Connector - Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service, offered by Google, that tracks and reports website traffic, currently as a platform inside the Google Marketing Platform.

Rate limits and quotas, applied by Google, will affect the data available through this Connector. The limitations applied will depend upon the type of account used to authorize the connection. Free accounts are "Standard", whilst the various grades of "360" accounts come with subscription charges.

CONFIGURATION

• Use Resource Quotas:
  Google Analytics (GA) accounts are rate-limited, with the limit being increased if the user has a Google 360 account. Clicking this option will cause Datatap to set parameters as per the increased allowance of a Google 360 account. For full information, see "Sampling (Rate Limits)" below.

REPORT CONFIGURATION

• Report Type:
  The selected report type will define the fields available in the 'Dimensions', 'Metrics', and 'Mixins' options.
  • Regular - Reports based on the standard presents of conversion data recorded by GA.
  • Multi-Channel Funnel - The multi-channel funnel report combines GA conversion data with the sequence of interactions captured in the cookie. Multi-channel funnel report queries return data based on a sample set of 1 million conversion paths.
    Multi-channel metrics are prefixed in GA with "MCF", and cannot be combined with standard report metrics.
• View ID:
  Google Analytics accounts are divided into 'Properties & Apps', and further sub-divided into 'Views'. 'Views' controls the fields available for export, and this option defines which 'View' Datatap should use. The drop-down menu will populate with all 'Views' available under the authorizing parent account.
  Selecting "Fetch all views" will bypass the above, and collect all data available through the authorizing account.
  
• Translate Goal Names:
  Google Analytics tracks all user behavior on a specific web page. Ticking this option will track the specific variable(s) designated as the "goal" within your GA account (e.g. a conversion type).
  e.g. Goal 1 and Goal 2 are named as "Clicked Link" and "Downloaded Whitepaper" respectively. Ticking this option will transfer both the value and the human readable titles of these goals into the fetch.
• Force Daily Fetch:
  When ticked, it divides longer fetch ranges (multi-day) and sends one request per day.  For full information, see "Sampling (Rate Limits)" below.
• Dimensions & Metrics:
  GA imposes a multiple limiting criteria on any single API request:
  
  • There is a limit on the total number of Metrics (10) and Dimensions (7) that can be included in a single stream.
  • In addition, only some field combinations are allowed. This page is an interactive list that will allow you to test the validity of any given combination of fields.
    As an example, see the below illustration:
    
    
    Here, you can see that selecting "User Type" has greyed out several incompatible fields related to Active Users.
    This limitation is hard-coded into GA, and cannot be affected by Adverity. If necessary, it is possible to work around this limitation by splitting exclusive selections across multiple Datastreams.
• Mixins:
  These are metafields, not visible or selectable within the GA UI, but always included within any fetch request. This option box allows you to include these fields in your extract. There is no lookup resource provided by GA as to what each field name denotes, so creative interpretation / trial and error may be required.
  • ga:accountid - The GA account ID number.
  • ga:profileID - The GA profile ID number.
  • ga:profileName - The human-readable name as per the GA profile.
  • ga:webPropertyID - The GA ID number of the web page being reported on.
  • ga:webPropertyName - The human-readable name of the web page as per the GA profile. 
    
    
    The above fields are defined by the GA "View" attached to the Datastream, but will never be seen within the GA UI itself. 

SAMPLING (RATE LIMITS)

Google Analytics imposes a data threshold based on the user account:

• Analytics Standard: 500K sessions.
• Analytics 360: 1M sessions.
• Analytics 360 using resource based quota: 100M sessions.

After hitting the above limits, GA will arbitrarily "sample" data to provide a representative set, but will not provide the complete data available from the source. Daily fetches will prevent, or at least mitigate, this effect. 

FILTERS

Filters allow for an additional layer of data refinement in your fetches, and can be used to either include or exclude specific Segments. "Segments" is a GA terminology, some auto-generated (labelled "BUILT_IN"), whilst some are customizable by the user within the GA user interface, as described here.

• Segments:
  Select one or more defined filters and apply them to fetches. 
• Dynamic Segments:
  As above, but using criteria written in code rather than pre-defined within GA.
  
• Filter Expression:
  Another filter methodology, simplified parameters based on a single expression. Available expressions can be found here.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

• To match GA with other Datasources the required information (campaign, placement, …) has to be included in the UTM parameters before the campaign goes live. GA does not support backwards updates in UTM parameters.
• The current version of the API is v4: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/core/v4/rest/v4/reports/batchGet 
• Custom Channel Grouping is currently not supported by the GA API.
• Firebase is not supported by the GA API.