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__gtagTracker Compatibility
An ExactMetrics setting that enables the Google Analytics tracker to be compatible with other plugins that are using gtag() and aren’t supporting __gtagTracker(). You can find this setting under ExactMetrics » Settings » Engagement.
Extensions to __gtagTracker will not break Google Analytics.
A
A/B Test
also known as: ‘split test’, ‘split-run testing’, ‘bucket tests’
A controlled experiment using two variants: A or B.
The purpose of A/B testing is to determine which change or adjustment on a web page increase desired visitor behaviors or increase conversions better.
Examples: Better click-through rates for banner advertisements, form conversions, or sales.
Account
A Google Analytics account contains all elements required to track site performance (properties, tracking codes, views, reports, user management, and etc).
Users can have multiple accounts that contain various properties. Learn if you need to create an Account or Property: Properties and Accounts in Google Analytics: What They Are, and How to Use Them.
Addon
A plugin that extends your ExactMetrics tracking functionality when installed and activated. Addons are available for ExactMetrics Plus users or higher.
An Addon will enable a specific tracking feature on your website. For example, adding and activating the eCommerce Addon enables eCommerce tracking for a user’s online store.
Ads Tracking
Provides insights on Google AdSense data so users can optimize ads for maximum revenue.
Ads tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Ads Tracking Addon, available to Plus users or higher
Affiliate Link Tracking
Provides useful insights if you’re promoting a product or service and earn a commission for each sale as part of affiliate marketing.
With Affiliate Link tracking, users can decide which affiliate to promote more to maximize profits. Affiliate link clicks are tracked as events, and provide data on which affiliate is getting the most clicks or conversions.
For more details on affiliate marketing, see our guide: How to Track Affiliate Links in WordPress (the Easy Way).
Analytics
The focus on why it happened and what will happen in the future. It is used for the discovery, interpretation, and communication of meaningful patterns in data. It can be considered the connection between data and effective decision making within an organization. [Reference: Wikipedia.]
Author Tracking
See which author is performing the best on your website. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Author tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
C
Campaign
An organized marketing effort that can be measured and optimized.
Examples: Email campaigns, ad campaigns, and social media campaigns.
Related: Campaign Parameters and URL Builder.
Campaign Content
also known as: ‘utm_content’
An optional parameter option in the URL Builder.
Identifies what was clicked to bring user to a website. Often used for A/B testing and content-targeted ads
Examples: utm_content=logolink or utm_content=textlink
Campaign Medium
also known as: ‘utm_medium’
An optional parameter option in the URL Builder.
Defines the medium of the campaign for Google Analytics, such as email, cost-per-click, social, or banner.
Example:
https://www.example.com/?utm_source=spring-mailer&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=spring-sale
Campaign Name
also known as: ‘utm_campaign’
An optional parameter option in the URL Builder.
Used for tracking the effectiveness of a campaign. Set this value to identify a promotion or campaign.
Example: utm_campaign=summer_sale.
Campaign Parameters
Add parameters to your URL to track a campaign’s performance or effectiveness.
Campaign Parameters in Google Analytics are: Source, Medium, Name, Content, Term.
These are options in the URL Builder.
Related: Campaigns.
Campaign Source
also known as: ‘utm_source’
A required parameter option in the URL Builder.
Identifies where traffic originally came from, whether from a website, search engine, or newsletter.
Example: utm_source=google.
Campaign Term
also known as: ‘utm_term’
An optional parameter option in the URL Builder.
Identifies paid search keywords or to note the keywords for the campaign
Example: utm_term=running+shoes.
Category Tracking
See which category is performing the best on your website. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Category tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
Client ID
also known as: ‘CID’
When tracking a visitor, Google Analytics assigns a unique, randomly generated string called a Client ID. A Client ID anonymously describes a user, device, or browser instance and is stored as a cookie with a two-year expiration for websites.
For mobile apps, a randomly generated Client ID is assigned to each instance of a particular application.
Related: User ID.
Cookie
also known as: ‘Internet Cookie’, ‘Browser Cookie’, ‘Web Cookie’
Data sent from a website to be stored on a user’s computer. Within this file are bits of information about a user’s interactions with a website.
Cookies are temporarily stored, and users can clear cookies from their computer. Doing so will usually sign them out of sites such as Facebook, Email, and so on.
Google Analytics uses cookies to assist in tracking user sessions, such as remembering what a user has done on previous pages of a website. Clearing cookies will end Google Analytics tracking of that user.
