CODEWITHSUNDEEP
google-analyticscross-domaingoogle-tag-manager
Chris
Chris

Reputation: 11

GTM / GA: Cross-Domain Tracking (VIEWS & GOALS)

Situation: I have used Google Tag Manager to set up Google Analytics (GA - Universal) on a multisite network. There is one GTM container, and each website has its own GA property. I used a GTM variable to reference all of the GA properties. I am able to track cross-domain sessions. In testing, I am able to follow a user's session across multiple domains under the same session / client ID.

Problem: I'm stuck with what to do next. I'd like to create some Goals and Views that track a user's journey through my sites and measure the usual stats (bounce, drop-off points conversions, etc.). However, I'm not sure where to begin. I see plenty of information on the Internet for how to set up cross-domain GA tags in GTM. However, I don't see anything out there for how to create Views and Goals for cross-domain setups. A few questions that come to mind are:

  1. Do I create Goals in the destination site's GA account (e.g. mycheckout.com), or the site where the session begins (e.g. myproductinfo.com)?
  2. When creating Goals, do I only use the permalink slug, or the entire link? I thought I could only add the permalink.
  3. How does this information roll up into one report?

I found this link, but I'm not sure if it's the 'best practice'. I would greatly appreciate it if someone who has previously implemented this could provide an outline of best practices, or a link to a good tutorial on the subject.

Thanks for your help! Chris

Upvotes: 0

Views: 369

Answers (1)

michaelsinner
michaelsinner

Reputation: 376

You need to understand GA definition of Views and Properties. Views are like database table views: you can either show the whole table or a sample of it.

To have all data collected without sampling a "Raw Data" view (no filters) should always be used. Each view has its own conversion goal definitions. So in the "Raw Data" view you can create a goal for any page tracked. If you filter a view for one domain (e.g. "confirmation.com View with appropriate filters"), only goals for this domain should be created (otherwise they will never count a conversion).

When creating goals you can define filters for the "ga:pagePath" parameter. So it depends on your GA tracking setup, what part of the URL it tracks. Go into chrome web developer toolbar and hit the "network" tab. Open your page in this tab. Then search for requests ending with "collect", these are the data trackpoints send to GA. There you can debug what URL information is sent to GA (search for the "dl" parameter within the query string parameters list).

Upvotes: 0

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