkout steps you want to track. Labeling the steps of your checkout process will make it easy to understand if users abandon your checkout and where they drop out in the process. Click Submit when complete. Once you have enabled Enhanced Ecommerce, additional ecommerce reports will show up in the Google Analytics navigation. However, to see data in the reports, you'll first need to add JavaScript code to your web pages that will load the Enhanced Ecommerce plugin. This plugin contains a number of JavaScript methods that you can use to collect your various ecommerce data. Once you have installed the ecommerce plugin, you will need to write additional code to call the Enhanced Ecommerce methods you wish to use. This code sends ecommerce related data, consisting of name-value pairs, with a hit. It's important to understand that your website must dynamically pass ecommerce data to Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking code. -Use for product impression data You insert the code on your product pages so that it can send ecommerce data at various points in the shopping process. So, if you want to track when a user adds a product to the cart, you can add the addProduct method to your website when the user takes that action. You can collect data about each step of the checkout process and choose which steps you'll want to track based on your business. As you can see, you'll need to be able to add code to your website to be able to track all the steps of a checkout process. You'll also need to create code that dynamically passes data about your products into the Google Analytics ecommerce code. However, once you've implemented it with your online store, it's a powerful way to understand and improve your ecommerce website.
Properties
To better reflect how your business is organized, you can set up multiple properties under each Analytics account. *For example, data from website and data from mobile app We recommend tracking each company's website, mobile app, or other device in a separate property. Similar to accounts, properties also have a unique Property ID that's appended to the Analytics ID. This tells Analytics which hits to associate with the property. You can switch properties in the Admin area by using the Property pulldown menu.
Content Grouping Set up
To create a Content Group, go into Admin under the View section and select Content Grouping. Then click New Content Grouping. Give the Content Group a name and then select the method you'll use to configure the grouping. When setting up Content Groups, you have three options for how you assign pages to groups: Group by Tracking Code, Group Using Extraction, and Group Using Rule Definitions You can use one, two, or all three of these methods. If you use multiple methods, Google Analytics will add content to a group based on whichever method matches first. First Analytics will evaluate the tracking code, then see if you've defined any extractions, and finally whether you have configured any rules.
User ID Set Up
To implement the User ID feature, you must be able to generate your own unique IDs using JavaScript code, consistently assign those IDs to users, and include these IDs wherever you send hit data to Google Analytics. To set up the User ID feature in Google Analytics, go to the Admin section, then select an account and a property. Under Property, click Tracking Info, then click User ID. First you'll need to review the User ID policy. This is pretty important, since you'll want to be sure you respect your users' privacy and honor the Google Analytics' "Terms of Use." Then you'll need to set up the User ID. Analytics provides you with a line of code to add to your own tracking code and customize it to collect the User IDs you're sending over. Once you've set up User IDs and modified your tracking code, the ID value you supplied will be included in Analytics with each hit. Note that to analyze User ID data, you'll need to create a specific User ID view, which will filter to include only the data that contains hits where the User ID value is set. Click Create to set up this view. As a best practice, you may want to include the term "User ID" in the name to help you differentiate this view. You can select a Reporting Time Zone, then click Create View. Note that User ID Views cannot be converted to standard views, and standard views cannot be converted to User ID views. And only new views added to a User ID enabled property can be designated as User ID Views.
Link Google Ads to Merchant center
To link your Google Ads account, sign into the Merchant Center and add your Google Ads customer ID. To enable Dynamic Remarketing, you will need to: 1. Find your vertical attributes for Dynamic Remarketing, create your Custom Dimensions, and update your website tags 2. Create audiences for Dynamic Remarketing 3. Create attributes for Dynamic Remarketing 4. And create your Dynamic Remarketing campaign in Google Ads
Calculated Metrics Setup
To set up Calculated Metrics, go into Admin, and under Views click Calculated Metric. Then click New Calculated Metric. We'll name the Calculated Metric "Android Pageviews per User". Note that Google Analytics automatically includes an external name for querying this calculated metric via the API. Since our metric will likely be a fraction, we'll set the formatting type to "Float." If you start typing in the Formula field, you'll see a list of predefined metrics which you can use to create a formula. You can only use "plus," "minus," "divided by," and "multiplied by." You cannot, however, use the minus operator for negative numbers. Also be aware that formulas are limited to 1,024 characters at this time. To create our Calculated Metric we begin by entering the name of our custom metric: "Android pageviews." Then, we enter the division sign. And finally the metric "users." Then click Create. Once you've created the Calculated Metric you can add it to Custom Reports, unsampled reports, or dashboard widgets.
