Custom Variables in Google Analytics – Nikki Rae – Brighton SEO

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Written by Heather Buckley – 26.07.10

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Google Analytics expert Nikki Rae

If you are completely new to Google Analytics you may want to book on our beginners Google Analytics Course. Some information on Segmenting Traffic is included on our Advanced Google Analytics Training course.

Nikki Rae from Fresh Egg, as usual, provided us with an entertaining presentation – this time on Custom Variables in Google Analytics at Brighton SEO conference on Friday organised by Kelvin Newman of  Site Visibility.

Custom Variables allow you to get more details and tailored results Google Analytics, allowing you to define additional segments to apply to your visitors other than the ones already provided by Analytics.

A good example of where this would be useful is the case study presented by Annabel Hodges AKA @searchpanda (will write this one up later so keep posted) where she had a site that was being used by teachers and students, she could have used two logins on the site – one for teachers and one for students these different logins could be variables that could be used to create two segments in Google Anlalytics. These are User Defined variables.

What is interesting to Google Analytics specialists like Nikki is that Custom Variables allow you to set session level segments, which will stick to the visitor while they are active on the site, and page level segments, which correspond to pageviews and events on the site. This allows you to get much more detailed with the information you’re gathering and storing in the custom variable. For example, you could separate different sections of the site by using the page level scope, or you could track if a visitor has completed a particular action during their session with the session level scope.

The different levels of interaction that can be used to find out more about your users behaviour are:

1. The Visitor; such as the browser or mobile phone operated by a person.
2. The Session; what happens during the period of time during which the visitor is active on the site.
3. The Page; activity on a page like a click on a movie button or an add to a shopping cart

Nikki got members of the audience to participate in an amusing demonstration.

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Tags

advanced google analytics training, google, Google Analytics, Google Analytics Course, Google Analytics Training, seo training

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