Display ad impressions in Google Analytics was launched last year. The implementation is a synchronization of the Google analytics tracking code and Googles remarketing platform doubleclick. Its fairly simple and has many benefits.
I would rather call it a modification then an implementation and will apart from connecting your display impression conversions to Google Analytics also get the demographics and interests report. Please follow the steps below:
At the moment universal analytics does not support remarketing therefore this implementation can only be made with the ga.js Google analytics script.
1. Link Google Analytics to Google Adwords- You need to have one Google Adwords account linked to you Google Analytics account. Instructions for Linking Google Analytics to Google Adwords.
2. Add Display Advertiser Support. If you are using Google tag manager you simply select the box ””Add display Advertiser support” (one out of countless benefits of using Google tag manager).
If you are using the normal ga.js Google analytics script you need to update the code below (Googles instructions)
Replace this part:
ga.src = (’https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ’https://ssl’ : ’http://www’) + ’.google analytics.com/ga.js’;
with this part:
ga.src = (’https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ’https://’ : ’http://’) + ’stats.g.doubleclick.net/dc.js’;
The features
I find the main feature being the ability to track the impression assisted conversions. This data is found in the Multi-Channel Funnels report Top Conversion Path. Here you can see two new path elements, which indicate the presence of a display interaction.
- Display for Rich Media impressions with a movie symbol
- Display for static image impression with an eye symbol
In Google adwords Multi-Channel Funnel reports you will find three new dimensions
- Above the fold: Are the ads shown above the fold or not.
- Trueview: trueview will show the value ”yes” if a visitor has seen more then 30 seconds of the ad or to completion.
- Video played percent: This will tell you how much of the video is accually watched. The values are: “>=25%”, “>=50%”, “>=75%”, or “100%”.
(Problems with ?) Enabling Demographics & Interest Reports
When the tracking code modification is made you should also enable the demographics and interest reports which will give you statistics on age, gender and interest.
The demographics report
- Overview (overview of traffic by age and gender)
- Gender (traffic by gender)
- Age (traffic by age ranges)
The interests report
- Overview (overview of traffic by affinity and other categories)
- Affinity Categories (behavior by affinity categories)
- Other Categories (behavior by other interest categories.
Gaining this data is simply done in the tab (demography) in Google Analytics.
*Often nothing happens when you press verify tracking code. If so just press ”skip” and you mostly likely will have the data in 24 hours.