Site Search Set up
To set up Site Search, you need to have Administrator rights on the view. First, go to the Admin section. Under the "View" column, click on "View Settings." Then scroll down to "Site Search Settings." Switch the Site Search tracking toggle to "On." When Site Search is switched on, a couple fields will appear. First, you need to enter the "query parameter" that your website uses in the URL when users search on your site. This is usually designated by a question mark followed by a letter or word and then an equals sign before the search term. The Google Merchandise Store uses the term "keywords" before the search query. We recommend removing this parameter from your Content reports by clicking "Strip Query Parameter out of URL." This will eliminate duplicate data in your reports. Optionally, if you have search categories on your site, you can turn that option on to track the category along with the search term. The Google Merchandise Store doesn't have specific site search categories, so we can leave this turned off. To save your Site Search settings, click "Save."
Custom Dimension Set Up
To set up a Custom Dimension, go into Admin. Select the Property in which you want the dimension applied. Next, click "Custom Definitions" and then "Custom Dimension." Then click "New Custom Dimension." You'll first have to name the Custom Dimension and then define its scope. Remember that dimensions can have a scope of "hit," "product," "session," or "user." This is based on how broadly you want to categorize your metric data. Note the default checkbox to make the dimension active. You can make Custom Dimensions inactive at any time by unchecking this box. Any Custom Dimension data already collected and processed will appear in reports, but no data will be collected once the dimension has been made inactive. To save the Custom Dimension, click "Create." When you create a Custom Dimension for the first time, you'll be taken to a screen with JavaScript to include on your website. You can copy the code, then click "Done." After you've set up the Custom Dimension, you must implement the JavaScript tracking code you copied from Analytics into your website code to collect the custom data.
Custom Metric Set up
To set up a Custom Metric, go into Admin. Select the Property in which you want the metric applied. Then click "Custom Definitions" and "Custom Metrics." Then click "New Custom Metric.". You first have to name the Custom Metric. Then you have to define its scope. This is based on how this metric data will be generated. Unlike dimensions, Custom Metrics can only have a scope of "hit," or "product." Next, we'll need to specify the format of the Custom Metric. You can select a basic integer, a decimal value, or a time-based value. You can also specify minimum and maximum values that determine whether Analytics will process this metric and include it in your reports. This can help prevent accidental large or small values from being collected and affecting your reporting. Note the default checkbox to make the metric active. You can make Custom Metrics inactive at any time by unchecking this box. Any Custom Metric data already collected and processed will appear in reports, but no data will be collected once the metric has been made inactive. To save the Custom Metric, click "Create." When you save a Custom Metric for the first time, you'll be taken to a screen with JavaScript to include on your website. You'll need to copy the code to include on each page you want the Custom Metric to be sent. Then click "Done." You'll be taken to an overview screen where you can see all of the Custom Metrics that you have set up in the property. Google Analytics assigns an index (or slot number) for each Custom Metric you create. Notice that you cannot choose which index number is assigned; they are assigned in the order you created them. After you set up the Custom Metric, you must add the JavaScript tracking code you copied from Analytics to your website to collect the data with the hit. Like Custom Dimensions, each Custom Metric appears as a parameter of index-value pairs. "Index" refers to the index number of the Custom Metric you created in Analytics. Value is the metric that will be attached to the hit.
Demographics and Interest Reports
To view Demographics and Interests reports that provide users' age, gender, interest categories and more, you'll need to switch on a feature in property settings. This lets Google Analytics collect anonymous demographics data with the standard tracking code and Google advertising cookies (when those cookies are present). To begin, navigate to the Admin page. Then click Property Settings. Under Advertising Features, toggle Enable Demographics and Interest Reports to "ON." (Only users with Admin access can enable or disable this feature. You can manage this feature in any account where you have admin access.) Note that if you've just enabled this feature, it may take a day or two for data to appear in these reports. Also, the reports may not contain any data if your site traffic is very low or you apply a segment that is too small.
