Custom Variables

Google Analytics (GA) is installed and is capturing data on your website and you’re reviewing monthly hits, bounces and traffic sources. While that type of data is useful information for almost any site, your site is unique, your customer is unique, and so is your data. If your site is anything more than a brochure-style site, chances are you would benefit from the use of custom variables.

Custom variables allow you to extend GA’s metrics and dimensions with data specific to your website.

Usage Examples

Custom variables can give you tremendous insight on traffic patterns and behavior. For example:

• Monitor Landing Pages – segregate traffic by landing page – does one landing page outperform another?
• Monitor “How did you find us?” data – if you request this information when a user fills out a form or registers for your site, you could capture this and segregate the users by that data later.
• Track any Demographic data
• Define a hierarchy for your website, categorizing pages to review traffic patterns and engagement within a category. Track your site’s news section vs. the about us section; events vs. services, etc.
• Track whether or not a user has logged into your site to compare engagement, conversion rate, etc.
• Track Coupon/Promotional codes – see how a user’s behavior changes when they have a special offer. • Track Payment/Shipping methods – do users that purchase via PayPal spend more?
• Track Repeat purchasers – how does a repeat customer differ from a new one? Do they spend less time on the site or more? Spend more or less money on average?

Variable Scope

There are 5 Custom Variable slots available in GA and when each variable is set, it’s “lifetime” (called Variable Scope) is also defined. There are three options available for a variable’s persistence:

1. Visitor level – this type of variable persistence will save the variable on the user’s machine for 2 years. Each time the user visits the site, the 2 year counter will reset. The only way this cookie goes away is to be deleted, or for the visitor to not come to the site for over 2 years. This type of cookie is good for tracking previous customers or anything else that will be consistent for the user. Please remember that this variable is machine specific, not necessarily user specific.
2. Visit or “Session” level – this type of variable persistence will exist throughout the visit. When the user leaves, the variable is reset on their next visit. This is perfect for tracking payment/shipping methods, coupon codes, whether the user is logged in, and landing pages. Each of these events occurs once per visit.
3. Page level – this type of variable persists only while the user is viewing a page. This type of variable persistence would be used to define categories within your site. Each page belongs to a category.

Of course, any variable’s persistence can be cut short by simply overwriting the variable with another. It’s critical to good data capture that you don’t overwrite your custom variables inadvertently. Having a good plan for each variable slot is invaluable.

Reporting

Once your custom variables are in place, you can view the results under the visitors tab in GA, or setup up Custom Segments to quickly and easily view data filtered by a custom variable.

Need Help?

Cool Blue’s Certified Google Analytics Experts can help you plan your custom variables, implement them, and setup segmentation for viewing the data. Cool Blue can also teach you how to find this data, on-the-fly, so you can make the most out of your Analytics.