I’m kicking off a new series of posts where I highlight different dimensions in Google Analytics. And I thought of no better way to start than to share my go-to tool any time I’m stuck on which dimension or metric to use.
It’s actually published by Google in their resource for developers. I know what you’re thinking … Stab me repeatedly before sending me to documentation files. Developer documentation for any tool is usually a painful mire of geekery and difficult to digest. But this one is definitely the exception, especially since Google spruced it up a few months back and made it all Ajaxy.
I use it so much I created a bitly for it: bit.ly/api-help.
Executive Summary
So here’s a screenshot of the brains of the tool:
My favorite uses for it are:
- Find out the API names for different dimensions and metrics. (They’re sometimes very different as you’ll see in the video, e.g., Service Provider is networkLocation.)
- Filter to see a category of dimensions and metric (e.g., enter social in the filter to just see all social dimensions and metrics).
- See which dimensions and metrics have been deprecated. (They’re in italics, and there are a ton of them out there.)
- Find out valid combinations of dimensions and metrics. The list of available dimension and metric options is filtered depending on what you choose, but this isn’t 100%. So you still need to be mindful of your intent.
- Look to see what default values are for something, e.g., the hasSocialSourceReferral dimension in the API (called Social Source Referral in the web view) returns a boolean of Yes or No.
Video
You can check out a walkthrough I did of the tool in the short video below.
Learning How to Use the API
I wish this tool had been as useful as it is now when I was first learning how to use the API. BTW, the API is good for bringing Google Analytics data right into Excel or a Google Spreadsheet, in case you’ve ever wondered why you hear people talk about the API so much.
There reaches a point in a marketer’s life where it just doesn’t satisfy anymore to have to go into the web interface to find the reports you’re looking for. This means having to export to Excel (or Google Spreadsheets) and do the same repetitive tasks each time. The API allows you to shave off a lot of time hunting for your data.
If you want to learn more about how to use the Google Analytics API, here are some good starting points:
Dipping Your Toe In
How To Make Google Analytics And Excel Talk To Each Other In Plain English: I wrote this post for the Search Engine Land site as an intro to a free API tool called Excellent Analytics. It’s not quite that excellent anymore as it’s quickly becoming the equivalence of Detroit in the marketing tool space. It hasn’t been updated in years and is missing some really key dimensions and metrics. But it has a user-friendly interface.
Google Analytics Magic Script: Google released a cool little utility to help you bring Google Analytics data into Google Spreadsheets. One serious disadvantage for newbies is you don’t have an interface like you do with tools like Excellent Analytics and (my fave) Analytics Canvas. It also doesn’t include Multi-Channel Funnels. Plus, Google Spreadsheets visualizations leave a lot to be desired. But if you just want to set up a simple dashboard and be off to the races, you should check it out.
Deep Dive
The Annielytics Dashboard Course: This is a comprehensive only course that teaches you how to use Google Analytics, the API, and Excel all together to create sexy reporting dashboards.
To get Multi-Channel Funnels data & more into Google Sheets, see our add-on: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supermetrics-for-google-s/bnkdidgbiidpnohlnhmkehlimlnfhgce
Very cool, Mikael! Do you have a tutorial on how to use it? I saw the promo video but can’t seem to find a video tutorial.
We don’t have a video tutorial but is should be very easy to learn. When you install the tool from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/supermetrics/bnkdidgbiidpnohlnhmkehlimlnfhgce, it will show you how to run your first query. You can then run more queries, and refresh them by the press of a button. And soon, when Google makes it possible, we’ll add the option to schedule automatic refreshing & PDF emailing of the results.
Actually we do have one video that shows a bit how it works: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URIj1baD6c8
Thanks. I’ll check it out.
For those still entrenched in Excel, there is an updated alternative to the Excellent Analytics add-in available now — the Analytics Edge Simply Free package. It is also one of the few tools that uses the new Users/Sessions terminology.
http://www.analyticsedge.com/analytics-edge-basic-add-in/
Speaking of terminology, for data geeks (like you know you are), you may also want to check out the GA Metadata API, which allows you to download all of the absolute latest dimensions and metrics along with their descriptions (in JSON format).
https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/metadata/v3/reference/metadata/columns/list#try-it
Hey, Mike! Sorry for the horrifically late response! I didn’t realize I wasn’t receiving comment alerts. :/ I’m mobile right now and I can’t remember if you sent me information on this, but if not could you send me more detailed information about it and I’ll get the word out?
Hi Annie,
Since Google released the add-on functionality for its Spreadsheets in March, Supermetrics has become a much more robust way of fetching Analytics data (and Adwords & Bing!) than the Magic Script.
The Add-on has a complete interface to pick dimension and metrics from that is less buggy than Excellent Analytics for Excel IMO (although I don’t blame them, it’s probably much trickier to develop and maintain an Excel Extension than a Google Add-on – VBA vs .js!).
I think we’re at a point where the cloud based environment and sharing features that come with Gdrive (almost?) outperform the charting capabilities of Excel!
Sorry for the horrifically late response! I didn’t realize I wasn’t receiving comment alerts. :/
But I’ve been playing with Supermetrics quite a bit recently and am very impressed, but Google Sheets is so inferior to Excel, for power users, it’s just not even an option.
great post. We also recommend customers using Google API guide when importing GA metrics into our .
And as a final check, Google has also another nice tool Query Explorer for Google Analytics- https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/explorer/
Oh yeah, I use the Query Explorer all the time since I started working with an API tool that requires I build out query URLs by hand.