Total Events vs Unique Events
Total Events are calculated as the total number of interactions with the tracked element, while Unique Events are how many users have triggered that event. So if a user clicks on the Google Merchandise Store's navigation for "Bags" five times in a single session, the total number of link clicks for that event will be "five," but the number of Unique Events will be counted as "one."
rollup reporting
available to Google Analytics 360 customers -> you can aggregate data automatically from multiple properties into a new combined property. For example, if the Google Merchandise Store wanted to use one property to track their website and another property to track their mobile app, they could also create a third property to aggregate data from both the website and the app to analyze that data together. This gives Analytics 360 users options to combine the data from different properties. Note that roll-up properties don't include data that you import or link from another account -- like Google Ads. If you want to include linked data from your source properties into your roll-up properties, you'll need to re-link the roll-up property with the linked account. Also, when users are identified by the same Client ID across different source properties, session data for those users is usually merged; otherwise, that session data remains separate.
Session
begins when a user navigates to a page that includes the Google Analytics tracking code and generates a "pageview" hit. It will end after 30 minutes if no other hits are recorded. If a user returns to a page after a session ends, a new session will begin.
transaction hit
can pass data to Analytics about ecommerce purchases such as products purchased, transaction IDs, and "stock keeping units" (or SKUs). If you've set up Enhanced Ecommerce within Google Analytics, you can also pass additional ecommerce data like product category, whether items have been added or removed from a shopping cart, and how many times users viewed a product on a website.
Bounce Rate
calculated by looking at users who only had one interaction on your site without a second interaction to calculate the session duration or time on page. If this occurs, the pageview of a bounced visit is assigned a session duration and Time on Page of zero.
Time on Page (ToP)
calculated by taking the timestamp of a pageview hit and subtracting that from the timestamp of the next pageview hit.
Custom Metrics
can be collected for any standard dimension or Custom Dimension that can't be measured by any predefined metric in Google Analytics. You can also upload your own data to Google Analytics including hit data, extended data that is stored in a Custom Dimension or Custom Metric, and Summary data that lets you sum up any uploaded metrics.
Content Groupings
can help you group pages in your reports to reflect the organization of your website. For example, the Google Merchandise Store can create Content Groupings for the main parts of their shopping site such as "Accessories," "Fun," "Kids," "Office," and "Apparel." For each of those groupings, you can specify rules to determine which pages are in each grouping. You can create up to five content groupings and as many rules as you want to define a grouping. Note that you can include the same content in multiple groups. Also, remember that Content Grouping is not retroactive. Content Groups will only include data from the creation date of the group onward. You may want to include an annotation so that other users will know when the content group was created.
Active Users Report
can help you quickly gauge the level of user interest in your website. Click on the Active Users report under Audience. Active Users measures the number of unique users who initiated sessions on your site over the last day, seven days, fourteen days, or thirty days. You can use this to monitor traffic drops. Short-term drops may be due to negative press or social content, while long-term drops may signal new release problems or the inability to build a growing audience.
Social Hits
can pass likes, shares, or tweet data
Hit
is a URL string with parameters of useful information about your users With each user interaction on your website, the Analytics tracking code sends what's called a "hit" to Google Analytics If we break down the URL string, you can see that it's passing some useful information to Analytics about the user that triggered the hit. For example, we can see things like: -the language the user's browser is set to -the name of the page they're viewing -the screen resolution of the user's device and the Analytics ID that associates that hit to the correct Analytics account. -a randomly-generated user identifier. This will allow Google Analytics to differentiate between new and returning users. Once the hit is sent to Google Analytics and combined with additional data, all of this information is ready for processing by the Analytics servers
Once Google Analytics has applied configuration settings
it will process all of the data you have collected into reports. Google Analytics will transform the data into dimensions, calculate metrics associated with those dimensions, and store each dimension in its own aggregate database table for fast retrieval.
Configurations
let you collect customized data for your business or organize data in your reports. These can be simple configurations like collecting demographics information and site search queries, or more complex configurations like collecting Custom Dimensions and Metrics specific to your business.
Custom Metrics
let you collect metrics in Google Analytics that are specific to your business. Ex: the number of ads that loaded on a page, the bandwidth that the page consumed when it loaded, or the total number of brand pageviews that each of your marketing channels leads to. You collect Custom Metric data using JavaScript that's implemented on a page. When a user lands on that page or performs a specific action, the Custom Metric will be sent as an additional parameter attached to the hit.
