You can follow the link to see more details about the implementation, but some of the solutions below have been updated, so make sure you follow these guides rather than those in the original article. “Specifically when it comes to content marketing, we like to see how many leads our blogs bring in organically. There, we filter for all posts that have the word “blogs” in the URL to see blog-specific traffic.”, Olmstead adds: “Once we have that list, we use secondary dimensions to identify the day of the month and the hour of the day for each lead. JavaScript variable: {{document.referrer}}, Contents: Global Variable Name - document.referrer. Be sure to read my guide on customTask to understand how this mechanism works. This shows the next page a user visited,” says Natalie Alleblas. People come to your website and complete an action. The defined scope of the custom dimension will determine, at processing time, which hits are associated with the dimension value. And, with custom dimensions, Zamolo says: “We need to know which keywords are working, and which ones are producing less-than-ideal results. “Considering our core product is a content/editorial planning tool, this data has obvious benefits to the ideation and planning process for our clients.”, ESL Authority‘s Quincy Smith adds: “I love looking at content groupings related to performance and we use a custom dimension for this.”, “Seeing which categories of blog content or other post types perform the best is important for us as we have quite a few different user groups. I'm trying to get custom dimensions to work in Google Analytics using the 'new' gtag library. They shared their go-to custom dimensions–and the ones you should be using, such as: Arguably the most-used custom dimension in Google Analytics is the source/medium. It’s how GA calculates the Users metric in views which don’t have the User ID feature enabled (more on this in the next chapter). Anand Iyer adds: “Hit Type is the ONE Google Analytics custom dimension I use to go deeper on performance. Log in at analytics.google.com and make sure the correct property is selected: Such segmentation is a great way for effective remarketing activities.”, Related: 12 Effective Ways for Increasing Your Average Order Value (AOV), Courtney Clark says that the team at TopSpot Internet Marketing used a language or location custom dimension in Google Analytics: “Specifically, [for] websites that have a ‘copy’ of the website in multiple languages or if the user can be shown content based on the location they have selected.”, “This allows us to more easily segment users based on the areas that our client is most interested in for their reporting or advertising efforts.”. If you want to see a parameter in the GA4 report, you must register it as a custom definition. You might have noticed that a number of the solutions in this guide utilize customTask. It’s a custom dimension also used by Kevin Dhimitri: “We first set up a user ID custom dimension per each user who makes it to a product page or product catalog page.”, “Then, we have custom dimensions for counting the number of items users have added to their cart, the order in which they are added, and ultimately the number of items purchased.”, “Having this data allows me as an analyst to go in and see what items are connected to each other, based on which I might add internal links between those pages or include a “users frequently bought this item too” section.”. Let us know in the comments. Examples … “I use custom dimension user logged in/ user not logged in. This can help us in the future when selecting keywords and watching the changes in rankings.”. Be sure to read my guide on customTask to understand how this mechanism works. You can then correlate this data with other Google Analytics data. "Developers can use custom dimensions to send unique IDs into Google Analytics, and then use the core reporting API to retrieve these IDs along with other Google Analytics data. Example 2-b: Custom Metrics, e.g. Automatically collected events have some default parameters, and you can specify up to 25 custom parameters per event (Android or iOS).During the creation process, you identify the event parameter that will supply the value for the custom dimension or metric. But you could just as well have your web server write the User ID in some other global variable, or even in a browser cookie. We won’t spam, ever. Having an in-depth understanding of your target audience is always an amazing thing. This is fairly easy to do, since it’s more or less just copy-pasting all the code into one long anonymous function, but I’ll show you how to do it nevertheless. In this article, I want to pull all of these together into one reference guide, which you can then use to find the relevant information with ease. Custom dimensions allow you to send extra information to Google Analytics. To create a custom dimension in Google Analytics: Log in to your Google Analytics account. With this information, you could improve your paid campaign ad copy, test different offers, or improve your campaign landing pages to be more effective for the size of the company you want to attract.”, Helwech summarizes: “Clearbit data with your other Google Analytics dimensions can be combined in many ways. Step 2: Set Up Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics. Simply put, custom dimensions allow you to collect and analyze additional layers of data on top of the standard dimensions inside Google Analytics. Once you’ve added custom dimensions within your WordPress site, you’ll need to configure your Google Analytics in the same way. But do remember, once you’ve created a dimension, you cannot delete it. “In Behaviour > Site Content > Content Drilldown, page path level 1 is the primary dimension, and is the first page a user visited. If, for example, your business objectives are to grow revenue for retail customers on your e-commerce website, custom audiences can give you this information based on their account type.”