Transforming data using con guration rules
In Google Analytics, you can setup data con guration rules that determine how your data will be processed. This
includes implementing features like data lters, goals, data grouping, Custom Dimensions, Custom Metrics, and
imported data that can help you better de ne and analyze the data in your reports.
Data Filters
As we discussed in Google Analytics for Beginners, you can set a lter on a view that can exclude particular data,
only include particular data, or modify the data during processing. This helps you align the data that shows up in
your reports with your business needs. Filters are essentially “rules” that Google Analytics applies to the data
during processing. If the “ lter type” is true, Google Analytics will apply the lter to the data. If the lter type is
false, Google Analytics won’t apply the lter.
There are two reasons you might want to apply lters. You may need to transform the data that shows up in a
view. For example, you might want to include only data from a particular country in a view devoted to reporting on
that country. Or you might want to exclude any internal employee tra c from a view reporting on customer data.
The lters you choose to implement will depend on your speci c measurement objectives, so it’s important to
plan what data you want to collect before you set up your lters. We’ll discuss lters in more detail a little later.
Goals
There are four types of Goals in Google Analytics:
• Destination (or Pageview) Goals are based on when a user views a particular page on your website.
• Event Goals are when a particular action de ned as an event is triggered.
These are the two most common types of Goals, but you can also set up additional goals to measure user
engagement:
• Duration Goals are based on sessions that last over a set amount of time.
• “Pages or Screens per Session” Goals are based on whether a user has viewed a set amount of pages in a
session.
A conversion is counted once per session per con gured goal. So if you’ve de ned an Event goal of downloading
a PDF, and the user downloads the PDF ve times in the same session, this action will only count as one
conversion.
During processing, when Analytics detects hit data for a goal, it calculates the goal completions, goal value (if
you’ve indicated one), and goal conversion rate, and includes these in your reports.
Note that in Google Analytics, conversions and Ecommerce transactions are credited to the last campaign,
search, or ad that referred the user.
Channel and Content Groupings
You may want to organize the data you collect in different ways than the standard Google Analytics reports.
Channel Groupings let you organize your data into customized channels, while Content Grouping lets you
aggregate metrics within reports based on the organization of your website.
Custom Dimensions and Metrics
You learned about dimensions and metrics in Google Analytics for Beginners. But you also can create your own
dimensions and metrics in Analytics called “Custom Dimensions” and “Custom Metrics.” Custom Dimensions
help you de ne a group of metric data that’s speci c to your business and then apply that as a dimension across
your reports.
• Custom Dimensions can be used as a secondary dimension in standard reports, a primary dimension in a
Custom Report, or as a segment. We’ll discuss Custom Reports and segments later in the course.
• “Custom Metrics” can be collected for any standard dimension or Custom Dimension that can’t be measured
by any prede ned metric in Google Analytics.
You can also upload your own data to Google Analytics including hit data, extended data that is stored in a
Custom Dimension or Custom Metric, and Summary data that lets you sum up any uploaded metrics. Typically,
this information is exported from an o ine business tool like a content management system or customer
relationship management system into text les.
Data Impo
Data Import lets you combine this o ine data to the hit data that Analytics collects from your website. This will
allow you to include your own business-speci c data you collected independently to give you more context and
insight in your reports.
These are only a few of the features you can con gure to help customize the data you collect for your business.
Note that you’ll need to set up these data con guration rules prior to your data being processed.
Once data has been processed, you can’t retroactively apply con guration settings to that data. We’ll discuss how
to set up these con gurations and use them for analysis a little later in the course.
