Configure a Custom Third-Party Analytics Report

Exporting data to a third-party platform may add server calls to your system.

Third-party analytics reports allow you to send experience data to any platform that can collect data from a page. Monetate writes a JavaScript variable, campaigns, that contains the experience ID, name, and split information for any experience running on that page for that particular user.

Refer to your analytics platform's labeling guidelines for information about any restrictions or guidelines it may have.

You can send this data to analytics and data platforms such as SiteCatalyst, Mixpanel, Coremetrics, or any internal tools that your company has developed to track analytics.

Monetate pushes experience data to third-party analytics platforms when a site visitor sees an experience, which occurs on the next page load, after 5 minutes, or with a retrack after 5 minutes. The 5-minute interval is unique to when the visitor first qualifies for the experience.

Follow these steps to create a new custom third-party analytics report.

Configuring the code for a custom report requires some knowledge of JavaScript. If you are unfamiliar with JavaScript, check with your IT department for support, or refer to the requirements provided by your third-party analytics platform.

  1. Click the settings icon in the top navigation bar and then select Integration.
  2. On the Third-Party Analytics tab, take one of the following actions:
    • If the account doesn't have any third-party analytics custom reports, then click SELECT for Custom Reporting.

      Callout of the SELECT button for the Custom Reporting option

    • If the account already has a third-party analytics report, then click ADD REPORT and then, if necessary, select Custom.

      Callout of the 'Custom' option in the ADD REPORT button menu

  3. Type the custom report's name into Title, and then input the platform-specific JavaScript into the console.

    See Code Samples for Third-Party Analytics Integrations to obtain code to integrate with common third-party analytics vendors.

    Callout of the Title field and the JavaScript code editor on the Custom Report Configuration screen

  4. Optionally, set Enable by default for all new experiences to YES if you want Monetate to push experience data for all new experiences to the third-party platform associated with the new report.

    Callout of the 'Enable by default for all new experiences' toggle on the Custom Report Configuration screen

  5. Click CREATE.

    Callout of the CREATE button on the Custom Report Configuration screen

The campaigns Variable

The JavaScript variable campaigns is an array of objects that contains information about the experiences running on that page. This variable allows you to send Monetate data to your analytics or data platform. The number of indices in campaigns is equal to the number of experiences.

The campaigns variable is only available within the Custom Report JavaScript console. Submit a support ticket using the Monetate Technical Support portal (support.monetate.com) if you have any questions.

Each index in the campaigns variable contains the following information:

  • id — The unique ID of the experience (for example, 217022)
  • key — A shortened version of the experience name appended with the experience ID (for example, A/B-Test_217022)
  • split — The split name (for example, Experiment or A-control)

Here is an example of the data present in the campaigns variable for a visitor who was exposed to three different experiences on the page.

Code sample of data from multiple experiences captured in the 'campaigns' variable

Example

This code sample is a typical method for sending experience information to Mixpanel.

// The 'campaigns' variable is an array of experiences active on the page.
for (var i = 0; i < campaigns.length; i++) {
  mixpanel.track("Video played", {
    "id": campaigns[i].id,
	"key": campaigns[i].key,
	"split": campaigns[i].split
  });
}

The campaigns variable is an array of experiences active on the page. The following code snippet places that array in a variable available on the front end:

window.monetate = window.monetate || {};
window.monetate.campaigns = campaigns;

The following screenshot shows how to access the campaigns variable in your console.

View of a JavaScript console that shows the 'campaigns' variable

Testing the Report

You can ensure the new report works from the report configuration page by adding the JavaScript console.log() method and a message to the code in the editor.

The following example is the minimal Google Analytics 4 with Google Tag code with the console.log() method added.

if (typeof(window.gtag) === "function") {
  for (var i = 0; i < campaigns.length; i++) {
    var campaign = campaigns[i];
    window.gtag('event', campaign.key, {
      'event_category': 'Monetate',
      'event_label': campaign.split,
      'non_interaction': true
    });
  }
  console.log("Google Analytics 4");
}

Follow these steps to test a new custom third-party analytics report.

  1. Add the console.log() method and message to the report code.

    Callout of the 'console.log()' method added to code for a Google Analytics 4 report

  2. Click the preview icon.

    Callout of the preview icon for a for a Google Analytics 4 report configuration

  3. While viewing the new browser tab or window in which your site loaded in Preview Mode, open your browser's developer tools and then switch to its console.

    A retail site, with a message that states, 'PREVIEWING:  GA4' below the active portion of the browser window. The browser developer tools window is docked below the message, with a callout of the 'Console' tab

  4. Ensure the message that you used with the console.log() method in the report code is present in the console.

    Callout of the 'Google Analytics 4' message resulting from the 'console.log()' method used in the GA4 report's code

After you test the report, you can remove the console.log() method from the report code. You can also set Enable by default for all new experiences to YES for the new report if you opted not to do so when you first created the report.

If you opted to set Enable by default for all new experiences to YES when you created the custom report, you must also add the new report to each active Web experience that you want reported to your third-party analytics provider. See Enabling a Custom Report at the Experience Level for more information.

Enabling a Custom Report at the Experience Level

Follow these steps to enable a custom third-party report for an individual active Web experience.

  1. Navigate to the experience that you want reported to your third-party analytics provider, and then open it in Experience Editor.
  2. Click the additional options menu (...) on the Experience Editor page, and then click Third-Party Analytics.

    Callout of the 'Third-Party Analytics' option in the menu of additional options on the Experience Editor page

  3. Toggle the setting for the custom third-party report to YES.

    Callout of the setting for the custom third-party report set to NO

  4. If you want to see a specific string for this experience in all third-party analytics platforms enabled for it, enter it into Report Label.

    Monetate automatically appends group or split names to the experience name (for example, Winter-Clearance-Sale-Banner - Control and Winter-Clearance-Sale-Banner - Experiment). It also creates labels for holdout variants based on your specified variant labels. For each variant included in the holdout, Monetate appends the label with - Holdout.

    Callout of the 'Report Label' field on the 'Third-Party Analytics' modal

  5. Click SAVE.

    Callout of the SAVE button on the 'Third-Party Analytics' modal

You can view a table of experiences that Monetate is reporting to the custom report on its configuration screen of the Third-Party Analytics tab of the Integration page of the Monetate platform settings.

Callout of the 'View Associated Experiences' section of a custom report for a third-party analytics integration configuration

To disable reporting for a single experience, click its name in this table to open it in Experience Editor, then click the additional options menu (...), click Third-Party Analytics, and then toggle the entry for the custom report to NO in the Third-Party Analytics modal.