If you missed the Google Analytics blog post a couple weeks ago, you missed a big announcement on how Event Tracking and two other features are now available through the API. We are positively thrilled about this announcement as it gives us more power to customize data!
We are constantly asked how to measure user interactions on a client’s website. Our typical recommendation is via Event Tracking but the problem with that is users still have to log into Google Analytics to see the data. These days we are finding more and more clients are looking for custom reporting/dashboards and want to see data all in one nicely wrapped package (we even add a bow). Using the API you can make that happen and now with Event Tracking the data available to those reports just increased in value.
Another feature that was announced was the ability to extract website navigation information that is provided in the current Google Analytics web interface. This again helps us as consultants address other common questions from clients: “How can I find out where visitors go on my website? What are the common paths people take?” Like all things with the API, allowing you to pull this data enables you to be able to manipulate and customize it. We find that some of our clients aren’t impressed with the web interface’s visualization of site navigation so now we can impress them with their own customized version. The last feature announced was a simple upgrade that won’t impact a ton of API users but is still helpful moving forward. The length of filter expressions was increased to 128 characters. <sarcasm> Whoopie, yee ha, YES! </sarcasm>. Ok, so we’re not bouncing off the walls on this one but this change does allow for more complex queries for all you nerds out there. You know who you are.
