googleMeasureR

Send tracking hits to Google Analytics from R code using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol

For general web tracking, install the Google Analytics tracking script instead.

This library is for when you want to send custom tracking events to a Google Analytics property, and is suitable for server-side tracking such as when R code is executed.

Do not send personal identifiable information (PII) to Google Analytics using this library as its against Google Anaytics' terms of service. e.g. Don't send emails, usernames etc.

Useage

Install from github via devtools:

devtools::install_github("MarkEdmondson1234/googleMeasureR")

Send hits as per the measurement protocol parameter reference - you need to create a named list of the parameters you want to send.

Then send them via gmr_post - a minimal example is below:

gmr_post(list(t=2, tid = "UA-XXXXX-Y", cid = 1234567L))

You will need to set a valid browser header (parameter ua) if your view has "Block bots" tickbox checked on to see hits. Keep the checkbox ticked off for all hits to be seen in your GA account.

An example of a valid header hit is:

gmr_hit_page("home", ua="Opera%2F9.80%20%28Windows%20NT%206.0%29%20Presto%2F2.12.388%20Version%2F12.14")

Default Google Analytics Web property

You can set the default web analytics property by setting an environment variable:

In the .Renviron file set MP_TRACKING_ID="UA-123455-1"

Hit helpers

Common hit types have been put into functions so you don't need to look up parameters all the time.

So far they are:

Page type

gmr_hit_page("/hi-from-r-test")

Events

gmr_hit_event("Rcat","Raction","Rlabel",300)

Timing

gmr_hit_timing("R_app","shiny_loadtime",3000, label = "appname")

In all the above cases, you can override arguments by adding to the call - for example to add your own cid would be:

gmr_hit_page("/hi-from-r-test", dp = "/bye-from-r-test", cid = "blah")

Cookie ID / User ID

By default each hit has a new cookie ID (e.g. a new user) - you may want to associate hits with one user when you know that is the case, so you can set the cid argument to a fixed value using my_cid <- gmr_uuid()

Enhanced Ecommerce

There are some helpers to add enhanced ecommerce arguments. An example is shown below:

## send an enhanced ecommerce hit
gmr_hit_page(url_path = "/checkout",
             enhanced_ecom = gmr_enhanced_ecom("purchase", transaction_id = "blah223",
                                                revenue = 4300.23, 
                                                product_sku = c("sku4","sku23","sku7")))

# Make your own hit
my_promotion_id <- gmr_enhanced_index(c("aff3","aff2","aff2"), prefix = "promo", suffix = "id")

# make your own enhanced ecom obj
my_ee <- do.call(gmr_enhanced_ecom,
                  args = c(list(action = "purchase",
                               transaction_id = "2323",
                               product_sku = c("sku4","sku3","sku7")
                               ),
                          my_promotion_id)
                          )

# register hit
gmr_hit_page(url_path = "/checkout-thanks", enhanced_ecom = my_ee)

Debug mode

You can not send a proper hit and just see if the hit was valid by setting options(googleMeasureR.debug = TRUE) which will send the hit to the debug API endpoint instead.

options(googleMeasureR.debug = TRUE)

## send a debug enhanced ecommerce hit
gmr_hit_page(url_path = "/checkout",
             enhanced_ecom = gmr_enhanced_ecom("purchase", transaction_id = "blah223",
                                                revenue = 4300.23, 
                                                product_sku = c("sku4","sku23","sku7")))
                                                
# Debug mode
# List of 12
#  $ ds   : chr "googleMeasureR"
#  $ cid  : chr "8c906d8e-70a1-11e7-9fad-ac87a30fc0b7"
#  $ dp   : chr "%2Fcheckout"
#  $ pa   : chr "purchase"
#  $ tr   : chr "4300.23"
#  $ ti   : chr "blah223"
#  $ pr1id: chr "sku4"
#  $ pr2id: chr "sku23"
#  $ pr3id: chr "sku7"
#  $ v    : chr "1"
#  $ tid  : chr "UA-540134324-3"
#  $ t    : chr "pageview"
# $hitParsingResult
#   valid parserMessage
# 1  TRUE          NULL
#                                                                                                                                                                                             hit
# 1 /debug/collect?ds=googleMeasureR&cid=8c906d8e-70a1-11e7-9fad-ac87a30fc0b7&dp=%2Fcheckout&pa=purchase&tr=4300.23&ti=blah223&pr1id=sku4&pr2id=sku23&pr3id=sku7&v=1&tid=UA-54019251-3&t=pageview
# 
# $parserMessage
#   messageType                 description
# 1        INFO Found 1 hit in the request.