Channel Grouping
let you organize your data into customized channels A roll-up of traffic sources in the Acquisition reports that groups several marketing activities together. Channel groupings allow you to view and compare aggregated metrics by channel name, as well as individual traffic source, medium, or campaign name.
Calculated Metrics
let you perform mathematical computations on existing metrics using basic addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Ex: If the Google Merchandise Store wanted to see the Custom Metric "Android merchandise pageviews" divided by users, they can create a Calculated Metric that divides the number of pageviews by the number of users.
Remarketing - Audiences
let you target groups of users based on common attributes. Audiences are made up of browser cookies from users that visited a site with Google Analytics implemented and the remarketing tracking code enabled. Audiences allow you to target ads to those users. For example you can create a Remarketing audience that includes users who visited a specific page of your website or clicked to play a video. Since website remarketing utilizes browser cookies, creating remarketing audiences in Analytics doesn't require any additional tagging on your website. But note that if a user clears their browser cookies, they will no longer be a part of the remarketing audience you created until they visit your site again.
User Permissions
let's say you're the administrator of a site with multiple sub-directories based on different departments in your business. You can create different views for each department using filters and then grant access to each view for the members of those departments
Content Grouping
lets you aggregate metrics within reports based on the organization of your website. A roll-up of content in the Behavior reports that groups several pages or screens together to better reflect the structure of your site or app. Content groupings allow you to view and compare aggregated metrics by content group name, as well as individual URL, page title, or screen name.
Data Import
lets you combine this offline data to the hit data that Analytics collects from your website. This will allow you to include your own business-specific data you collected independently to give you more context and insight in your reports.
Cohort Analysis report
lets you examine specific groups of users and their behavior, to better inform your marketing. Click on the Cohort Analysis report. At the top of the report are several menus we can use to understand whether the Google Merchandise Store is increasing product revenue. Cohort Type lets you select a single dimension of cohort to report on. The cohort type "Acquisition Date" groups cohorts based on when users started their first sessions with your site. Cohort Size determines the size of each cohort. You can group by day, week, or month of acquisition. The metric selector lets you choose the metric you want to evaluate for each cohort. The Date Range selector has preset date ranges that vary based on the cohort size. If you group the cohorts by day, the date range will offer choices from 7 to 30 days. Table: The top row shows average revenue per user across all users. The other rows show each cohort by week of acquisition. Darker blue indicates higher results and lighter blue indicates lower results. If you ran a marketing campaign during a specific week, you could track if it prompted higher revenue per user and run similar campaigns in the future.
Event Category
lets you organize the events you track into groups. For your website, this might be "Videos" or "Social Shares."
The measurement protocol
lets you send data from any web-connected device like point-of-sale systems or web-connected kiosks to Google Analytics. Unlike the tracking code which sends hits automatically, if you want to collect data from a system outside of Google, you must pass the data collection hits manually in a URL string. It defines how to construct your hits using a customized tracking ID and send those hits to your designated Google Analytics account
Dynamic Remarketing
lets you target remarketing ads more precisely. It enables you to target based on content or products users previously viewed on your site, related and top-performing content and products, and purchase histories and demographics. For example, the Google Merchandise Store can collect product IDs from the merchandise that users viewed on their website and later advertise those products to those same users to bring them back to the Store website and make a purchase.
event hit
lets you track every time a user interacts with a particular element on your website. For example, you can track whether users click a video Play button, a particular URL, or a product carousel. Event hits pass four parameters of data in the URL: event action, category, label, and value. You can use these to categorize interactions in reports that are specific to your website
Data Import
lets you upload data from other systems into Google Analytics. To do this, Google Analytics needs to match an existing dimension with a dimension in your uploaded data. This is called a "key" because it allows the two datasets to be connected together. The Store can use Data Import to import the cost data, clicks, and impressions for ads served on other platforms. The key to connect these two datasets is the "source medium" dimension. This will require some planning, since the Google Merchandise Store will need to manually tag their destination URLs with source and medium parameters
Filters
like all configuration settings, are not applied retroactively to your data. They are only applied from the moment you create them and can take up to 24 hours before being applied to your data. Also, don't forget that the order in which you apply the filters is very important. Each filter passes filtered data to the next filter in the sequence, so you'll want to be thoughtful about the order in which you apply your filters. You can adjust the order of your filters by going into "Admin" and selecting "Filters". Then select "Assign Filter Order." Note that you can use filters across multiple views, but be careful. If you edit the filter, those changes will be applied across all the different views to which you've applied that filter. Once you have set up your configuration, Google Analytics processes the data by checking each hit against your filters. If a hit matches the logic in a filter, then that filter will be applied. Remember to test out your filters in a "test" view before you apply them to the "master" view. Also, be sure to test out your filters on real-time reports to make sure they're working because they may take several hours to filter all of your data.
