Analytics with External Providers

Last update: April 17, 2024

Topics:
Integration

CREATED FOR:

Admin

Analytics can provide you with important and interesting information about how your website is being used.

Various out-of-the box configurations are available for integrating with the appropriate service, for example:

You can also configure your own instance of the Generic Analytics Snippets to define a new service configuration.

The information is then collected by small snippets of code that are added to the web pages. For example:

CAUTION

Do not enclose scripts in script tags.

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'https://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

Such snippets enable data to be collected and reports generated. The actual data collected depends on the provider and the actual code snippet used. Example statistics include:

how many visitors over time
how many pages visited
search terms used
landing pages

CAUTION

The Geometrixx-Outdoors demo site is configured so that the attributes provided in the Page Properties are appended to the html source code (just above the </html> end tag) in the corresponding js script.

If your own /apps do not inherit from the default page component ( /libs/foundation/components/page) you (or your developers) have to make sure that the corresponding js scripts are included, for example, by either including cq/cloudserviceconfigs/components/servicescomponents, or using a similar mechanism.

Without this, none of the services (Generic, Analytics, Target, and so on) will work.

Creating a Service with a Generic Snippet

For the basic configuration:

Open the Tools console.
From the left pane, expand Cloud Services Configurations.
Double-click Generic Analytics Snippet to open the page:
Click + to add a new configuration using the dialog box. At a minimum, assign a name, for example, Google Analytics:
Click Create, the snippet dialog opens immediately - paste the appropriate JavaScript snippet into the field:
Click OK to save.

Using your new Service on Pages

Having created the service configuration, you must configure the required pages to use it:

Navigate to the page.
Open the Page Properties from sidekick, then the Cloud Services tab.
Click Add Service, then select the required service. For example, the Generic Analytics Snippet:
Click OK to save.
You are returned to the Cloud Services tab. The Generic Analytics Snippet is now listed with the message Configuration reference missing. Use the drop-down list to select your specific service instance. For example, google-analytics:
Click OK to save.

The snippet can now be seen if you view the Page Source for the page.

After an amount of time has elapsed, you can view the collected statistics.

NOTE
If the configuration is attached to a page that has child pages, the service is inherited by those as well.