. If push comes to shove, I would personally be fine with ignoring the five Browsing Behavior dimensions, and just focus on the 8 dimensions listed first in this article. I choose page path level 2 as the secondary dimension. To use Tag Manager to send this value to Google Analytics as a custom dimension, use a data layer variable and then apply the custom dimension to the appropriate Google Analytics tags already deployed on your website. If a visitor logs in you can retrieve this information and send i… Use Them to Effectively Extract Data Via the API. Let us suppose 247 people visited your website via Google paid search in the last one month. Custom dimension values can be sent with any Google Analytics hit type, including screen views, events, ecommerce transactions, user timings, and social interactions. Data Layer variable: {{DLV - browsingBehavior.redirectCount}}, Contents: Data Layer Variable Name - browsingBehavior.redirectCount. In that article, I show how you can improve the quality and granularity of your Google Analytics data set with just four Custom Dimensions. Being able to segment and chop the data on a hit-by-hit basis (Hit Timestamp), group them into sessions (Session ID), sort by GA user (Client ID), and finally analyze cross-device paths (User ID), makes so much sense from an analytics point-of-view. Another option for reporting custom dimensions is to use Google Analytics’ built-in custom reports. Get started with these dashboards if you’re using Moz, Ahrefs, or SEMrush (pictured): Callum Scott says the Marie Haynes Consulting “likes to look at entrances to the site on a URL level before and after a major traffic drop.”, “The reason we look at entrances instead of looking at pageviews or sessions is because entrances represent the number of users entering the site from, in this case, organic search – whereas if a user arrives at the homepage from organic and then looks at a different page, that will still register as a unique organic session and/or pageview. If the storage doesn’t have the current tab ID, we can deduce that the tab is a new one, since sessionStorage is purged when the tab is closed. Tab type indicates whether the page load occurred in a newly open tab, or whether the tab already existed. Elise Dopson This is done by storing the current tabId into sessionStorage. Tabs open returns the number of tabs currently open in the browser. In Google Analytics, you can change the Dimension of a report or add a secondary dimension. “For example, this might be done based on how the user logins to a product e.g. Do you have some go-to Custom Dimensions you’d recommend others add to their data collection right this instant? Since they are included in this guide, they aren’t queriable by default in GA’s reporting interface. Survey Scores. on January 6, 2020 (last modified on May 28, 2020) • 16 minute read. Expand Custom Definitions, hit Custom Dimensions, and then the red New Custom Dimension button. The next set of Custom Dimensions are just smart things to add to your data collection. on January 6, 2020 (last modified on May 28, 2020) • 16 minute read. This means that a custom dimension should always describe the event that is sending it. Here’s the definition: Custom dimensions and metrics let you sync external data (like CRM or SEO tool data) with your Google Analytics data. 9 Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics. “Client ID is definitely the most standard custom dimension that we use,” says Kevin Rutter of Seer Interactive. Session ID is a random, unique string (GUID) which is scoped to the entire session. WHEN AND HOW TO CREATE A CUSTOM DIMENSION IN GOOGLE ANALYTICS. sessions where the first hit was an event), or to add more granularity to path analysis. The value here is to see how your perspective, trialing and paying clients are all interacting with your website.”, Related: 25 Examples of Google Analytics Segments That Enable Deeper Analysis. Or segment all of your Google Analytics data by the Custom Dimension … Analytics It’s the only way to get row-by-row reports split by user, and it’s the only way to query for data collected from any anonymous user. Think about it, you have data that sits in another database, a CRM, even an excel sheet. In Google Analytics, you can find custom dimensions report in two ways. Custom dimensions are one of some methods through which Google Analytics can be expanded more than just default configuration for offering actionable insights that can cater the requirements of your business. Thus the instructions below apply only to a very specific use case, where the User ID is written to the dataLayer when the page is loaded. Example 2-b: Custom Metrics, e.g. Full Referrer is simply the value of document.referrer added as a hit-scoped Custom Dimension to every single Google Analytics tag in your container. event, pageview, timing, etc., that was collected in Google Analytics.”, Anna Lewis of Polka Dot Data also adds: “It might look like groups depending on the amount they have spent with you, or how many times they have bought. Source: Google Analytics … content consumer, content creator, etc.”