Imagine being able to analyse a lot of data in one go, such as source / medium, campaign, landing page and bounce rate/conversions rates for a set of users. Previously with custom reports we were only able to add a maximum of two dimensions, which was frustrating. If you're in the same boat, worry no more… With Google Analytics you can now have not three, but up to five dimensions in a custom report! "But I don't use Google Analytics Premium" I hear you say!
The good news is you do not have to be using GAP; all you need is to have implemented GA correctly and 'boom', start building your custom reports. This feature has brought about a lot of flexibility in how we analyse data.
How to get started
1. Go to the Customization tab and then click New Custom Report:
2. Give your report a title, for example 'Traffic Sources'. In the report tab select Flat Table and set up your report content:
3. Once you've added all the dimensions and metrics you want you can then click save and you will have your report like the one for traffic sources below:
In the above report I've looked at the source / medium, their campaigns and landing pages. We can also see the bounce rate and goal conversion rate associated with the specified dimensions. This has allowed us to view all of this information in one go instead of having just two dimensions.
Other use cases
I have also looked at the blog report below which shows how we utilised the custom dimension feature in GA to create dimensions that provided more detailed information not previously available i.e. Blog Topic, Author and ReaderType. In the report below we can see how the two reader types i.e. scanners and readers behaved on the site. For example, which blog topic they read and by which author. "How did she get Author and ReaderType into GA?" I hear you ask… We've written a blog on how to use Dimension Widening to add more data into Google Analytics.
Another use case can be when one wants to see how users interacted with different events by building a custom report that has the following dimensions (Event category, Event Action, Event Label and Page). You can also try a Device related report (Device Category, Mobile Device info, Operating System and Browser). Another example can be an e-commerce report (Source, Product Category, Product, Product SKU and Transaction ID)
What do you have to watch out for?
Make sure that you combine dimensions that can be grouped together. As per above you can see that in the first example you are focusing on traffic source data. Find more information on which dimensions to group together.
You can now create your own custom reports with more than two dimensions. Do let us know how you get on and if you have any questions.
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