How to get the most information from a tracking pixel, google analytics, and emails

Question

So I am trying to track more information from our order confirmation emails or shipping confirmation emails. I have read online that tracking pixels can track IP addresses, devices, locations, and so on. I have added something like the following code to our emails to track email opens:

<img src="https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XXXXXXXX-X&t=event&cid=test&cn=test&cs=email&ec=pixel&ea=open&el=my_email" width=1 height=1 style="display:block;">

Is there a way to get any more data using this method? Or do I have to use some other service in combination with the code in the emails?

Answer 1

Is there a way to get any more data using this method?

Sure, manually crafting GA requests is called measurement protocol in Google Analytics jargon. You can add/override a wide list of fields, here's the complete list from the documentation for référence:

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/parameters

And an article, also from official Google docs, related to email tracking with measurement prorocol (event though it is quite short):

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/email

Bé careful for the value used with the cid parameter, as it is used to.discriminate between clients. Using the same value everywhere will count every open as coming from the same user. But I believe the value "test" provided here is just for the sake of the example.

Please also be careful not to send any PII data to GA (name, postal adress, ...)