Data upload to Google Analytics: three ways to find out more about your ad
If we were asked what is most important in analytics, then one of the points we would call the comparison of data: statistics of advertising campaigns, user segments, performance indicators. Comparison allows you to create offers for each market segment. In this context, the ability to aggregate and compare data on contextual advertising at all sites is valuable. Google AdWords and Yandex.Direct data are often different, and a comparative analysis of indicators leads to new non-standard solutions for marketing activities. We offer to talk about data loading systems in the interface of the main web analytics tool - Google Analytics.
Still in web analytics, Google Analytics (GA) remains the best system. And companies often prefer to look at the data from the point of view of the capabilities of this system. If the contextual advertising sites are limited by Google AdWords, then there are no problems - the perfect bundle of Google systems makes the campaign analysis capabilities literally limitless. Most Russian advertisers prefer to combine advertising in AdWords and Direct, in order to cover the maximum number of audiences with activity. In this case, it is important to receive data promptly and in one virtual window in order to carry out an analysis of advertising costs, count advertising revenue and ROI.
How can uploading data to Google Analytics be useful for an advertiser? When setting up the import of expenditure data from Yandex.Direct, additional data is transferred to the Google Analytics system: transition cost, number of impressions, CTR. This will allow you to use the functionality of Google Analytics for a more detailed analysis of the effectiveness of Direct campaigns. If you use the parameters of the analytical system reports and compare costs and totals by channels, you can get a basis for making decisions about the distribution of the advertising budget and assess how well the money invested in the promotion has worked. In this case, you can analyze both campaigns and individual ads and keywords.
Google Analytics is, without exaggeration, the most powerful tool that can not only capture website indicators (visits, unique visits, failures, time, sources, etc.), but also build attribution models, work with cohorts, and even successfully calculate ROI ad campaigns. The main thing is to make GA friends with the data from all the content sites.
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The main way to download data to Google Anslytics is the regular download means through the .csv file. To do this, go to the Administrator - Resource - Data Import - Create a dataset menu and select the required import from the suggested ones, namely, importing summary data - importing information about the costs of external advertising campaigns. This is the option we need. When creating a dataset in the title, it is necessary to indicate the system from which data on advertising expenses are loaded (for example: direct or vk), as well as the system through which this import is carried out (OWOX). For example, you can give the name "Yandex.Direct OWOX". Put the radio button and go on.
In the next step, you need to configure the scheme - in fact, instructions on the capabilities and processing parameters of the loaded data.
After setting up the scheme through the download management, you can select a file and use it for processing in Google Analytics. This is where the biggest difficulty arises. The file that is used to upload data to Google Analytics should be organized in a special way and correspond to the data scheme. Even with professionals, working on this file can take several days.
That is why for the formation of .csv it is better to use special tools - for example, the data downloading services OWOX and CostUP . They help to collect data in Google Analytics: CostUP - from Direct, OWOX - from Direct, Yandex.Market and a number of other sites. The obtained information can be processed on the basis of GA capabilities, to compare the effectiveness of contextual advertising placements - and this result is no less valuable than standard conversions and transactions.
We will not compare the boot systems in detail, we will tell about their main features. The systems operate according to a similar principle: data from Yandex.Direct, tagged with UTM tags, is collected in the .csv file. If there are no predefined custom settings, the tags contain and transfer information about the source, campaign, keyword, content to the file. When working with UTM tags, you need to follow the rules for creating them. So, for example, there is a problem of parameters when the platforms transmit a dynamic value (a figure depending on the position at which the ad was shown) and it is not read by Google Analytics, since export systems do not always process them correctly. Now, when uploading expenses, the CostUP team pays special attention to working with custom tags, which may consist of various placeholder combinations like {campaign_id}, {ad_id}, etc. ... CostUp already successfully processes many of these parameters, we are still learning to recognize other parameters.
The similarity of the systems does not end there: both services are free and can be used by companies to upload data. To date, both interfaces have been Russified, so there are no problems of discrepancy and translation difficulties for Russian advertisers. Both OWOX and CostUP are user and data safe, despite simple registration.
There are differences due to the specifics of the companies that developed the tools. OWOX is an analytics agent and therefore a download tool is aimed at collecting data from Yandex.Direct, Yandex.Market and other systems, including social networks. RealHeb has AdHands for this purpose, and CostUP focuses more on loading data from Yandex.Direct. So, if OWOX loads data for the previous day, then CostUP can load a summary of data for a certain period of time in the past.
We know that our CostUP system has a great foundation for development, so we are trying to update the list of opportunities. CostUP, although it works only with Yandex.Direct, is able to upload cost data down to the keyword level - the value of this can be easily felt when hundreds of campaigns work in Yandex.Direct itself and hundreds of keywords in campaigns. Obviously, the standard means of Yandex is not enough for a full analysis of the results of the advertising campaign and Google Analytics is indispensable. Finally, CostUP is still faced with the accuracy of the transmitted data, since most users expect to be decided to import by means of the system. As a result, there are, for example, situations when GA visits are counted by UTM tags in Latin, and expenses from Yandex.Direct are unloaded on the campaign identifiers of the Directory itself, which leads to inconsistencies. Therefore, accuracy, data relevance and user-friendly interface for developers are on the agenda.