Related: EU Cookie Law.
Custom dimensions
An attribute of your data. Dimensions and metrics make up reports.
With the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, users can create additional dimensions:
Related: How to set up Custom Dimensions.
D
Data Stream
A data stream stores the stats for a website or app (Android or iOS) inside of Google Analytics 4.
There can be multiple data streams in your Google Analytics property. The data streams all have a measurement ID (G-XXXXXXX).
It’s important to know that you cannot edit a data stream after it’s been created, and deleting a data stream cannot be reversed.
All data streams are found under the Google Analytics admin Property column.
Demographics
Allows website owners to see insights about the age, gender, and interests of visitors.
Related: How to Collect User and Demographics Data in Google Analytics.
Dimensions
Attributes of your data.
Example: the dimension City indicates the city from which a session originates, such as “Paris” or “New York”. [Reference: support.google.com.]
Dimensions and metrics are coupled together to generate reports in Google Analytics and allow website owners to comprehend data.
Downloads Tracking
A built-in feature of ExactMetrics to track how many times a file has been downloaded.
Related: How to Change File Downloads Tracking Settings.
E
eCommerce tracking
Track performance of your online store, to gain insights on your customers and optimize your store for more sales.
ExactMetrics integrates easily with WooCommerce, MemberPress, LifterLMS, and Easy Digital Downloads store.
Related: Ecommerce Tracking Addon.
Engagement
Any user interaction on your website.
ExactMetrics tracks the following types of engagement:
- Outbound clicks (where users are exiting)
- Download links (what users are downloading)
- Top viewed posts and pages
- Bounce Rate
- eCommerce product purchases (Pro users or higher)
- Forms tracking (Pro users or higher)
By default, ExactMetrics will not track any engagement of logged-in Administrator or Editor users.
Engaged sessions
Engaged sessions is Google Analytics’ way of measuring session data. Data is collected when a session lasts 10 seconds or longer, has 1 or more conversion events or 2 or more page views.
See also: Session.
Enhanced eCommerce
Enables measurement of user interactions with products:
- product impressions
- product clicks
- viewing product details
- add to cart
- begin checkout
- transactions
- refunds
Related: developers.google.com.
Enhanced Link Attribution
Allows website owners to see which buttons, linking to the same destination on a page, are getting the most clicks, or which call-to-action is generating the most leads.
Related: How to Enable Enhanced Link Attribution in Google Analytics.
EU Cookie Law
also known as: ‘ePrivacy Directive’, ‘Cookie Law’
A directive on data protection and privacy in the digital age, dealing with the regulation of a number of important issues such as confidentiality of information, treatment of traffic data, spam and cookies. Directive 2009/136 introduces several changes, especially in what concerns cookies, that are now subject to prior consent. [Reference: Wikipedia.org.]
EU GDPR
also known as: ‘European Union General Data Protection Regulation’
The EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) replaces the Data Protection Directive 95/46/EC.
Designed to harmonize data privacy laws across Europe, to protect and empower all EU citizens data privacy and to reshape the way organizations across the region approach data privacy. [Reference: eugdpr.org.]
Event Action
A required component of Event Tracking.
Typically in ExactMetrics, the event action is set as the URL of a link, unless specified otherwise with “data-vars-ga-action” (for custom link tracking).
Event action becomes the event name in Google Analytics.
Event Category
A required component of Event Tracking.
The event category is the name assigned to group tracked events.
ExactMetrics automatically tracks download links, outbound links, and more. Defining a custom category value for these links will override built-in detection.
Examples:
For Download links, ExactMetrics categorizes these links as “download”.
If you set up custom link tracking and named your custom event category “cta”, you’ll be able to find data on this custom event in Google Analytics under the Event Category “cta”.
Example: ‘event_category’: ‘Your awesome category’
Event Parameter
An optional component of Event Tracking.
Typically in ExactMetrics, the event label is set as the title attribute of a link or the text content (in that order), unless specified otherwise with “data-vars-ga-label” (for custom link tracking).
Example: ‘event_label’: ‘Your awesome label’
Event Parameters
In Google Analytics event parameters are pairs of names and values that can add more metrics and dimensions to an event. You get more context from an event by adding event parameters.
As an example, if you have a cta_click event, you can pass a cta_item_name and cta_item_link as parameters. Then you can run a report to see how many times your cta has been clicked on.
Event Tracking
Events are user interactions on a website that can be tracked separately from a web page or screen load.
