Question

I’m trying to track user types at the session scope using custom variables. On each page load I want to check if the GA variable exists and if not set it to one of 3 values based on a cookie (visitor, register, premium).

 TrackUser: function () {
        var index = 5; //slot 5
        var scope = 2; //set scope to session level
        var key = "UserType";
        var value;
        if (_gaq != undefined) {
            _gaq.push(function () { //this is async
                var pageTracker = _gat._getTrackerByName();    //Gets the default tracker.
                var vis = pageTracker._getVisitorCustomVar(5); //this should return the 'usertype' if its been set
                //if no GA variable exists then lets set it
                if (vis == undefined) {    // !? THIS IS ALWAYS 'undefined' ?!

                    value = getUserType(); //get the users type

                    //send custom var to GA
                    _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',
                     index,   // This custom var is set to slot #1.  Required parameter.
                     key,     // The name acts as a kind of category for the user activity.  Required parameter.
                     value,   // This value of the custom variable.  Required parameter.
                     scope    // Sets the scope to session-level.  Optional parameter.
                    ]);
                }
            });
            }

    }

This function is being called right before a track event push ‘_trackEvent’ so it may be that its not finishing before ‘_trackEvent’ is called. Even so, wouldn’t it get sent on the next page load?

Or am I misunderstanding how GA uses cookies with Custom Vars?

BTW: if there is an easier way to get the custom variable (maybe without having to send a request to Google) that would be ideal.

Update

Upon reading more documentation I’ve realized that ‘_getVisitorCustomVar’ only returns custom variables if they are set at the ‘visitor scope’ (3). Google apparently tracks ‘session scope’ (2) variables on their server and doesn’t set client side cookies. Until I can find a more elegant solution I’m just setting a session cookie of my own to check if I have sent information to GA about the user type.

Answer 1

It is only possible to get ‘Visitor Scope’ values from googles API call _getVisitorCustomVar