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Universal Analytics: Integration Information
Universal Analytics: Integration Information

Details on the current state of MNTN's integration into GA's Universal Analytics instance.

Taylor Dunne avatar
Written by Taylor Dunne
Updated over a year ago

🚩DISCLAIMER: Please note that as of 7/1/23, Google Analytics is no longer supporting their Universal Analytics version, meaning all data flow has been halted. If you are a GA360 customer though, Google will continue to support analytics reporting until 7/1/2024. MNTNs integration with Google Analytics for GA360 customers is still active until 7/1/2024, and data will flow through our integration as expected.

All MNTN campaigns can be tracked directly in Universal Google Analytics with our GA integration. We leverage the Google Analytics measurement protocol API, which allows our pixel to send data to a single property. Therefore, our team hard codes the property in which the performance is being measured.

How does our Universal Analytics Integration work?

MNTN utilizes the GA Measurement Protocol API to show cross device performance coming from all devices within a household within Google Analytics. This falls in line with our Cross Device Verified Visit attribution model used within our reporting and allows for the ability to see activity generated across all devices, which is essential for evaluating Connected TV performance.

Through the Universal Analytics Version of our Integration, we passed the following data to GA:

  • Verified Visits: This is reported as Sessions

  • Household Identity Graph: This is reported as Users, and enables household attribution in GA

  • UTMs: These UTMs will be attached to all passed sessions, and are based on your Tracking Parameters within the MNTN dashboard

  • Landing Pages: This will match the Visit URL appended to your Creative

When a Verified Visit is recorded through out pixel, we call the GA Measurement Protocol API in order to record that visit as a Session via our integration.

🔎 Example:

  • User interacts with a MNTN ad.

  • User returns to the site in accordance with our Cross Device Verified Visit attribution model.

  • If the visit is defined as a Verified Visit, we pass the visit data to Google Analytics as a hit via the Measurement Protocol API. Google Analytics then translates the data in accordance with their setup, allowing you to see visits driven from your MNTN Performance TV campaigns.

  • Finally, we do not pass any conversion data. All conversion attribution will be defined based on your unique attribution settings within Google Analytics.

💡 Note: For more details on MNTN's Cross Device Verified Visits attribution methodology, check out this article.

This integration plugs directly into the Measurement Protocol API and falls in line with how they receive and translate data.

💡 Note: The Measurement Protocol API is a feature of Google Analytics that is openly available for use by all platforms. For more details on GA's Measurement Protocol, check out this article.

Tracking Parameters

In order to determine that a site visit matches our Verified Visit methodology, MNTN will identify other active marketing channels by looking for the referring parameters on the landing page when the user returns to the site. In particular, we check for the below:

  • utm_source

  • utm_medium

  • utm_campaign

  • utm_content

  • utm_term

  • cid

  • cm_mmc

  • gclid

If your other active marketing channels use tracking parameters that are not included in the list above, then we may still take credit for visits driven by those channels within our reporting.

If we see that a visit was referred through the tracking measures listed above, we will not call the Measurement Protocol API or record that visit as a Verified Visit.

FAQs

Question: I'm seeing a discrepancy between MNTN and Universal Analytics, but the integration is properly mapped to the correct Property ID

  • Step 1: Verify you have GA JavaScript on all your landing pages & the GA code is firing.

  • Step 2: Review each ad destination URLs to ensure they have properly created UTM tracking codes that will specify the traffic source as MNTN in GA.

  • Step 3: Verify that your destinations URLs do not prompt redirects. Redirects are often set up in a way that can strip campaign tracking codes GA needs to attribute the traffic to the marketing source—in this scenario, MNTN.

  • Step 4: Ensure you do not have filters set up for your GA reports that are removing data or editing campaign tracking.

Question: Can I digest MNTN data into Looker Studio?

We have three recommendations when digesting MNTN data into Looker Studio:
​

Recommendation 1: Utilize DCM impression tags to track campaign delivery.

🧠 Pro Tip: Though you can leverage a DCM click tag, it is not a recommendation by our team. See more on UTM attribution limitations here.

💡Note: For more information on our impression tracking capabilities and requirements, check out this article.


​Recommendation 2: Build out an API request to input performance data in Data Studio.

💡Note: For more information on MNTN's API capabilities, check out the below:


​Recommendation 3: Simply connect GA to visualize it in Data Studios.

💡Note: For more information about visualizing your GA performance data in Looker Studio, check out this article.

WHERE TO GO NEXT:

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