. This means that all hits of the same session can be queried with the same ID. It only takes a click to unsubscribe. All of the implementation guides are for Google Tag Manager, but nothing’s stopping you from modifying the JavaScript to work with analytics.js or gtag.js. Software Path‘s Michael Carr says: “Custom dimensions have enabled us to shift our focus and make more informed marketing and business decisions based on more representative data of our website populace.”, “By understanding the revenue source on your website, a retailer is able to closely analyze the results of their marketing efforts in relation to the type of customer they are aiming to attract. For example; gender, region, all pages, traffic sources, etc. Step 1: Create a custom dimension. You should add the variable to every single Google Analytics tag in your container. via email, Facebook, Twitter, etc or it could be a patter of behavior e.g. It’s finally possible to segment your data based on how your visitors open pages in browser tabs, do they navigate with the browser’s Back and Forward buttons, and how many tabs they have open at any given time! This gives us very specific data about when each lead came through. We asked 25 experts exactly that. Why not cut the fluff and view your most important metrics all in one place? Something that can shine a light on a blind spot and improve your marketing.”, “For example: If I had a business model that was dependant on generating leads. As you can see, you don’t have to use bog-standard Google Analytics data to understand on-site performance. “This data will then be able to be used to know which marketing platforms bring in the high spenders, which are bringing in the frequent buyers, and which are really helping your target markets spend money with you. Subscribe to the Simmer newsletter to get the latest news and content from Simo Ahava into your email inbox! Use Google Analytics 4 DebugView to test the incoming events on a granular level. As one example of a Custom Dimension about your user sessions, let’s say that you’re a publisher who monetizes pageviews or screen views through CPC or CPM advertising and you have integrated your DoubleClick for Publisher (DFP) data into Google Analytics 360. Event-scoped custom dimensions and metrics take their values from the event parameters you collect via the Analytics measurement code. “We then categorize the pages, and cross-reference them with Google Search Console and SEMrush data to compile a list of which specific keywords dropped for each and which keyword change resulted in the biggest entrance/traffic change,” Scott adds. So by adding these dimensions to your data set, you are, in a way, actually saving money. Because 100 people could have submitted their contact details on the website. This will let you analyze what the previous page of any given hit was. Custom dimensions based on engaged users can help you to understand how this engagement impacts their overall experience. The new version of Google Analytics still allows you to create custom definitions (and custom metrics remain relatively unchanged), but the scope of your custom dimensions will now always be set to the hit level.. An example would be 2018-05-29T15:04:51.361+03:00 (year-month-dayThour:minutes:seconds.milliseconds timezone_offset). But as an indicator it’s very useful, since it tells you how your content is typically being digested. This is useful in case you want to group hits together by the tab in which they occurred. The reason I chose the four dimensions (Hit Timestamp, Session ID, Client ID, and User ID) is because I firmly believe that they should be in Google Analytics’ standard set of dimensions, but for some inexplicable reason they aren’t. Got more questions about tracking custom events with Google Analytics 4? “I … Easiest way to do it is to add it to a Google Analytics Settings variable. SEO experts say that the optimal blog post length is between 1,000 and 1,500 words. Your custom dimension is now added to Google Analytics. To create a custom dimension in Universal Analytics, follow the steps below: Once logged in, click the ‘Admin’ tab, then click the account name, and then the property the custom dimension is for. This puts many of the data points that Clearbit has in their data-set directly alongside the rest of your Google Analytics data,” Secret Sushi‘s Adam Helweh says. B: Pop your own data into Google Analytics to get answers to your questions faster. Keywords. Swink‘s Marcel Otte explains: “For example, [use custom dimensions to] determine whether someone has logged in before or has bought from the site before, whether a visit is internal (an employee), etc.”. How much business did they generate?”. To set and send a custom metric value: The idea is that you can monitor if you are approaching the 8192 byte limit, since hits that equal or surpass that limit will not get sent to Google Analytics. This is the Custom JavaScript variable you’ll be using: If you want to drop any of the three solutions from this customTask, simply remove or comment out the respective var ...Index = N; line. In every Google Analytics report, you can find 2 types of data: dimensions and metrics. Sure, it can tell you a ton about how people engage with your website. I would use Custom Dimensions and Metrics to link to the CRM system to talk back to my website data. This makes a lot of sense for pageview tracking, and it makes a lot of sense for hits that start sessions, since you can now analyze the referral information for sessions that came via some other source than a referral hit. Client ID. If you want to add more custom dimensions to your website, then you’ll have to repeat the above step for each of the dimensions. Instead of adding solution-specific implementation information, please follow the steps in the original guide. The format is metric[0-9]+. Before we dive in with the dimensions you can be using, let’s iron-out what custom dimensions are. In this guide, we’ll share exactly what a custom dimension is, how to create one, and 18 examples of custom dimensions you can use to understand your site’s performance. How Custom Dimensions have Changed in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) The new version of Google Analytics still allows you to create custom definitions (and custom metrics remain relatively unchanged), but the scope of your custom dimensions will now always be set to the hit level. …But which dimensions should you be creating? How Custom Dimensions have Changed in Google Analytics 4.