Campaign Metrics
Client ID
Google Analytics uses a unique identifier, called 'Client ID' to report and analyze the behavior of individuals on your website. By default, the identifier is randomly assigned and is stored in a browser cookie on the users' device
Container Snippet
- is the code that you need to add to your website to use Google Tag Manager. The main component of the container snippet is a piece of JavaScript that needs to be added to all the pages of your website. The container snippet includes your unique container ID. Along with the JavaScript, there is also an iframe that lets you add non-JavaScript tags to your website.
GOOGLE ADS REMARKETING
- lets you add people to your remarketing audience lists inside Google Ads. You will need to add the conversion ID from an existing audience list to the tag.
Trigger
- lets you control when a tag should (or should not) fire. Google Tag Manager has a default trigger called 'All Pages' which will fire a tag on any page that includes your container snippet. Adding multiple triggers to an individual tag will mean any of the triggers can fire the tag (multiple triggers create 'or' statements). Triggers can also be used to prevent a tag from firing.
GOOGLE ADS CONVERSION TRACKING
- lets you send conversion data to Google Ads. You will need to include the conversion ID and conversion label from a website conversion action that has already been configured in your Google Ads account.
Vehicle Detail Page (VDP)
- physically clicking on the car and going through all of the carousel photos - user is at the bottom of the sales funnel
Organic
- refers to people clicking on a free link from a search results page. For example, people clicking through to your website from a free result on a Google search results page.
Click
- these triggers let you create triggers based on what someone clicks on your website. To use conditions with click triggers you will need to ensure the appropriate built-in variables have been enabled.
User Engagement
- these triggers let you fire tags based on specific actions people take on your website.
Exception
- this trigger prevents a tag from being fired. Exception triggers override any firing triggers. For example, if the 'All Pages' trigger is added to the tag and an exception trigger, then if the conditions for the exception trigger match, then the tag will not be fired.
Firing Trigger
- trigger used to load a tag on your website. For example, if you create a trigger that only matches your homepage, then this trigger can be used to load (or 'fire') a tag on your website homepage.
View Through
- when a consumer sees a brand's ad, does not click on it, and then later visits that brand's website
Smart Goals
If you're unable to manually configure your own goals, then you can make use of Google's machine learning to identify sessions that are most likely to result in a conversion.
Container ID
Each container that you create inside a Google Tag Manager has a unique container ID. Each container ID starts with 'GTM', followed by a dash and a combination of numbers and letters, for example, GTM-1A2B3C. The container ID is included in the Google Tag Manager code that you implement on your website.
Tracking ID
In order to send hits to the appropriate property inside Google Analytics, a tracking ID is included in the tracking code (or Google Tag Manager tag). The tracking ID starts with 'UA', followed by a series of numbers, for example, UA-123456-1. The number between the dashes is a unique identifier for the Google Analytics account and the number at the end identifies a property within the account.
Campaign Tags
Inbound marketing can be tracked and reported by Google Analytics using campaign tags. Extra details (query parameters) are added to the end of URLs which are then included in the Acquisition reports. Campaign tags include campaign name, source, medium, term and content.
Assisted Conversion
Inside the 'Multi-Channel Funnels' reports you will find assisted conversions which show you the channels which later led to a conversion. For example, if a user came to the website from Twitter and then later from Google AdWords, Twitter would be counted as an 'assisted conversion'. The reports also allow you to view assisted conversions based on other dimensions, including campaign, source, medium, landing page and more.
API
There are a number of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) that you can use to access data from Google Analytics. They can be used to access your data outside the Google Analytics interface, including in Google Sheets and your own custom applications. APIs include the Core Reporting API to access data from the standard reports, the Real Time Reporting API to access live data, the Multi-Channel Funnels API to access attribution data, plus the Embed API, the Metadata API and the Management API.
GOOGLE ANALYTICS - UNIVERSAL ANALYTICS
The Google Analytics tag type lets you send pageviews, events, transactions, social interactions, and custom timings to Google Analytics. Once you have selected the type of action you would like to send to Google Analytics you can choose the settings for the tag.
Acquisition
You can understand how people find your website using the Acquisition reports. The reports present data based on the source and medium of your users, along with other acquisition dimensions. There are dedicated reports for your paid traffic from Google AdWords, organic traffic from Google (if you have linked your Google Search Console account), traffic from social networks and traffic from custom campaign tags.
