Capturing Custom Variables will help you get more actionable insights

Google captures a lot of data which you can see and use in the GA interface, however there is a lot of information which the websites capture which is not passed to GA. Google introduced custom variables to keep track of data beyond the data which it already knows.

GA already has data on which search phrases got your visits, which sites reffered the most, geographies which show the maximum hits during your sales campaign and the general stuff which GA normally captures. Have you ever tried mapping  your Forms & CRM data with GA. Wouldn't you be interested in knowing which products have the shortest sales cycle, how many males are interested in the baby wear category, what led to delighted customers & hence reorders.

There is a separate line of products called Marketing Automation Products which does this at an exorbitant cost however you can do some of it with the help of Custom Variables with-in your GA account.

Your order forms will be capturing Demographic information which when mapped to your GA data will help you build advanced segments and thus let dwelve deep into the behavior of each segment.

If you are already using User Defined Segment you will fall in love with Custom Variables, infact Custom Variables have made UDS obsolete.


Using Custom Variables to capture Visitor, Page or Session level data
The code for Custom Variables are similar to the _setVar user defined segment and the implementation is also similar except for the fact that there are few additional parmaters which you will have to capture.
This is how it looks pageTracker._setCustomVar(index, name, value, scope)

GA allows you to set 5 custom variables

Here’s what the four parameters mean:
•index is a “slot” that the variable gets put in, because you can have multiple custom variables. It can be a number from 1 to 5.

•name and value work together to identify the custom variable. You might have “Industry” and “Manufacturing”, or “Registered” and “yes”, or “Gender” and “male”. The name identifies what the variable is about, and the value is the label that applies. There’s a 64-character limit on the combined length of the name and value.

•scope says whether the variable applies at the visitor, session, or pageview level. A scope of 1 is visitor, 2 is session, and 3 is pageview. The default is 3 if you don’t supply a value

What is a Scope
Scope basically identify to what detail the variable should apply. Scope can be defined as Visitor, Session or Page

Scope: Visitor Level variables are like the User-Defined Segment. They are visitor attributes like demographics, sign-up information, Source of referral

• Demographic information: age, gender, income, family, occupation, etc.
• Customer information: “member” or “subscri or “gold club”
• Original source information: how did they originally find out about us

Scope: Session Level Variables These apply to behaviour of the visitor during a given session (visit)

• Reading a Thought paper
• Adding an item to a cart
• Playing a product demo

Scope: Pageview level variable This applies only to the single pageview during which they are recorded, potentially including such things as

•  Marked a page as a “favorite”.
• Notified a friend about an article.
• Viewed another tab within a page 

Pageview level variable works a lot like event tracking and you can choose to use any of them, depending on what suits your data needs.

So here is an example pageTracker._setCustomVar(1, "Age", "35-50", 1)

You will get all this data from forms or surveys which users keep filling on your website. You will have to customize the code and dynamically fill in this data for Google to know.

Stay tuned and i will be writing more on How to use Custom Variables to create advanced segments and use advanced segment data to optimize marketing campaigns.