WiscWeb - Adding Google Analytics to Your Site
Important
- Note: This app is not a “core app” under UW-Madison’s Google Privacy Policy or Terms of Service.
- Support: Support is not available from the UW-Madison Google team for non-core apps. We recommend the following for assistance:
- Review Google documentation.
- Enroll in free Google training.
- Recommendation: Use a departmental service account when using non-core apps to share ownership of data and avoid losing access to data owned by a former employee/student.
- Overview
- Setting up Google Analytics
- Finding your Google Analytics Tracking ID
- Navigating to the Site Customize section and inputting your tracking ID
- Reviewing data within Google Analytics
Overview
Google Analytics generates detailed statistics about a website's traffic and traffic sources. It is intended for learning more about how people use your website.
This tool helps with tracking things like:
- Page views
- Time on site
- Bounce rates (how quickly someone is coming to the page and leaving)
- User journey flows
- New users vs returning users
- User demographics
Please note that support of this tool is limited within the Google and WiscWeb teams at DoIT, and is provided in a best-effort basis.
For a full list of Google Analytics’ abilities, please see Google’s documentation.
Setting up Google Analytics
- Navigate to Google Analytics
- If you have a Google Analytics account created:
- You will be brought to your most recently accessed property
- Click the gear icon (Admin) in the lower left corner
- If you are creating a new account, click the Create Account button. If you are adding a property to an existing account, click Create Property.
- If you create an Account, give it a name, uncheck the data sharing settings checkboxes, and you will then be prompted to create a new property as part of this process.Give that property a name, set the time zone to Chicago Time, choose the business details for your property, and choose what business objectives you'd like to use for this property. Once those are done, click the Create button.
- If you create a Property, give that property a name, set the time zone to Chicago Time, choose the business details for your property, and choose what business objectives you'd like to use for this property. Once those are done, click the Create button.
- Once your property is created, click the Web option, enter the URL for your site and give it a stream name and click Create stream.
- You will be presented with the installation options, but within WiscWeb / UW Theme you don't need these steps.
- Click the X in the upper left of the window you're presented with
- You should see the Web stream details section.
- Click the copy icon for the Measurement ID. This is the value you will need for your WiscWeb / UW Theme site
Finding your Google Analytics Tracking ID
Now that you have set up your Google Analytics account(s), you can get the appropriate tracking IDs to put into your Site Customize area. It is important to know which account you want to use so that you access the appropriate code snippet. To change views between Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics accounts:
- Click on the Accounts section in the upper right corner of your screen.
- Select the account that you want to access, either Google Analytics 4 or Universal Analytics. Remember GA4 stands for Google Analytics 4.
Google Analytics 4
To access your Google Analytics 4 tracking code:
- Click on the Admin icon at the bottom left of your screen
- Under the Property column, click on Data Streams
- In the next screen, click on the Data Stream that you want the code snippet for.
- Click the copy icon for the Measurement ID. This is the value you will need for your WiscWeb / UW Theme site
Navigating to the Site Customize section and inputting your tracking ID
Once you have copied your desired code snippet, follow these steps to apply it to your WiscWeb site.
- Navigate to your site's Customize section.
- Hover your mouse over the Appearance section, and click on Customize.
- Hover your mouse over the Appearance section, and click on Customize.
- Here, click on Google Services on the left menu section.
- Paste the tracking ID value that you had copied (either the Google Analytics 4 or Universal Analytics ID) into the Google Analytics Tracking ID field.
- Click the Publish button.
Reviewing data within Google Analytics
Once you have added your code snippet for Google Analytics, you can follow these steps to check if the data is being collected using real time views.
Google Analytics 4
- To test this yourself, open a browser window in Private or Incognito (somewhere you are not logged into WiscWeb dashboard for your site) and navigate to your website.
- Navigate to Google Analytics and click on the Reports menu item on the left, and select Realtime.
- If you have set up the code correctly, you should see at least 1 user viewing your site within minutes of applying the tracking ID.
Troubleshooting
- If realtime data isn't being collected, be sure that you are not logged into the Dashboard area in the browser that you are attempting to test.
- Support for Google Analytics is limited, and is offered at a best effort by DoIT.