Google Analytics (legacy) – traffic analysis

Google Analytics is the well-known web analytics service from Google. The product is aimed more at marketers than webmasters or technologists, supporting integration with AdWords and other e-commence features.

Installation

To start using the Google Analytics (legacy) integration, you must have installed the django-analytical package and have added the analytical application to INSTALLED_APPS in your project settings.py file. See Installation and configuration for details.

Next you need to add the Google Analytics template tag to your templates. This step is only needed if you are not using the generic analytical.* tags. If you are, skip to Configuration.

The Google Analytics tracking code is inserted into templates using a template tag. Load the google_analytics template tag library and insert the google_analytics tag. Because every page that you want to track must have the tag, it is useful to add it to your base template. Insert the tag at the bottom of the HTML head:

{% load google_analytics %}
<html>
<head>
...
{% google_analytics %}
</head>
...

Configuration

Before you can use the Google Analytics integration, you must first set your website property ID. If you track multiple domains with the same code, you also need to set-up the domain. Finally, you can add custom segments for Google Analytics to track.

Setting the property ID

Every website you track with Google Analytics gets its own property ID, and the google_analytics tag will include it in the rendered Javascript code. You can find the web property ID on the overview page of your account. Set GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_PROPERTY_ID in the project settings.py file:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_PROPERTY_ID = 'UA-XXXXXX-X'

If you do not set a property ID, the tracking code will not be rendered.

Tracking multiple domains

The default code is suitable for tracking a single domain. If you track multiple domains, set the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_TRACKING_STYLE setting to one of the analytical.templatetags.google_analytics.TRACK_* constants:

Constant Value Description
TRACK_SINGLE_DOMAIN 1 Track one domain.
TRACK_MULTIPLE_SUBDOMAINS 2 Track multiple subdomains of the same top domain (e.g. fr.example.com and nl.example.com).
TRACK_MULTIPLE_DOMAINS 3 Track multiple top domains (e.g. example.fr and example.nl).

As noted, the default tracking style is TRACK_SINGLE_DOMAIN.

When you track multiple (sub)domains, django-analytical needs to know what domain name to pass to Google Analytics. If you use the contrib sites app, the domain is automatically picked up from the current Site instance. Otherwise, you may either pass the domain to the template tag through the context variable google_analytics_domain (fallback: analytical_domain) or set it in the project settings.py file using GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_DOMAIN (fallback: ANALYTICAL_DOMAIN).

Display Advertising

Display Advertising allows you to view Demographics and Interests reports, add Remarketing Lists and support DoubleClick Campain Manager integration.

You can enable Display Advertising features by setting the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_DISPLAY_ADVERTISING configuration setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_DISPLAY_ADVERTISING = True

By default, display advertising features are disabled.

Tracking site speed

You can view page load times in the Site Speed report by setting the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SITE_SPEED configuration setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SITE_SPEED = True

By default, page load times are not tracked.

Internal IP addresses

Usually you do not want to track clicks from your development or internal IP addresses. By default, if the tags detect that the client comes from any address in the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_INTERNAL_IPS setting, the tracking code is commented out. It takes the value of ANALYTICAL_INTERNAL_IPS by default (which in turn is INTERNAL_IPS by default). See Identifying authenticated users for important information about detecting the visitor IP address.

Custom variables

As described in the Google Analytics custom variables documentation page, you can define custom segments. Using template context variables google_analytics_var1 through google_analytics_var5, you can let the google_analytics tag pass custom variables to Google Analytics automatically. You can set the context variables in your view when your render a template containing the tracking code:

context = RequestContext({'google_analytics_var1': ('gender', 'female'),
                          'google_analytics_var2': ('visit', '1', SCOPE_SESSION)})
return some_template.render(context)

The value of the context variable is a tuple (name, value, [scope]). The scope parameter is one of the analytical.templatetags.google_analytics.SCOPE_* constants:

Constant Value Description
SCOPE_VISITOR 1 Distinguishes categories of visitors across multiple sessions.
SCOPE_SESSION 2 Distinguishes different visitor experiences across sessions.
SCOPE_PAGE 3 Defines page-level activity.

The default scope is SCOPE_PAGE.

You may want to set custom variables in a context processor that you add to the TEMPLATE_CONTEXT_PROCESSORS list in settings.py:

def google_analytics_segment_language(request):
    try:
        return {'google_analytics_var3': request.LANGUAGE_CODE}
    except AttributeError:
        return {}

Just remember that if you set the same context variable in the RequestContext constructor and in a context processor, the latter clobbers the former.

Anonymize IPs

You can enable the IP anonymization feature by setting the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_ANONYMIZE_IP configuration setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_ANONYMIZE_IP = True

This may be mandatory for deployments in countries that have a firm policies concerning data privacy (e.g. Germany).

By default, IPs are not anonymized.

Sample Rate

You can configure the Sample Rate feature by setting the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SAMPLE_RATE configuration setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SAMPLE_RATE = 10

The value is a percentage and can be between 0 and 100 and can be a string or decimal value of with up to two decimal places.

Site Speed Sample Rate

You can configure the Site Speed Sample Rate feature by setting the GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SITE_SPEED_SAMPLE_RATE configuration setting:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_SITE_SPEED_SAMPLE_RATE = 10

The value is a percentage and can be between 0 and 100 and can be a string or decimal value of with up to two decimal places.