Google Analytics | Bi-directional

SessionCam offers a two-way integration with Google Analytics.

When both directions are setup you will be able to:

• Import your SessionCam replay links into Google Analytics
• Filter by your Google Analytics segments in SessionCam

There is a section on Create a custom dimension in Google Analytics this will be needed to import SessionCam session-id into GoogleAnalytics

Please see Debugging the Integration if you are having any issues getting things working as expected.

Send the SessionCam session-id to Google Analytics

You can import sessions from SessionCam into your Universal Analytics/Google Analytics Premium dashboard. Importing sessions into Universal Analytics/Google Analytics Premium means you can view sessions based on existing Universal Analytics/Google Analytics Premium segments and Custom Reports (e.g. Goals, e-commerce activity, advertising clicks etc.).

Setting up

Product Admin Users and the SessionCam Customer Success Team can easily activate this integration directly from the SessionCam console. If you do not have the product admin role, one of your colleagues will have it,  or with appropriate authorisation, the support team can provide this level of access (please contact support@sessioncam.com).

In order to set this up please the following instructions:

1. Log into SessionCam
2. Expand the "Manage" section in the navigation menu
3. Click "Account Settings"
4. Click the tab titled "Integrations"
5. When enabling the integration with Universal Analytics you will first need to set up a dimension for us to send this in to, if you're unsure how to do this follow the instructions below. You simply need to note the Index value for the new dimension you create, and the dimension will need to be in the Session scope.
6. When you return to SessionCam you will need to enter the word dimension followed by its index number as shown below.
   

Creating a custom dimension in Google Analytics

 If you’re using Universal, Premium or 360 versions of Google Analytics you can add a session link to your reports. To do this, you need to set up a dimension for us to pass the SessionCam ID to.

This can be achieved by logging into Google Analytics and completing steps 1 - 7 below:

1 / 7

Once in GA, click on the admin option in the left hand menu

2 / 7

Select the relative property

3 / 7

Then select custom definitions

4 / 7

Followed by Custom Dimensions

5 / 7

You’re ready to create your dimension. Just click on the New Custom Dimension button

6 / 7

Give your Custom Dimension a name and select Session in the scope options (this means the value is applied to all hits in a single session). Once you’re happy click create.

7 / 7

Now you can move onto step 6. Once this is added you will be able to select the dimension for all future reports

❮ ❯

Google provide further information around creating dimensions here 

Accessing SessionID in Google Analytics dashboard 

To set up a new custom report go to "Customized reporting" and then click on "+ Create new report". Next select the Metrics and Dimensions relevant to the segment that you want to review. Then add "SessionCamID" (replace this with the name of your Custom Dimension) in the list of dimensions, you may have already added some so you can just add it to that list.

The SessionID will look something like this

f3f34551-7ba0-4f9a-a8ac-8683ea74a341,634821081340000000

To view a specific session in SessionCam you can download our Chrome plugin.

Altenatively simply log into the SessionCam console and then paste the playback URL into your browser (https://console.sessioncam.com/Console/Recordings/PlaybackSession?sessionId=xxxx) and replace "xxxx" in the URL with the SessionID you wish to play.

Google Analytic Segments in SessionCam

In order to set up the GA bi-directional integration you must first configure the one-directional integration; if this has not been configured, please see above on how to set up a custom dimension in GA; Once you have configured SessionCam, and created a Custom Report within GA so you can see sessions which have had a sessionId allocated. You can then progress below.

To configure the bi-directional integration you must first authenticate your Google account by following these steps:

1. Log in to SessionCam.
2. If you have access to multiple accounts then make sure the correct one is selected from the left-most drop-down in the top-right corner of the screen.
3. From the collapsible tray, select "Manage > Integrations".
   
4. As you will have already enabled the single-direction integration the "Google Analytics" section will already be enabled.
   
5. Select the "Settings" button; the  "Google Analytics" pop-up will appear.
   
6. Click the toggle switch "2-Way Integration" section so that its state changes to Enabled.
7. Note: If you cannot see the "2-Way Integration" section then your logon account will require the "View GA Management" permission to be assigned to it.
8. Click the green "Authenticate with Google" button that appears.
9. Sign in with your Google account when prompted in the "Sign in with Google" screen that appears.
10. Click the "Allow" button when prompted.

Note: The custom segments you are giving read-only access to will differ, depending on which account you sign in with. SessionCam will get visibility of all the custom segments that are shared across all views, plus any custom segments which are visible in view chosen in the following steps.

The green button in the  "Google Analytics" pop-up screen will change into a red button labelled "Revoke Authentication".

A new row will appear, containing two text boxes.

Enter the ID of the view you want to share with SessionCam in the left-hand text box (Google View ID).

Enter the custom dimension in the right-hand text box (Google Custom Dimension ID). This is typically set to the value used in the Dimension ID text box above it, prepended with the string 'ga:'. For example, if the Dimension ID text box has the value dimension1, then enter the value ga:dimension1.

Press the "Save Account" button.

Debugging the integration 

One way

No SessionCam ID in Google analytics

SessionCam sends its SessionID to Google Analytics on the second page that the SessionCam tag is present in a user session. This is because if we sent our ID on page 1 it would count "bounces" which typically analysts don't care about, so from page 2 you will see sessions that definitely show intent.

To confirm the SessionID is being sent across, please 

1. Navigate to your website
2. Confirm SessionCam is running (https://help.sessioncam.com/hc/en-gb/articles/201104946-How-to-test-SessionCam) 
3. On the second page of your visit run the Google Analytics debug script, or the Chrome extension (https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/debugging#the_google_analytics_debugger_chrome_extension) 
4. Then look for your dimension number and the SessionCam ID in the output in the developer console:

Bi-directional

Google Analytics Segments not appearing in SessionCam

Once you have confirmed the one-way integration above is working (this needs to be working for the bi-directional to function). And waited 48 hours for the integration to populate (we request segments from the Google API every 24 hours)

1. Navigate to the SessionCam Account Setting Page
2. Click the Integrations tab
3. Go to Google Analytics 
4. Click Manage

Once there you will see a list of all of the segments we have pulled in from Google Analytics and the number of matching SessionCam sessions against them. There needs to be a matching SessionCam session for the GA Segment to show in the SessionCam tool. 

If the numbers of sessions vs segments do not look correct, please confirm this by going to your Google Analytics account and selecting the same date range (this is set to the past 30 days on the Manage screen in SessionCam). Once this has been confirmed please contact support@sessioncam.com so we can look into this further for you.