Summary
This article covers:
- How to integrate your PathFactory instance with your Google Analytics account (to automatically send your PathFactory data into your Google Analytics)
- An important difference between how the two platforms calculate their data
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Warning
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Do not set up this PathFactory -Google Analytics integration if you already connected PathFactory and Google Tag Manager, and if your GTM container includes Google Analytics. |
How to Integrate PathFactory and Google Analytics
- Retrieve the Tracking ID for your Google Analytics property from your Google Analytics account.
It is an alphanumeric ID, typically taking the form XX-YYYYYYY-Z. See this article if you need help finding your Google Analytics Tracking ID.
Google Analytics Tracking ID field
- In PathFactory , click on your Username in the top right corner. Select Organization Settings from the drop-down menu.
Organization Settings menu item
- Under the Settings tab, enter your Google Analytics Account ID. Click Save.
Settings tab - Visits to your PathFactory tracks will now appear as page views in your Google Analytics reports. See below for important information about comparing PathFactory Analytics to Google Analytics.
Note
If you have enabled Cookie Consent in your PathFactory instance, you can customize the description of your Google Analytics cookie use by accessing the languages configuration page.
Important Difference between PathFactory Data and Google Analytics Data
Why doesn’t my PathFactory data match my Google Analytics data?
You may notice that the engagement times shown in PathFactory Analytics are higher than the Time on Page and Session Duration metrics shown in Google Analytics.
This is due to the difference in how PathFactory and Google Analytics measure visitors’ time on page.
- Google can’t measure the time a user spent looking at the last page of their visit to your site.
- This happens because Google uses the time of the next page view to determine the time you spent looking at the current page.
- On the last page, there is no next page recorded, so the Time on Page is unknown (recorded as 0) and the Session Duration ends when they opened the last page.
- For sessions where the user only looked at one page (a “bounce”) the Time on Page and the Session Duration are 0.
- This isn’t because Google knows they left right away; it’s because they didn’t have any indication of when the user left so they couldn’t calculate the Time on Page, and they consider the lack of a value means 0.
Source: Misunderstood Metrics