The first-click, linear, time-decay, and position-based attribution models will be removed from the attribution reports, property-level reporting-model setting, and Admin API. Cross-channel data-driven attribution, cross-channel last click, and Ads preferred last click will continue to be available.

You will start to see the impact of these changes starting in May. In May any newly created properties will no longer be able to select these models.

As per google: Rules-based attribution models assign value to each advertising touchpoint based on predefined rules. These models don’t provide the flexibility needed to adapt to evolving consumer journeys. Data-driven attribution uses advanced AI to understand the impact each touchpoint has on a conversion. That’s why we made data-driven attribution the default attribution model in Google Analytics 4 and Google Ads. For these reasons, first click, linear, time decay, and position-based attribution models across Google Analytics 4 will be going away.

He wrote in his LinkedIn message:

“Now that’s interesting. Haven’t seen that screen in GA4 before!

Anyone else out there seeing this experiences icon and tab on the UI like me? Have I struck gold on a new beta? Is this a bug?”

and here is the screenshot her shared

Another Twitter thread mentioned that this screenshot was shared by a few others on LinkedIn.

Now, we looked at several of our accounts but did not find “Experience” in any of them. So maybe some of the users who saw are part of A/B testing or a beta release.

So seems like Google Optimize is not dead, it will likely become part of GA4.

Can you check your account and see if you have this feature in your GA4 account?

In addition, a new limit on the number of sub-properties allowed on a property was introduced (learn more). This limit is set at 400; it may be increased via a request to support. These requests will be closely scrutinized and approved on a case-by-case basis. Subproperties are only available in GA4 360, the paid version of Google Analytics.

1. Using IP address or range of IP addresses
2. Using a custom variable and cookie when internal IP addresses are dynamic or not-known

To exclude traffic by IP address

There are two ways to do it

1. Using a “Predefined” filter which has options to Exclude Traffic
2. Using a Custom filter

1. Using a “Predefined” filter which has options to Exclude Traffic

Choose the options as shown below

• Predefined Filter
• Exclude
• Traffic from the IP Addresses
• That are equal to
• Enter the value of IP address
• Provide a name to filter and save it.

Note: In this case you need to enter the exact IP address else it won’t work.  Since you cannot enter any partial IP address, only “that are equal to option”

If you really want to use “ Begins with”, “Contains” , “End With” or IP address range then go over to “Custom Filter” or click on IPV6 option that allows you to enter regular expressions.

2. Using Custom Filter

In the filter opinion, choose “Custom Filter” instead of predefined.

On Custom Filter tab, choose following options

• Exclude
• Visitor IP address
• Enter the IP you want to exclude or the range as specified by a Regular Expression
• Name your Filter and save it

Note: Google has a tool to help you build a regular expression if needed

http://support.google.com/googleanalytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=55572

To Exclude Traffic by custom variable or cookie
How to Exclude Internal Traffic from Google Analytics when Internal IP Address is Dynamic

Add this has it’s own analytics that allows you to see what social share option e.g. Facebook, email, etc are visitors using. However, since you are already using Google Analytics, won’t it be nice if you can see your reports right within you Google Analytics reports.  That’s exactly what AddThis and Google Analytics integration does.

Add Google Analytics AddThis Integration

You don’t need anything fancy in Google Analytics.

1. Create an account at AddThis
2. Get your code
3. Add following lines of code within your add this code
4. <script type=”text/javascript”>
   var addthis_config = {
   data_ga_property: ‘UA-XXXXXXX-X’,
   data_ga_social : true
   };
   </script>

Here is full sample code:

<!– Google Analytics BEGIN –>
<script type=”text/javascript”>
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push([‘_setAccount’, ‘UA-xxxxxxx-x’]);
_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’]);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>
<!– Google Analytics END –>

<!– AddThis Button BEGIN –>
<a href=”http://addthis.com/bookmark.php?v=250″>
<img src=”http://s7.addthis.com/static/btn/v2/lg-share-en.gif” width=”125″ height=”16″ alt=”Bookmark and Share” style=”border:0″/>
</a>

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var addthis_config = {
data_ga_property: ‘UA-xxxxxx-x’,
data_ga_social: true
};
</script>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”http://s7.addthis.com/js/250/addthis_widget.js#pubid=gapremium”></script>

Here is what you will see in Google Analytics

Real time Anaytics  in Google Analytics provides you a view of what is currently going on your site.  Current version of Google Analytics has 3 set of reports that it shows real time data for

1. Location – Location of current visitors on your site
2. Traffic Sources – It shows you the list of referral and keywords for the visitors currently on our sites
3. Content – List of pages that the visitors are currently viewing

How To Get This Report

All the users of Google Analytics Latest version have this report enabled. So if you are using old version of Google Analytics, just switch to the new version and you will have this report.  It is under “Home” tab (see image below).

