How to query google analytics api using the google api ruby gem?

Question

The documentation of the google api ruby client lacks of practical examples, it only documents the classes and methods, so it's very hard to guess how should we use the gem in real life. For example, I'm trying to obtain all purchases from enhanced ecommerce to see where they came from (Acquisition Channel or Channel Grouping), but im only interested on transactions that took 5 sessions to convert the transaction ( our unconvinced clients ).

Answer 1

First you will need your analytics view_id, can be obtained in the url at the end, after the letter p

Then you need to export the route to the credentials: In your terminal:

export GOOGLE_APPLICATION_CREDENTIALS = 'folder/yourproject-a91723dsa8974.json'

For more info about credentials see google-auth-gem documentation

After setting this, you can query the api like this

require 'googleauth'
require 'google/apis/analyticsreporting_v4'

scopes = ['https://www.googleapis.com/auth/analytics']
date_from = 10.days.ago
date_to = 2.days.ago
authorization = Google::Auth.get_application_default(scopes)
analytics = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::AnalyticsReportingService.new
analytics.authorization = authorization
view_id = '189761131'
date_range = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::DateRange.new(start_date: date_from.strftime('%Y-%m-%d'), end_date: date_to.strftime('%Y-%m-%d'))
metric = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::Metric.new(expression: 'ga:transactions')
transaction_id_dimension = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::Dimension.new(name: 'ga:transactionID')
adquisition_dimension = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::Dimension.new(name: 'ga:channelGrouping')
filters = 'ga:sessionsToTransaction==5'

request = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::GetReportsRequest.new(
  report_requests: [Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::ReportRequest.new(
    view_id: view_id,
    metrics: [metric],
    dimensions: [transaction_id_dimension, adquisition_dimension],
    date_ranges: [date_range],
    filters_expression: filters
  )]
)
response = analytics.batch_get_reports(request)
response.reports.first.data.rows.each do |row|
  dimensions = row.dimensions
  puts "TransactionID: #{dimensions[0]} - Channel: #{dimensions[1]}"
end

note filters_expression: filters

Where filters variable is in the form of ga:medium==cpc,ga:medium==organic;ga:source==bing,ga:source==google

Where commas ( , ) mean OR and semicolons ( ; ) mean AND (where OR takes precedence over AND )

you can check the query explorer to play around with filters.

Here is filters documentation

If the report brings more than 1000 rows (default max rows), a next_page_token attribute will appear.

response.reports.first.next_page_token
=> "1000"

You will have to store that number to use it in the next ReportRequest

next_request = Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::GetReportsRequest.new(
  report_requests: [Google::Apis::AnalyticsreportingV4::ReportRequest.new(
    view_id: view_id,
    metrics: [metric],
    dimensions: [transaction_id_dimension, adquisition_dimension],
    date_ranges: [date_range],
    filters_expression: filters,
    page_token: "1000"
  )]
)

until

next_response.reports.first.next_page_toke
=> nil

Alternatively you can change the default page size of the report request by adding page_size: 10_000 for example.