the google analytics of things (#iwmw16)

The Google Analytics of Things

+Martin Hawksey@mhawksey

Slides http://go.alt.ac.uk/IWMW16-P9#IWMW16 #P9

+Martin Hawkseyhawksey.info

@mhawksey Slides http://go.alt.ac.uk/IWMW16-P9#IWMW16 #P9

Overview

Beyond page views...Tim Berners-Lee in his office at the MIT, 1998.

Photograph: Elise Amendola/AP

Tracking used to be easy

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

But the current web is a lot better… and cooler!

Image Credit: Unknown http://imgur.com/8b8uYz6

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Pageviews just don’t cut it anymore

1 page view 1 page view 1 page view

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

But tracking got more advanced

CC-BY David Bleasdale https://flic.kr/p/mGimv

Understanding Engagement

Event Tracking - the James Bond of tracking

Clean, elegant, easy to useCustomizable to handle anything

Photo Credit: © 20th Century Fox Home Video/MGM/UA

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Event Tracking

Event tracking is a piece of code with custom values that you fire off when you want to track somethingga('send','event', // Required: type of tracking'category', // Required: Category of event'action', // Required: Action of event'label', //optional valuevalue); //optional number

ga('send','event','category','action','label',value);

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

<button id="b1">Hello World</button><script type="text/javascript">

$('#b1').click(function(event) {ga('send','event','button','click','hello world',1);

});</script>

Event Tracking

Track clicks on the button

HTML/jQuery

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Warning: “Google Analytics does not allow Personally Identifiable Information (PII) (such as names, email addresses) stored in the Application. Your Analytics account could be terminated if you use any of this information”

NO PERSONALLY IDENTIFIABLE INFORMATION

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

“If your site has its own authentication system, you can use the User ID feature, in addition to the client ID, to more accurately identify a user across all the devices they use to access your site.”

… BUT

// At a later time, once the `userId` value is known,// sets the value on the tracker.ga('set', 'userId', USER_ID);

JavaScript

ga('send','event','EMD101_Mod1_BSN101_1.1_Q3', 'multichoice-selection','21',5); Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Google Analytics Event Tracking MCQs

… NOT USING GOOGLE TAGS MANAGER

Track clicks on the button with Google Tag Manager

<button id="b1">Hello World</button>

Measurement Protocol

Lets interface … {API}Image credit: CC-BY-NC nikkihttps://flic.kr/p/5d59EW

The measurement protocol lets you send event/hits data to Google Analytics via HTTP Requests:

https://www.google-analytics.com/collect

Name Parameter Example Description

Protocol Version v v=1 The protocol version. The value should be 1.

Tracking ID tid tid=UA-123456-1 The ID that distinguishes to which Google Analytics property to send data.

Client ID cid cid=xxxxx An ID unique to a particular user.

Hit Type t t=pageview The type of interaction collected for a particular user.

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

KiosksSmart TV Apps

Point of Sale Devices

Web Connected

Devices

Backend Applications

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

No tracking, no problem...

VLE

ScriptGoogle

Analytics

Web View

• Runs every 15 min• Identity stripped• Text processing producing counts

Interacting with 3rd party APIs

https://mashe.hawksey.info/?p=17088

Parameter Value Type Default Value Max Length Supported Hit Types

qt integer None None all

Image Credit: CC-BY-SA per Corell https://flic.kr/p/7BYwFaQueue Time

Used to collect offline / latent hits

Image Credit: CC-BY Mikael Leppä https://flic.kr/p/pdkyS3Batch

Send multiple hits in a single request

● A maximum of 20 hits can be specified per request.

● The total size of all hit payloads cannot be greater than 16K bytes.

● No single hit payload can be greater than 8K bytes.

Instrumentation...

INSTRUMENTATION WITH ANALYTICS

Presented by Bruce Mcpherson at DevFest London 2014https://goo.gl/lG5oC0

The Analytics of Things...

Track anything...Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Google Analytics Sleep TrackerSlide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Other Google Analytics APIs

Google Analytics Add-on for Google Sheets

Google Analytics superProxy and Google Analytics Data Bridgehttps://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/google-analytics-super-proxy

Summary

ExperimentCC-BY-ND https://flic.kr/p/dtZF7K

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Hopefully, you now know a little more what is possible

Image credit: CC-BY-NC-ND Joe Foley https://flic.kr/p/Drgv6

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Image credit: timmacpherson.com

Now it’s time to get creative!

Rethink the interactions and engagement

Ask questions

Slide Credit: Nico Miceli nicomiceli.com

Questions?

+Martin Hawksey@mhawksey

Thank you!

+Nico Miceli@NicoMiceli

For slides and inspiration...