Uses of Real Time Analytics

[adsense]

Few cases where you might want to (or be tempted to) use Real-Time Analytics

• You launched a new campaign e.g. paid search, email newsletter, TV ad , and would like to see how people are reacting to those campaigns.
• You added new promotions on your site and want to see how visitors are reacting to those promotions, so that you can tweak those promotions in real time.
• You added new stories, links etc. and want to see if anybody is clicking on them so that you can make some changes based on instant feedback. I can see the usefulness of this feature for news and media sites.
• You made some technical changes e.g. changed tracking code and want to see if those pages are being recorded in Google Analytics. Real time reports can serve as QA tools.
• You launched a new feature on your site, launched a video, deployed a new game and would like to know if your visitors are using it or not.

Event tracking requires

1. Calling trackEvent function
2. trackEvent function can take up to 5 parameters, of those 2 are required

What are those parameters for trackEvent function

1. category (required)The name you supply for the group of objects you want to track. It can be anything but be consistent with whatever you decide to use.I suggest using “Outbound Links”  for outbound link tracking
2. action (required)A name for the type of user interaction for that event.  But again you can use anything you like e.g. “Click”,“Partner Link Click” or whatever makes sense for your business.I suggest that if you have different categories of link then use the category name that defines those links.
3. label (optional)A string to provide additional description for that event.I suggest using the actual name of the links e.g. gapremium.com, google.com etc.
4. value (optional)An integer that you can use to provide numerical data about the user event.You can leave this value in case of outbound links or use 1 unless you want to give more weights to certain links.
5. non-interaction (optional)Boolean value, set as true or falsetrue= not a valid interaction, count it as a bouncefalse = considered a valid interaction (default)If you DO NOT set this value then an outbound click will be considered as a valid interaction thus WON’T BE COUNTED in BOUNCE RATE.Suggestion: Since you really do want people to click on outbound links, set this value to true e.g. it is a valid hit and not a bounce.

[adsense]

How to call it?

_gaq.push([_trackEvent(category, action, label, value, noninteraction));

Example:

_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ‘Outbound Links’, ‘Partner Links’, ‘gapremium.com’, 1, true]);

 <a href=”http://www.gapremium.com” onClick=”_gaq.push([‘_trackEvent’, ‘Outbound Links’, ‘Partner Links’, ‘gapremium.com’, 1, true]);”>gapremium.com</a>

in this case gapremium.com is the external site.

Use Custom Filter

Custom filter allows to exclude traffic by Cookie Content set via setVar.

To exclude traffic from dynamic IP addresses, you can use a JavaScript function to set a cookie on all internal computers and browsers. You’ll then need to create a filter to exclude any traffic that has that cookie set.

How to exclude traffic by cookie:

1. Create a new page on your site that sets the Custom Variable (User Defined) value in a cookie. The way you do is as follows<body onLoad=”javascript: _gaq.push([‘_setVar’, ‘Exclude’]);”> – Note this code is in addition to your Google Analytics tracking code on your page
2.  Let’s call this page do-not-track-me.html
3.  Visit http://www.yourdomian.com/do-not-track-me.html page from all computers and browsers that you would like to exclude the traffic from i.e. all your internal computers and browsers. (Once set, you can check this value by looking at _utmv cookie on your computer)
4. Create an Exclude filter to remove data from visitors with this customer variable value:

Filter Type: Custom filter > Exclude
Filter Field: User Defined
Filter Pattern: Exclude
Case Sensitive: No

Note: If at any point you override the cookie or delete the cookie, your traffic will no longer be excluded.

Google Analytics has released a new feature that will let you filter out known spiders and bots.  Here are few things to keep in mind

1. The data will only filter spiders and bots from the day you enable this setting. It won’t be allied to the data already processed.
2. Since this will filter out bots, you might notice a drop in your visits, page views etc.

Here are the steps to filter out Spiders and Bots

1. Go to the Admin section of your Google Analytics report
2. Click  “View” section and choose the right report view
3. Click  on “ View Settings” (see image 1 below)
4. Check the box under “Bot Filtering” which says “Exclude all hits from known bots and spiders” (see image 2 below)
5. Click “Save” button at the bottom and you are done.

Posted in: Implementation