Importing data into web analytics is always fraught with compatibility issues and proper data preparation. For example, it can be difficult to pass additional parameters in UTM tags or to load data for previous periods. Every business has its own needs for managing online advertising. We recommend combining tools based on your requirements and be sure to comprehend the scope of Google Analytics capabilities - believe me, you will learn a lot about your business.
Why upload data to Google Analytics?
Still in web analytics, Google Analytics (GA) remains the best system. And companies often prefer to look at the data from the point of view of the capabilities of this system. If the contextual advertising sites are limited by Google AdWords, then there are no problems - the perfect bundle of Google systems makes the campaign analysis capabilities literally limitless. Most Russian advertisers prefer to combine advertising in AdWords and Direct, in order to cover the maximum number of audiences with activity. In this case, it is important to receive data promptly and in one virtual window in order to carry out an analysis of advertising costs, count advertising revenue and ROI.
How can uploading data to Google Analytics be useful for an advertiser? When setting up the import of expenditure data from Yandex.Direct, additional data is transferred to the Google Analytics system: transition cost, number of impressions, CTR. This will allow you to use the functionality of Google Analytics for a more detailed analysis of the effectiveness of Direct campaigns. If you use the parameters of the analytical system reports and compare costs and totals by channels, you can get a basis for making decisions about the distribution of the advertising budget and assess how well the money invested in the promotion has worked. In this case, you can analyze both campaigns and individual ads and keywords.
Google Analytics is, without exaggeration, the most powerful tool that can not only capture website indicators (visits, unique visits, failures, time, sources, etc.), but also build attribution models, work with cohorts, and even successfully calculate ROI ad campaigns. The main thing is to make GA friends with the data from all the content sites.
')
How to do it?
The main way to download data to Google Anslytics is the regular download means through the .csv file. To do this, go to the Administrator - Resource - Data Import - Create a dataset menu and select the required import from the suggested ones, namely, importing summary data - importing information about the costs of external advertising campaigns. This is the option we need. When creating a dataset in the title, it is necessary to indicate the system from which data on advertising expenses are loaded (for example: direct or vk), as well as the system through which this import is carried out (OWOX). For example, you can give the name "Yandex.Direct OWOX". Put the radio button and go on.
In the next step, you need to configure the scheme - in fact, instructions on the capabilities and processing parameters of the loaded data.
After setting up the scheme through the download management, you can select a file and use it for processing in Google Analytics. This is where the biggest difficulty arises. The file that is used to upload data to Google Analytics should be organized in a special way and correspond to the data scheme. Even with professionals, working on this file can take several days.
That is why for the formation of .csv it is better to use special tools - for example, the data downloading services OWOX and CostUP . They help to collect data in Google Analytics: CostUP - from Direct, OWOX - from Direct, Yandex.Market and a number of other sites. The obtained information can be processed on the basis of GA capabilities, to compare the effectiveness of contextual advertising placements - and this result is no less valuable than standard conversions and transactions.
We will not compare the boot systems in detail, we will tell about their main features. The systems operate according to a similar principle: data from Yandex.Direct, tagged with UTM tags, is collected in the .csv file. If there are no predefined custom settings, the tags contain and transfer information about the source, campaign, keyword, content to the file. When working with UTM tags, you need to follow the rules for creating them. So, for example, there is a problem of parameters when the platforms transmit a dynamic value (a figure depending on the position at which the ad was shown) and it is not read by Google Analytics, since export systems do not always process them correctly. Now, when uploading expenses, the CostUP team pays special attention to working with custom tags, which may consist of various placeholder combinations like {campaign_id}, {ad_id}, etc. ... CostUp already successfully processes many of these parameters, we are still learning to recognize other parameters.
The similarity of the systems does not end there: both services are free and can be used by companies to upload data. To date, both interfaces have been Russified, so there are no problems of discrepancy and translation difficulties for Russian advertisers. Both OWOX and CostUP are user and data safe, despite simple registration.
There are differences due to the specifics of the companies that developed the tools. OWOX is an analytics agent and therefore a download tool is aimed at collecting data from Yandex.Direct, Yandex.Market and other systems, including social networks. RealHeb has AdHands for this purpose, and CostUP focuses more on loading data from Yandex.Direct. So, if OWOX loads data for the previous day, then CostUP can load a summary of data for a certain period of time in the past.
We know that our CostUP system has a great foundation for development, so we are trying to update the list of opportunities. CostUP, although it works only with Yandex.Direct, is able to upload cost data down to the keyword level - the value of this can be easily felt when hundreds of campaigns work in Yandex.Direct itself and hundreds of keywords in campaigns. Obviously, the standard means of Yandex is not enough for a full analysis of the results of the advertising campaign and Google Analytics is indispensable. Finally, CostUP is still faced with the accuracy of the transmitted data, since most users expect to be decided to import by means of the system. As a result, there are, for example, situations when GA visits are counted by UTM tags in Latin, and expenses from Yandex.Direct are unloaded on the campaign identifiers of the Directory itself, which leads to inconsistencies. Therefore, accuracy, data relevance and user-friendly interface for developers are on the agenda.
Importing data into web analytics is always fraught with compatibility issues and proper data preparation. For example, it can be difficult to pass additional parameters in UTM tags or to load data for previous periods. Every business has its own needs for managing online advertising. We recommend combining tools based on your requirements and be sure to comprehend the scope of Google Analytics capabilities - believe me, you will learn a lot about your business.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/294784/
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