Google Analytics widens that data passed in hits with
other sources such as IP address, server-log files, and other ad-serving data. Using this additional information, Analytics can understand things like: a user's location; specifics about their browser and operating system; their age and gender; and the source/medium that referred them to a site.
Custom Dimensions can be used in which reports?
secondary dimensions in standard reports primary dimensions in Custom Reports
Custom segments
segments that you create and show up under "Custom." Simply click "Create New Segment" beneath the applied segment fields. Here you can add your own characteristics to create a custom segment. You can segment by demographics, technology, behavior, session dates, traffic sources, and ecommerce (if implemented). You can also create more advanced segments that let you match dimensions and metrics to specific values that you enter. You can even specify multiple filters that make up conditions within the segment. You can also create segments based on sequences of user interactions. Sequences can be a mixture of pageviews or events.
Top Conversions Paths report (MCF)
shows conversions and conversion value grouped by the channel combinations that led to conversion.
Time Lag Report (MCF)
shows conversions grouped by the number of days it took from initial interest to conversion. This can give you a sense of how long your users take to make a purchase and potentially inform your remarketing campaigns.
System Channels
the default channels created by Analytics. Click the Edit icon to view the definition rules for that channel. Here you can rename a default channel, redefine rules for the dimension used to group the channel, define new rules, or change the display color for the channel to help organize your reporting. For example, if the Google Merchandise Store wanted the Default Channel Grouping for Social to only include Google Plus and Facebook traffic, we could change the definition from "System Defined Channel" " matches" "Social" to "Source" "contains" "plus.google.com or facebook.com." Note that any changes to a Default Channel Grouping permanently changes how Analytics will classify that traffic for all future hits and will be visible to all users with permission on a view. However, no historical Default Channel Grouping data will be affected. If you edit the Default Channel Definitions, you can go back to the original default settings by clicking "Reset channels" at the top of the list. However, this is not retroactive, so any sessions that occurred before you reverted to the default channels will still be classified with your prior channel definitions.
Average Search Depth
the number of pages that were viewed after getting back search results
Search Exits
the number of searches made immediately before leaving the site.
Search Refinements
the number of times a user immediately searched again after performing a search.
Custom Reports - Explorer Option
the standard Analytics report that includes a line graph and a data table, search and sort options, and secondary dimensions. Hierarchy of data tables linked by clickable rows
pageview hit
triggered when a user loads a webpage with the tracking code. This is the most common type of hit sent to Analytics. Every time a user opens a page with the tracking code, a new pageview hit will be sent.
Data filters
you can set a filter on a view that can exclude particular data, only include particular data, or modify the data during processing. This helps you align the data that shows up in your reports with your business needs. Filters are essentially "rules" that Google Analytics applies to the data during processing. If the "filter type" is true, Google Analytics will apply the filter to the data. If the filter type is false, Google Analytics won't apply the filter.
Transforming data using configuration rules
you can setup data configuration rules that determine how your data will be processed. This includes implementing features like data filters, goals, data grouping, Custom Dimensions, Custom Metrics, and imported data that can help you better define and analyze the data in your reports.
Create Dynamic Remarketing attributes
you need to create Dynamic Attributes based on those vertical attributes and link them to your Google Ads account. 1. Navigate to the property in which you want to create the Dynamic Attributes. 2. Under Property, click Audience Definitions, then Dynamic Attributes. 3. Click New Attribute. 4. First, select your Business Type. This will be the vertical you want (for example: Retail or Flights). 5. Under View, select the Analytics view in which the Dynamic Attribute data is available. 6. Then, under Destination Account, select the Google Ads account that you want to link to the Dynamic Attributes. 7. Then click Next Step. 8. Under the Dynamic Attributes, select the vertical attributes you added to your page tags and click Save
Note
you won't be able to apply a Custom Metric to data you have previously collected.
Note
you'll need to set up these data configuration rules prior to your data being processed. Once data has been processed, you can't retroactively apply configuration settings to that data.
