Google Analytics - Processing & configuration

These two components work together to organize and transform the data that you collect into the information you see in your reports.

Processing data and applying your configuration settings

During processing, there are four major transformations that happen to the data. You can control parts of these transformations using the configuration settings in your Properties and Views.

• First, Google Analytics organizes the hits you’ve collected into users and sessions. There is a standard set of rules that Google Analytics follows to differentiate users and sessions, but you can customize some of these rules through your configuration settings.
• Second, data from other sources can be joined with data collected via the tracking code. For example, you can configure Google Analytics to import data from Google AdWords, Google AdSense or Google Webmaster Tools. You can even configure Google Analytics to import data from other non-Google systems.
• Third, Google Analytics processing will modify your data according to any configuration rules you’ve added. These configurations tell Google Analytics what specific data to include or exclude from your reports, or change the way the data’s formatted.
• Finally, the data goes through a process called “aggregation.” During this step, Google Analytics prepares the data for analysis by organizing it in meaningful ways and storing it in database tables. This way, your reports can be generated quickly from the database tables whenever you need them.

How hits are organized by users

First, let’s talk about how Google Analytics creates users. The first time a device loads your content and a hit is recorded, Google Analytics creates a random, unique ID that is associated with the device. Each unique ID is considered to be a unique user in Google Analytics. This unique ID is sent to Google Analytics in each hit, and every time a new ID is detected, Google Analytics counts a New User. When Google Analytics sees an existing ID in a hit, it counts a Returning User.

How hits are organized into sessions

A session in Google Analytics is a collection of interactions, or hits, from a specific user during a defined period of time. These interactions can include pageviews, events or e-commerce transactions.

A single user can have multiple sessions. Those sessions can occur on the same day, or over several days, weeks, or months. As soon as one session ends, there is then an opportunity to start a new session. But how does Google Analytics know that a session has ended?

By default, a session ends after 30 minutes of inactivity

Importing data into Google Analytics

The most common way to get data into Google Analytics is through your tracking code, but you can also add data from other sources. By adding data into Google Analytics, you can give more context to your analysis.

There are two ways to add data into your Google Analytics account without using the tracking code: through account linking and through Data Import. Both are managed via your Configuration settings in the Admin section of Google Analytics. Any data that you add from these sources will be processed along with all the hits you collect from the tracking code

Account linking

You can link various Google products directly to Google Analytics via your account settings. This includes:

• Google AdWords
• Google AdSense
• Google Webmaster Tools

Data Import

In addition to account linking, you can add data to Google Analytics using the Data Import feature. This might include advertising data, customer data, product data, or any other data.

To import data into Google Analytics there must a “key” that exists both in the data that Google Analytics collects and in the data you want to import.

There are two ways to import data into Google Analytics:

• Dimension Widening : With Dimension Widening, you can import just about any data into Google Analytics
• Cost Data Import : The other kind of data import is called Cost Data Import. You use this feature specifically to add data that shows the amount of money you spent on your non-Google advertising. Importing cost data lets Google Analytics calculate the return-on-investment of your non-Google ads

Transforming & Aggregating Data

An important part of processing is data transformation and aggregation

Common configuration settings: 

• Filters : Filters provide a flexible way you can modify the data within each view. You can use them to exclude data, include data, or actually change how the data looks in your reports. Filters help you transform the data so it’s better aligned with your reporting needs.

• Goals : Another way to transform your data is to set up Goals. When you set up Goals, Google Analytics creates new metrics for your reports

• Channel Grouping and Content Grouping : Grouping is another way you can transform your data. With grouping, you can aggregate certain pieces of data together so you can analyze the collective performance. You can create two types of groups in Google Analytics: Channel groups and Content groups.

Data aggregation

All of your configuration settings, including Filters, Goals, and Grouping, are applied to your data before it goes through aggregation, the final step of data processing.

During aggregation, Google Analytics creates and organizes your report dimensions into tables, called aggregate tables. Google Analytics pre-calculates your reporting metrics for each value of a dimension and stores them in the corresponding table. When you open a Google Analytics report, a query is sent to the aggregate tables that are full of this prepared data, and returns the specific dimensions and metrics for the report. Storing data in these tables makes it faster for your reports to access data when you request it.