Google Tag Manager
- allows you to add more tags to your site beyond just analytics without needing to add multiple snippets to your code again and again - a system for managing the deployment of tracking and other tags on your website. Google Tag Manager allows tags to be tested on your website before being deployed live and is designed to reduce the dependence on IT for managing tracking tags.
Attribution
- allows you to control how credit for a particular conversion is given to the marketing channels that led to the action taking place. Google Analytics provides a variety of attribution models in the 'Multi-Channel Funnels' and 'Attribution' reports. Attribution takes into account the channels (and traffic sources) used across multiple sessions for a user. You can set the amount of historical data included in the reports using the lookback window.
User-Defined Variable
- allows you to use custom information in your tags and triggers. Although Google Tag Manager does include a range of built-in variables, there are occasions when you will need to configure custom variable to meet your requirements.
Social
- appears as a marketing channel (in the default channel grouping) in the Acquisition reports which automatically includes traffic coming from social media, including Twitter and Facebook. The Acquisition reports also include a dedicated set of social reports to further analyze and report on the performance of your inbound social traffic.
Container
- are created inside each Google Tag Manager account, and in most cases, an individual container is used to store and manage the tags for an individual website. Each container has its own dedicated Google Tag Manager code. Apart from tags, you can also create and configure triggers and variables in each container. You can create one or more containers in each Google Tag Manager account.
Events
- are the different actions that Google Tag Manager uses to decide if a trigger should fire. Default Google Tag Manager events include; page views, DOM ready, and window loaded. Apart from the default events, other built-in events can be used for triggers (including click events, form submissions, etc.) and custom events can also be pushed to the data layer.
UTM Tag
- are the individual query parameters used to make up a campaign tagged URL. The UTM tags include utm_name, utm_source, utm_medium, utm_term, utm_content and the lesser known utm_id. UTM stands for 'Urchin Traffic Monitor' (Urchin was the precursor to Google Analytics).
Goal
- are used to track desired actions on your website. For example, subscribing to your email newsletter, submitting an inquiry or registering as a member. Goals can be configured inside Google Analytics and can be based on people traveling to a particular page (or pages), triggering an event, sessions of a certain duration or viewing a certain number of pages.
Filter
- can be applied to reporting views inside Google Analytics to include a subset of data (for example, only include data for particular parts of the website) or exclude a subset of data (for example, excluding your own sessions on the website) or to transform the data (for example, to modify the reported page path to include the hostname).
CPC
- can be seen in the Acquisition reports and typically refers to people clicking through to your website from paid ads. This includes traffic from linked Google AdWords accounts and campaign tagged URLs where the medium has been defined as 'cpc' or 'paid'.
Variable
- is a placeholder for information. The information in a variable can then be used in tags and triggers. For example, we might want to create a trigger that only fires a tag on a single page on our website. We can use the 'Page Path' variable to check the page someone is viewing and check to see if it matches our desired page. When the variable matches our page, we can then trigger a tag. Google Tag Manager includes built-in variables that can easily be enabled inside each container, and there is the option of creating custom variables.
URL Builder
- is a tool provided by Google that allows you to add campaign tags to your inbound URLs. It's especially helpful if you're just getting started with campaign tags as it provides a visual interface.
Source
- is one of the four main dimensions (along with medium, campaign and channel) for reporting and analyzing how people found your website. Source tells you where the message was seen. For example, a source of 'google' would indicate that someone found your website after performing a search on Google. Source can be used in combination with medium for more granular insights, for example, a source of 'google' and a medium of 'cpc' would be reported for paid clicks from your AdWords campaigns.
Referral
- is reported when a user clicks through to your website from another third-party website. The referrals report allows you to see all of the websites (by domain) that are sending you traffic. You can also drill-down into the referrals report to view the 'Referral Path' which allows you to see the individual pages linking to your website.
Conversion
- is reported whenever a user completes a goal or makes a purchase during a session. Each goal will report a maximum of one conversion per session, while every transaction is reported.
Unique Pageview
Counts a page once even if it was viewed multiple times within a single session. For example, if someone landed on your homepage, then viewed the 'about us' page and then navigated back to your homepage, the homepage would have one unique pageview (even though the page was viewed twice during the session).
Tag
Typically a piece of JavaScript that is managed inside Google Tag Manager and deployed to your website once the Google Tag Manager container has been published. You can add tags using the built-in tag templates, or by adding custom HTML tags.
Goal Completion
When a user converts for a particular goal during a session they'll be counted as a goal completion. If a goal is completed multiple times during a user's session, it will only be counted as a single conversion.
