Question

My task is to track registered and guest users on my site.

I use GA code from this question.

Problem, that in Custom Variables report i see incorrect information. For example, I have 700 unique visitors, but only 60 of them with “user type”.

Here is the screenshoot:

As I understand there should be 688 visits and 688 “User Type” visits. What’s wrong?

Here is my Djano code:

 <script type="text/javascript">    
  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', '{{ GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_KEY }}']);
  _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.site.com']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);
  _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',
      1,
      'User Type',
      {% if user.is_authenticated %}'Registered User'{% else %}'Guest'{% endif %},
      2
   ]);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();

</script>

Thank you in advance.

Answer 1

You need to set your _setCustomVar before your _trackPageview. Otherwise, the custom variable data doesn’t bind (ie, gets sent in the __utm.gif hit and stored in cookies), and custom variable isn’t tracked.

The 10% of visits that are showing custom variables are likely from pages on which there were other hits (events, ecommerce, etc.) that did carry the custom variable data. If you move the _setCustomVar to be before _trackPageview (but after _setDomainName), it should track 100%.

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', '{{ GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_KEY }}']);
  _gaq.push(['_setDomainName', '.site.com']);
  _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',
      1,
      'User Type',
      {% if user.is_authenticated %}'Registered User'{% else %}'Guest'{% endif %},
      2
   ]);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);