Overview
Google Universal Analytics provides comprehensive analytics solutions including Event, Page Views, E-commerce, Crash, and Exception reporting. Its integration with Zeotap allows you to send real-time audiences through Symphony. You can also send data to custom dimensions and custom metrics. This will allow you to send enhanced user traits and profile attributes. In addition to this, it also allows you to send offline data that you cannot send through direct Google Analytics (GA) integration. Zeotap uses Measurement Protocol APIs to send data to GA through server-to-server calls. With the enhanced user profile sent to GA, you can create audiences and activate them further in various Google products like Google Ads, Optimize 360 and so on.Prerequisites for the GA Integration
Ensure that you have the following set-up ready- Set up a property and get the Tracking ID.
- Set up Custom Dimensions and Custom Metrics in Google Universal Analytics so that Zeotap can send data to them.
Set up a Property and Get the Tracking ID
Perform the following steps to set up a Property and get the Tracking ID:Select the toggle on Create a Universal Analytics property and enter the URL of the website that you want to track. Select the Create a Universal Analytics property only option.
Note:The Tracking ID is required while creating a Google Universal Analytics destination under Journeys.
Set up Custom Dimension and Custom Metric in Google Analytics
Perform the following steps to set up Custom Dimension and Custom Metric in Google Analytics:Choose Custom Dimension or Custom Metric based on your requirement and click +New Custom Dimension/Metric based on the selection.
Add name, scope and click the Active checkbox to activate a Custom Dimension. Similarly, for Custom Metric, add name, scope, formatting type, minimum and maximum value and click Active checkbox to activate a custom metric.
For Custom Dimensions, four scopes are provided, namely, Hit, Session, User and Product. Mostly, you may have to use the User scope as you need to add users based on Custom Dimensions. Similarly, for Custom Metric, two scopes are provided, namely, Hit and Product. To know more about the scopes, refer here.
Destination Setup
After you have applied filters or added conditions for your users in Journeys, you can activate them in Google Universal Analytics under Send to Destinations. A new window appears, where you can set up your destination. You can use an already existing destination from the list of available Destinations or create a new one by clicking + Add New Destination.
Add New Destination
Perform the following steps to add a new destination:
In the mapping screen that appears, under Choose your Action, select Send events to Google Universal Analytics in realtime as the action for sending data from the workflow created in Journeys. Under Map the Fields, you need to map an identifier to Google Client ID. You can also add more fields as required.
Activate the Destination on Journeys
After creating a destination, next, you need to link it in the Send to Destination node within the workflow, as explained below.
Under the Destination Details tab, the Tracking ID is automatically populates based on the value that you had entered while creating the destination. However, in the Audience Name field, enter a name to categorise your users.
Data Flow to Google Analytics
Zeotap sends the data to Google Analytics using the Measurement Protocol API as Event parameters. A sample API request looks as follows:| Field Name | Field Details | Comments |
|---|---|---|
| tid | Tracking ID | This is the Tracking ID of the property where the user wants to send the data. |
| cid | GA Client Id | GA client id is the user identifier. It needs to be sent to Zeotap through its Web/GTM implementation. |
| t | Hit Type | All the requests are sent as event hit type. |
| ec | Event Category | It is hard coded to audience |
| ea | Event Action | This can be added/removed based on whether user needs to be added to the audience or removed. |
| el | Event Label | This is the name of the Audience defined by the user as a node level input. |
| ni | Non Interaction Event | This is set to true as the events do not indicate a user performing an action. Non-interaction events are not taken into account when GA calculates bounces and session duration. |
| cd1 | Custom Dimension 1 | This is the user defined Custom Dimensions at GA.Ensure that these are correctly mapped in Zeotap. |
Audience set up in Optimize 360
Perform the following steps to set up audience in Optimize 360 -Link Optimize 360 to Google Analytics by following the instructions mentioned here. This is a one-time setup activity.
Go to Google Analytics, select the Admin tab and navigate to the PROPERTY created as mentioned under the Google Analytics - One-time Set up of a New Property section above.
Create filtering criterias using Event Category(audience), Event Action(add), Event Label(Audience Name), Custom dimensions.
Select Destination and click Publish. Instructions on how to use the audience within Optimize are available here (Target an Audience on Optimize 360).
GA Limits
- It can take up to 24-48 hours by GA to process the data. The latency is variable and depends on the type of account (paid or free), amount of data etc. If you are a paid customer (Analytics 360), the data limits are increased and latency is reduced. Find more details here.
- There are 20 indices available for different custom dimensions and 20 indices for custom metrics in each property. 360 accounts have 200 indices available for custom dimensions and 200 for custom metrics. Currently, we support 20 custom dimensions and 20 custom metrics to be sent to GA. Find more details here.
- Audiences exported to Google Optimize are updated on a daily basis. Find more details here.