使用Google Analytics跟踪变量

Question

I'm extremely new to Google Analytics on Android.

I've searched quite a bit for this, but I'm not sure I have understood it correctly, but here goes :

I want Google Analytics to track a particular variable in my app.

So for instance, a variable a has a separate value for every user of the app, is it possible for me to display the average of the value of the variable in a Google Analytics dashboard ?

As per my understanding goes, we can do this using Custom Dimensions and Metrics.

I haven't been able to find any tutorial for the same.

I'd be grateful if someone could help me with a tutorial or point me to something other than the developer pages from Google.

Thank You!

Answer 1

It is possible to send additional data to Google Analytics, using either Custom Dimensions or Custom Metrics.

Custom Dimensions are used for labels and identifiers that you will later use to separate your data. For example, you might have a Custom Dimension that tracks log-in status. This would allow you to break down your reports and compare logged-in traffic to not logged-in. These can contain text; while AB testing your site you might set up a custom dimension with the options 'alpha' and 'beta'. They can also contain numeric values, such as the time '08:15', or a unique identifier that you've generated (although you should be careful to follow Google's advice here, lest you include PII and rick account deletion https://developers.google.com/analytics/solutions/crm-integration#user_id ).

Custom Metrics are used for numeric variables such as engagement time, or shopping cart value. They are a lot like custom dimensions, but are intended to be compared across dimensions. For example, you could compare the shopping basket value of your Organic users to those who come in via a paid link.

If you wanted to calculate an average, you would also require a calculated metric. This takes two metrics you already have, and produces a third. For example, if you site was all about instant engagement, and you wanted to track the time before the first click event on each page, you could set up that event click time as a custom metric. But this would only tell you what the total is; surely more customers are a good thing, but they make that total go up! So you set up a calculated metric that divides this total by the number of page views, giving you a value per page viewed.

There's a great guide by Simo Ahava about tracking Content Engagement that includes instructions for setting up Custom Metrics and Calculated Metrics. http://www.simoahava.com/analytics/track-content-engagement-part-2/

However, I should warn you that his guide uses Google Tag Manager, which greatly simplifies the process of adding such customisation to your tags. If you don't want to take that step, you will have to code it manually, as recommended by Google's support https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2709828?hl=en

Answer 2

UPDATE

Firebase Analytics is now Google's recommended solution for mobile app analytics. It's user and event-centric and comes with unlimited app event reporting, cross-network attribution, and postbacks.

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Older Answer

You may use GA Event Tracking

Check this guide and this one to check rate limits before you try this.

Events are a useful way to collect data about a user's interaction with interactive components of your app, like button presses or the use of a particular item in a game.

An event consists of four fields that you can use to describe a user's interaction with your app content:

Field Name Type Required Description Category String Yes The event category Action String Yes The event action Label String No The event label Value Long No The event value

To send an event to Google Analytics, use HitBuilders.EventBuilder and send the hit, as shown in this example:

// Get tracker.
Tracker t = ((AnalyticsSampleApp) getActivity().getApplication()).getTracker(
    TrackerName.APP_TRACKER);
// Build and send an Event.
tracker.send(new HitBuilders.EventBuilder()
    .setCategory("Achievement")
    .setAction("Earned")
    .setLabel("5 Dragons Rescued")
    .setValue(1)
    .build());

On GA console you can see something like this:

where event value is

and avg value is

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If you want to track users with specific attributes/traits/metadata then custom dimensions can be used to send this type of data to Google Analytics.

See Set up or edit custom dimensions (Help Center) and then update the custom dimension value as follows:

 // Get tracker.
 Tracker t = ((AnalyticsSampleApp) getActivity().getApplication()).getTracker(
    TrackerName.APP_TRACKER);
 t.setScreenName("Home Screen");

 // Send the custom dimension value with a screen view.
 // Note that the value only needs to be sent once.
 t.send(new HitBuilders.ScreenViewBuilder()
    .setCustomMetric(1, 5)
    .build()
 );