Configuring Google Analytics

Overview

Notes about configuring Google Analytics.

It seems like every time I research this topic, Google has implemented a totally different approach, so it's quite likely that some or all of this page will be outdated before too long.

Google Tag Manager

Google Tag Manager

Create a new Account for each client.

Create a new Container for each of the client's platforms.

The container id's for each container can be found on the Accounts page in the Container ID column.

The tag code that gets inserted into the pages of the site can be found through Accounts tab > select a container > Admin tab > Container column > Install Google Tag Manager

Creating a tag

The simplest tag is a Page View.

Google Tag Manager > Container tab > Right Column > Tags > New button.

• Product: Google Analytics
• Tag Type: Universal Analytics
• Configure Tag:
  • Tracking ID: enter the Google Analytics Tracking ID for the site
  • Track Type: Page View
• Fire On: All Pages
• Click Create button
• Important! On the next page click the Publish button in the upper right.

What this will do is link the tag manager to Google Analytics. The Tag Manager fires off page view events to Google Analytics as they happen. With this configuration, any legacy Google Analytics tracking code is unnecessary on the site.

Troubleshooting

404 error for googletagmanager.com

E.g. in the Chrome Developer Tools console there will be a error: "Failed to load resource: the server responded with a status of 404 (Not Found)" for url http://www.googletagmanager.com/gtm.js?id=[tag_id]

The tag has not been published. Go to Google Tag Manager, locate the container, view its tags, and publish.

Inserting GTM code into Django templates

Django templating system

There is an existing Django package named django-google-tag-manager. This package works with Django templates, but does not work with Jinja2 templates.

Jinja2

Created a package named django-jinja2-gtm to support Jinja2 templates.

Documentation on installation and usage is found in the README in the GitHub repo.