An event has the following components:
Examples: Use event tracking to track download clicks, mobile ad clicks, AJAX embedded elements, and video plays.
Event Value
An optional component of Event Tracking.
Typically, the event value defines the value of an event. Only integer values are accepted.
Examples: download time, minutes of video played, or dollar value.
F
Facebook Instant Articles
Instant Articles enabled pages load faster than standard mobile web articles, which means lower bounce rates and deeper engagement.
Facebook Instant Articles competes with Google’s AMP project.
Read more: How to Get Started With the Facebook Instant Articles Addon.
Filters
Limit or change data in a Google Analytics reporting view.
Filters are destructive to data. Once a filter has been applied to a View, data cannot be recovered. The ExactMetrics team will always recommend alternatives to Reporting-view filters.
Types of Reporting-view filters:
- Include and exclude filters
- Search-and-replace filters
- Advanced filters
- Exclude internal traffic
- Filter domain referrals
- Filter on geography
- Custom filter fields
- Social Network filters
Related: Segments.
Focus Keyword tracking
Analyze the Focus Keywords of your WordPress posts and pages if you’re using the Yoast plugin for SEO. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Focus Keywords tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
Forms tracking
Allows website owners to track form views, submissions, and conversions rates.
G
Google AMP
Google AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and is an open-source technology initiative meant to improve the performance of web content and ads. [Reference: Wikipedia.]
AMP has 3 elements:
- AMP HTML: Restricted HTML reliable performance.
- AMP JS: a library to ensure the fast rendering of AMP HTML pages.
- AMP Cache: Serve cached AMP HTML pages.
- [Reference: ampproject.org.]
Google AMP competes against Facebook Instant Articles technology.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a free statistics tracker for website owners to discover:
- How visitors find their site.
- How visitors interact with their site.
- How their business is performing (see the health of their eCommerce and lead conversions).
Google Analytics dashboard
Dashboards allow users to see their most important stats at a glance, to check the health of website performance, and recognize correlations between different reports. [Reference: support.google.com.]
H
Hit
An interaction, triggered by a user’s behavior, on a website that results in data being sent to Analytics. [Reference: support.google.com.]
I
IP address filter
Filter out users visiting your website by their IP address, such as people in your corporate network.
ExactMetrics automatically does not track logged-in Administrators or Editors. We also strongly recommend against filters.
L
Logged in tracking
See if your visitors are logged in or not while visiting your website. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
See our guide: User-ID tracking vs Logged-in Custom Dimension.
Logged in tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
M
Measurement ID
In Google Analytics the measurement ID is the tracking number for a properties data stream. Also referred to as the “G-” ID. This is because it follows the format of G-XXXXXXX where the Xs can be numbers or letters.
Under the admin Property column is where you can find a measurement ID for a data stream.
[Source: Google Analytics]
Metrics
Quantitative measurements of data.
Example: the metric Pages/Session displays the average number of pages viewed per session.
In Google Analytics, metrics and dimensions make up the building-blocks of reports.
Monetization (Ecommerce)
You will find Monetization in the left menu bar of Google Analytics and it contains your Ecommerce reports.
Inside of your Monetization reports you will find purchase stats for your website or app. Some of the information you’ll find in these reports are
- Revenue
- Product views
- Ad conversion
- Add-to-carts
- and more.
O
Outbound Link Tracking
A built-in feature of ExactMetrics to track where your visitors go when you leave your site.
Related: How to Track Affiliate Links in WordPress (the Easy Way).
P
Page Views
A request to load a single web page.
Multiple pageviews and events are sorted into user sessions to better understand user behavior.
Performance
Adjust the sample rate to avoid hitting the processing limit of Google Analytics.
Users using Google Analytics are allowed to track up to 10 million hits per month, per property. Users with high-traffic sites that exceed this limit will need to upgrade to Google Analytics 360 (premium version).
With the ExactMetrics Performance Addon, users can stay within the processing limit, despite how much traffic they get.
See our guide: How to Get Started With the Performance Addon.
Permissions
Manage user role access to ExactMetrics in your WordPress site.
Adjust access for administrators, editors, author, contributors, or subscribers:
- Allow These User Roles To See Reports
- Allow These User Roles To Save Settings
- Exclude These User Roles From Tracking
User roles can be added or removed in ExactMetrics » Settings » Advanced.
See our guide: How to allow user roles to access the ExactMetrics Reports and Settings.
Popular post Tracking
A built-in feature of ExactMetrics to track which posts or pages are the top viewed by visitors.
