This is the third post in a series on design patterns for tracking events in Google Analytics (GA) using Google Tag Manager (GTM). This third pattern is a developer-focused implementation pattern where your site developers push all the required information…
Continue reading the "GA Event Tracking in GTM – Pass-Through Data Layer" »
There are many types of site interactions you may be interested in tracking: scroll distance down a page, clicks on a hero image, email address submissions, and so on. All of these can be tracked using Google Analytics’ event tracking…
Continue reading the "Google Analytics Event Tracking in Google Tag Manager" »
Every report in Google Analytics contains dimensions and metrics. Dimensions describe the data, and metrics measure them. Custom metrics let you measure additional items beyond the default measurements like “sessions” and “total events”. It’s easy to overlook them because it’s…
Continue reading the "Add Custom Metric to GA Using Google Tag Manager" »
Using regex to match specific numbers of sub-directories in a URL can be very helpful for Google Analytics. When I configure a new Google Analytics view, I’ll usually set up Content Grouping so we can see traffic by page type…
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Adding a custom dimension to Google Analytics involves several interconnected parts: the data layer, tag manager setup, and admin settings in GA. This post walks through each step of the process to show how they fit together. STEP 1: PUSH VALUES…
Continue reading the "Set up Custom Dimensions using GA, GTM, and the Data Layer" »
Depending on your site setup, a user may navigate between multiple subdomains while on your site. For example, they may start with blog.xyz.com, then go to www.xyz.com, and so on. Google Analytics has a Hostname (subdomain) report located at Audience…
Continue reading the "Hostname Attribution in Google Analytics" »
These are 2 super easy methods to exclude your own internal traffic from Google Analytics when you have a dynamic IP address or are using your mobile data network. They don’t require configuring cookies or custom dimensions — you can…
Continue reading the "Exclude Your Own Visits from GA Without a Fixed IP Address" »
HOW TO NAME EVENTS IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS This post describes one proven naming strategy for Google Analytics event tracking. Event naming is critical for using Google Analytics event reporting hierarchy and drill-down structures. With a good naming system it will be…
Continue reading the "Event Tracking Naming Strategy for Google Analytics" »
Misunderstood Metrics #3: Direct Traffic (or how someone did not actually type in a URL 280 characters long) Here’s a question I got that represents much of the confusion around direct traffic. In my direct traffic report I’m seeing many…
Misunderstood Metrics #4: Bounce Rate vs. Exit Rate This post explains the difference between two misunderstood metrics: bounce rate and exit rate. Both of these metrics are used to understand how people are using your site, but bounce rate broadly…
