What does this Block do for me?

(1) Replication + More - Replication of existing GA reports and dashboards, plus additional value-add analysis, accelerates time to value with a full plug-and-play model

(2) Expertise - Leverage analytics expertise of Looker + Google Analytics product teams

(3) Central Data Platform - Take advantage of Looker's data platform functionality, including data actions, scheduling, permissions, alerting, parameterization (each user can only see their own data), and more

Google Analytics Premium Data Structure

• Google Analytics Premium (GA360) data is exported (in this case, through Transfer Services) in the format of a single flat table with a new entry for each session. Rather than creating new tables for each entity attribute, Google places aggregate or attribute information in nested fields in the single tabel. For more information on Nested Fields, and why Google chooses to use them, please refer to this overview on Why Nesting is so Cool.

• There are two types of nested fields: repeated fields and non-repeated fields. In Standard SQL, both are stored as ARRAY's, which can contain both simple and complex data types. Non-repeated fields can be unnested, and joined using a one_to_one relationship. Repeated fields are unnested, and joined on through a one_to_many join (see lines 30-34 of the ga_block view for an example). Please take note that brackets are used for non-repeated fields, and not used for repeated fields, in the join syntax. This is a critical element to working with nested fields in BigQuery.

• Google's documentation on the data included in the export can be found here.

• You can also find a cookbook of SQL queries for common questions in Google's documentation

Block Structure

• ga_block contains all join logic and all individual view files, dimensions, and measures. You'll notice each view file has an extension: required parameter, which is also why each table has a _base suffix. This means each file must be appended to another table to show up on the Explore page. These other tables are located in the ga_customize view. Documentation on extends can be found here.

• ga_customze: contains all the extended view files. If your organization uses any custom fields with Google Analytics, this is where you can insert those fields. In-line directions are provided in the code. It's important to note that, if you want to Explore a table, there must be an extends parameter under the correspdoning table in this view file. For example, if I wanted to explore trafficsource, I would add an extends: [trafficsource_base] parameter under view: trafficsource.

Necessary Customizations

• View:ga_customize line 19 parameter for sql_table_name must be customized to the users data_set.ga_session_*.

• Multiple Properties (Websites): If you have more than one website (property), you can choose to view all websites at the same time, or dynamically select the website for each query. You can also parameterize queries so that certain users can only see data for the websites they have permission to view. The field for website is called ga_sessions.hits.hits_sourcePropertyInfo, which can be found at the bottom of the ga_block file.

• Dashboards: Replace model: ga_connectors360 with your chosen name.

• Available Explores: Recall from above, that each extends field but must declared to allow users to Explore on a view.

Bringing in Custom User Segments and Goals

• Customer User Segments: Google Analytics provides great, out-of-the-box capabilities to create user segments based on up to 5 dimensions (e.g. demographic info, referral path, etc.). While these custom user segments are not exported to the GAP data set natively, it's easier, and more flexible, to recreate these segments in Looker. Simply create a dimension using a Case When statement, including all of the dimensions you'd like to filter on. Alternatively, you can create a filtered measure instead. Plus, you can include as many filters as you'd like to really hone in on specific user cohorts. Your assigned looker analyst or support chat can help you build in this logic if you get confused.

• Goals: Goal configured in Google Analytics Console are not natively exported into the BigQuery datasets. Similar to custom segments, we can recreate this logic in LookML, which allows for even greater flexibility, sophisticated analysis, and seamless shareability across all users. Examples of more sophisticated goals include:

  • Partial form completion – User fills out fills out the first page of a form but does not complete it
  • Condition on earlier steps – User completes a conversion immediately after interacting with a promotion
  • Condition on custom dimension – Goal was completed by a certain type of user

Connecting to Other Data Sources

The image below depicts the possible linkes between various Google and external data sources. Documentation on how to link each of these sources can also be found below.

• Doubleclick Campaign (Bid) Manager: Linking to GA360 - Follow the documentation here. Note: Requires admin permissions for both GA360 and DCM. Linking to YouTube - You can also enable tracking Ads and impression pixels to track impressions downstream (into YouTube for example) by following the documentation here and here.

• DoubleClick for Publishers: Linking to GA360 - This integration includes both AdSense and Ad Exchange, and requires work on the side of the Google Admin, as well as the creation of a tagging system using either self-built or Google service-provided tag managers. After tagging is enabled, the following steps can be found in Google’s Documentation. Once you’ve done this, be sure to include the AdWords data by adding the extends: [hits_publisher_base] beneath view: hits_publisher (on line 90 in ga_customize out-of-the-box)

• Adwords: Linking to GA360 - Connecting AdWords is fairly straightforward. Follow the instructions provided in Google’s documentation. Linking to YouTube: You can also link your AdWords account to YouTube as described here.

• YouTube: Linking to GA360 - Youtube content integration can cannot be tied natively with data exports. To workaround this, users can add YouTube pages to their Google Analytics console (via the GA GUI), then narrow down analysis to specific youtube channels via filters in Looker. Linking to AdWords: You can also link your AdWords account to YouTube as described here.

• CRMs (such as Salesforce) or Other Sources Google does not capture any PII, which means that user_id and/or client_id is unique to only Google Analytics Premium. This key is not shared, by default, across any of your CRM data, or any other data sources you're pulling from. To join this data, a common key must be created. There are several methods to accomplishing this, one of which Google has provided some documentation around. You can find a blog post, which provides an example joining firebase data to GA360 data, on Google's Cloud Blog.