Author: Peter

Peter holds a Google Analytics Individual Qualification (GAIQ) and Google Tag Manager certification. He has 10+ years of experience with Marketing analytics in organizations and websites of all sizes. When he isn't building BI dashboards he chases his daughters around Portland Oregon.

Building Power BI Connections to Google Analytics

I’m currently connecting Power BI with the Google Analytics and Salesforce.  It’s much simpler than extracting SQL tables via GA API, but there are some data pitfalls to be mindful of.

I’ll document extracting and cleaning data in Google Analytics and bringing tables into Power BI.  I’ll show some simple relationships created between web data and external sources, such as a CRM objects.

Stay tuned for a post update.

Debugging Analytics Request Using Browser Developer Tools

Knowing how an analytics tag fires and the type of information it contains is a crucial aspect to configuring analytics.

This brief post details how to debug typical analytics requests using a browser developer tool to view and analyze the analytics request.  Continue reading “Debugging Analytics Request Using Browser Developer Tools”

Google Data Studio: An Introduction to Custom Defined Calculated Fields

Google Data Studio allows you to create customized calculated fields to endlessly manipulate data in reports.

Google has released Google Data Studio, a powerful tool for combining data from different sources with endless options for visualizing and manipulating data in reports.

In this post, I explain how to create customized calculated fields that can be used in Data Studio reports.  Calculated fields appear as objects in the data source, and can be added to charts, filters and controls in the report interface. A calculated field can even be used as a formula reference in another calculated field.

Continue reading “Google Data Studio: An Introduction to Custom Defined Calculated Fields”

Adding a Data Visualization to a Webpage

Adding a Data Visualization to HTML Opens Up Your Reporting Capabilities

This post shows how to add a data visualization to any HTML webpage. By adding a script reference and a data array to the <head>, you can create stunning visuals of data using all types of chart options. Continue reading “Adding a Data Visualization to a Webpage”

Run a JavaScript Function in Google Tag Manager

In Google Tag Manager, you can create variables using JavaScript to grab an element from an app or page.

In this tutorial, I’ll show how to execute a JavaScript as a user defined variable in GTM grabbing a value from an HTML element.

Continue reading “Run a JavaScript Function in Google Tag Manager”

Create Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics with Tag Manager

Custom Google Reports

Google Analytics has thousands of metric and dimension combinations, but they can’t always measure the things that are unique to your business. Adding a custom dimension is a simple way to collect data that measures your unique values.

This post demonstrates how to define custom dimensions in Google Analytics and collect the user defined variable via a Google Tag Manager fire, ultimately building a custom analytics report to display the value.

Continue reading “Create Custom Dimensions in Google Analytics with Tag Manager”