How does Google Analytics
identify users that it's tracking? When you go from page to page, how
does Google Analytics know that you are still the same person? And even if you leave the website and come
back later on, how does Google Analytics identify you as a returning user? How does it do that? Well, it's actually pretty simple, like
most tracking technologies out there it uses cookies. And today Pavel is going to explain to
you how the Google Analytics Cookie works in combination with our tracking code
to send them data to Google Analytics. And we've got lots to cover. So Pavel take it away. As we know Google Analytics
measurement is cookie-based. It means that part of the important
information necessary for correct measurement is stored in a cookie. Cookies are small files, which
are a stored in browser, and this is worth remembering. Let's have a first look, how can we access
them and what exactly is stored in them. If we want to access cookies, we have to
open a browser for purposes of this video. I chose Google Chrome and the next
step is to open Dev Tools it's done by right-click to any element of the website,
and then clicking here on inspect. And here we are. This bottom part is Dev Tools right now. It's quite small, so it's not
easy to browse it properly. So I recommend you to open it in a
separated window, which is done by clicking here on this three small
vertical dots, and then choosing this. And here we are, and accessing cookies is
done by clicking on the application part. And on the very left side, we
can see here cookies, right? And I want to see cookies for
Google Merchandise Store, as you can see, there's about 10 of them. And the first one, uh, this one
GA is Google Analytics Cookie. Uh, here is it's value GA one dot
two dot sequence of numbers and also it value is available here. Uh, right now it's value might
seem to you like a randomly generated sequence of numbers and
characters, but it's not the case. Uh, and the next step for proper
understanding how the measurement is done is to break it down to smaller
parts and understand its values. So let's do it. This is the example of how Google
Analytics Cookie might look like. Um, the first part of it is always
the GA version either GA dot one dot two, or GA dot one dot one. It depends on the Google Analytics
measurement code you're using. So it's either for a Universal
Analytics, GA dot one dot two or GA dot one dot one for Google Analytics
Four then it's a random number. And then the last part of it is the
first time stamp The first time stamp is the moment in time when you as a user
visited particular website for the first time and these two numbers, I mean the
random number and the first time stamp gives us something we call client ID,
which is a unique identifier of a user. Next thing for proper understanding
how the measurement is done is, uh, How the data is being sent
to Google Analytics servers. Let me show in the very simplified
version how it works, and then we will go back to browser to see how
the technically is data being sent. So on the left side, we see
here a very simplified version of the HTML code were also part
of it as a JavaScript, uh, code for Google Analytics measurement. One of the first thing a
measurement code is asking if, is there a Google Analytics Cookie? If the answer is yes. Then the measurement code grabs this
value from the cookie it knows that it's a returning visitor and then
uses this information when sending the data to Google Analytics server,
if not, then it's a signal that it has to create a new cookie based
on the rules we just explained. And then also use it for a further
Google Analytics measurement. Now let's go back to browser to explain
where we can see how the data is being sent to Google Analytics servers. Exactly. As in the case of cookies, we
again have to open Dev Tools. So, uh, right click then inspect. And right now, it automatically
opens in a new window. Uh, in the case of cookies, we went
to application tab but for seeing the server call, we have to go to network
and here we are right now, we don't see anything, but that's correct, uh, for
seen what is happening here in the network I will reload the website
by pressing command and R. And you'll see that immediately. It will appear a lot of lines here. Uh, what is basically done here
or what is it showing us is the communication between you and the server
from which you're getting the data. And we can see that right now. It's 89 requests. We can see it's, uh, a lot
of, a lot of, uh, script here. Uh, PNGs, which are images
fonts and so on and so on. So basically any communication
between your browser and the server from which you're getting the data. And also part of it, our Google
Analytics data, I will filter them by typing here, into filter apart
part Google, hyphen, Analytics I'm pressing Enter. Uh, and most of these lines we see
are server calls, which means the format in which the data are being
sent to Google Analytics server. So for example, I will take this one
and as you can see, it's a request URL, which is URL address in which
all the necessary information for Google Analytics are being sent. Uh, very similarly, as in the case
of value of Google Analytics Cookie, right now, it might seem to you
like something very complicated to understand, uh, and it's not the case
and let's break it down to smaller elements to understand it properly. And here is the example of simplified
Google Analytics server call. It's completely fine to use the simplified
version because we're showing the principle how the data is being sent. So let's break it down. The first part is always the same. We're calling a Google Analytics
server by URL address Google hyphen Analytics.com/collect. Then there is a hits type, which
in this case is a page view. It can be for example,
event or transaction. Then there's a Google Analytics
account ID, which I guess you all know what it means. Then there is a client ID. Uh, we know that it's grabbed
from the cookie and is the unique identification of the user. And then the last part is
the document path or URL address, which is being viewed. So, um, this is the simplified
version of a server call. There are of course, much
more information being sent. For example, about the screen
resolution about the traffic source. About the viewport and so on and
so on, but this is the structure. And if I right now, will
switch back to Dev Tools. Yeah, here we are. Uh, will show that all the parameters
we showed on the slide are also here. So we are requesting a URL address. And Google Analytics.com/collect. Uh, we can see that there's
also a document location, Google Merchandise Store. com there's also a client ID here it is. Uh, here is a Google Analytics
account ID and so on and so on. So just showing you that all the
parameters are here and as said there's more of them, for example,
screen resolution or a view board. Yeah. And important to remember is that they do
not have to be sent in the exact order. It really doesn't matter if we first
send client ID and then account ID or vice versa because it's being sent in one server call and important to
remember is also that it's, that is the form in which the data is being sent
to GA is by requesting a URL address. And the last part of the video
is to show you that the principal would just explained is working. I will do that with a very
simple exercise, which is by creating specific campaign URL
address using specific UTM parameters. Uh, I'm using a campaign URL
Builder, which I'm sure you all know. Uh, and I'm using campaign source
Measure School, campaign medium video and campaign name is Pavel. So by scrolling down here, here's the full
URL address, which I will copy right now. Paste it here. And wait until the page is reloaded. Okay, it's done. I'm opening a Dev Tools and
going to network to see all that server calls from GA. I will open for example, this
one and also part of that server call are UTM parameters. As we can see it starts here. UTM source Measure School, UTM
medium video and UTM campaign Pavel. And if I will switch back to
Google Analytics account of Google Merchandise Store and going to
traffic sources, I should appear here. It's working right. We see the specific medium
and source we chose. Uh, if I will only filter myself. Okay. It's just me. I'm based in Prague Czech Republic. So if I will go right now to
occasion, I should see here Czech Republic, which, uh, happened. So this was, this was the explanation and
the example how Google Analytics data are being sent to Google Analytics servers. So, uh, hope you enjoyed it
guys and see you next time. Thanks for the thorough explanation
public on the Google Analytics Cookie. I need to mention, yes. Cookies have been under scrutiny lately by
privacy regulations, tracking prevention methods, and the fact that you can easily
just delete them from your browser too. Tracking has never been a perfect
system, but there's clearly a move to a cookieless feature and there are already technologies out
there that, um, don't utilize cookies and that manner to track, uh, going forward. But there are still quite hard to set
up and, therefore haven't reached the mainstream of tracking technologies
yet most of what Google Analytics does nowadays, even in Google Analytics
Four is still based on the cookie but we need to watch the future
of how it will be changing there. Now, if you found this video helpful,
feel free to click that like button for the YouTube algorithm and if you want
to know more about Google Analytics and the inner workings, check out
this video right over there, where I explain UTM parameters in 100 seconds. Now my name is Julian, till the next time.