Related: Popular Post Tracking.
Post Type Tracking
See which post type available in your WordPress site is performing the best. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Post Type tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
Primary Dimension
Attributes of data listed above the data table in Google Analytics reports.
Related: dimensions.
Property
A level in Analytics that associates a website or application with a unique tracking code.
Published At Dimension Tracking
See which “published at” time yields the best results. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Published At tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
R
Referral Tracking
Track how users are finding your site to make data-driven decisions.
Reports
Data complied together and displayed as dimensions and metrics.
Related: Dimensions and Metrics.
S
Scope
A characteristic of a dimension or metric that defines how Google Analytics will classify that dimension or metric.
There are four levels of scope:
- Product – value is applied to the product for which it has been set (if Enhanced eCommerce is enabled).
- Hit – value is applied to the single hit for which it has been set.
- Session – value is applied to all hits in a single session.
- User – value is applied to all hits in current and future sessions until value changes or custom dimension is made inactive.
- [Reference: support.google.com.]
Secondary Dimension
An additional attribute to add to reports for a more granular view of data. It is secondary to the available Primary Dimensions in a report.
Dimensions and metrics can be coupled together as long as they share the same scope. [Reference: support.google.com.]
Related: Dimensions.
Segments
A subset of your data in Google Analytics.
Example: One segment can contain users from a particular city, or users who’ve purchased a particular product. [Reference: support.google.com.]
SEO Score tracking
Analyze the SEO Score of your WordPress posts and pages if you’re using the Yoast plugin for SEO. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
SEO Score tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
Session
A collection of user interactions on your website within a period of time.
A session can contain:
- Pageviews
- Events
- Form Submissions
- eCommerce transactions
Sessions can also expand multiple days, weeks, or months. A user can have multiple sessions.
A session ends in two ways:
- Time-based expiration: if there is 30 minutes of inactivity, or at midnight.
- Campaign change: If a user arrives via one campaign, and leaves only to return through a different campaign, a different session will start.
Related: Engaged sessions.
Short URL
A shortened URL that directs to a longer URL.
Makes sharing URLs easier.
Related: URL Shortener and URL.
T
Tags Tracking
See which tag is performing the best. To enable tracking, you’ll need to set up as a Custom Dimension.
Tags tracking is available in the ExactMetrics Custom Dimensions Addon, available to Pro users or higher.
Related: Category Tracking.
URL
The address of a World Wide Web page. A URL is usually entered in the address bar of a browser.
URL Builder
An ExactMetrics tool to easily add campaign parameters to a URL for use in a marketing campaign.
The URL Builder is available in all versions of ExactMetrics and is located in ExactMetrics » Tools » URL Builder.
URL Shortener
A tool used to compress long URLs to a simpler, shorter URL.
A long URL with campaign parameters may look intimidating to users. A URL shortener will reduce the look of a long URL and make it easier to share and interact with.
ExactMetrics uses goo.gl, while others use bitly.com.
Usage tracking
Tracks usage of ExactMetrics.
Usage tracking allows developers of ExactMetrics access to anonymized data. Usage data allows us to make more informed decisions to better serve our userbase, as we develop and product test ExactMetrics.
See our guide: Usage Tracking.
User ID
also known as: ‘uid’
In Google Analytics, a User ID is an identifier of a visitor, provided by the website owner using ExactMetrics’ User ID Tracking feature.
It is not personally identifiable information, and is not included in GA cookies or other Analytics provided storage.[Reference: developers.google.com.]
In WordPress, a User ID is a unique number assigned to each user of a WordPress site.
Related: Cookie, User ID Tracking, and Client ID.
User ID tracking
Track logged-in user activity. Enabling user tracking replaces Google Analytics’ CID with WordPress’ User ID.
See our guides: User ID Tracking vs Logged In Custom Dimension and How to Set Up User Tracking in Google Analytics.
utm_campaign
Go to: Campaign Name.
utm_content
Go to: Campaign Content.
utm_source
Go to: Campaign Source.
utm_term
Go to: Campaign Term.
V
View
A level in Analytics where users can access reports and analysis tools.
Each property comes with an unfiltered view. Users can create multiple views for a single property.
Views can be customized with filters, to only see a subset of data in reports.
Example: Filter out all internal traffic or only include data from a website directory or subdomain. [Reference: support.google.com.]
Filters applied to views are destructive to the data they filter out. Once data is filtered out, it is not recoverable.