Multiple Universal Analytics Tracking Codes

Are you looking to install multiple tracking codes through ExactMetrics?

Users might consider having two tracking codes running on their website as a way of managing teams and the data they have access to.

ExactMetrics does not support multiple trackers since Google makes managing users and access to reports easy.

Follow this guide to learn how to properly manage users in Google Analytics without multiple trackers.

How to deal with user management of your Google Analytics

Instead of using multiple tracking codes, website owners can take advantage of using access-restricted views of the same property. One team can be assigned permissions for one view, another team can be assigned to a separate view, and so on.

Google’s built-in system for managing access is better than running multiple tracking codes because:

• Some Google Analytics features do not support multiple UA codes
• Can take advantage of more flexible tracking
• Better organizational control
• Easily adjust who can see/edit/delete each view
• Encounter less unexpected tracking issues

Example Use Case:

You’re in charge of a GA property and need to organize access for three teams:

• Admins (IT staff)
• Organic
• NonOrganic

Admins will need to access to the property’s reports and be able to help manage them.

Organic will need access to their own view, but we don’t want them seeing the same view that NonOrganic will have access to.

Managing permissions

When traffic or events get reported to Google Analytics, data is sent to the property’s UA tracking code. From there, data is branched out into different views within that property.

As an admin of an Analytics account, you can manage permissions for other users at the account, property or view level:

• Manage Users: Enables users to add, delete, or assign permissions to other users. Does not include Edit or Collaborate permission.
• Edit: Enables users to add, edit, or delete accounts, properties, views, filters, goals, and see report data. Includes Collaborate permission, but not Manage Users permission.
• Collaborate: Enables users to create or edit personal assets, and share them, such as a dashboard or annotation. Includes Read & Analyze permissions.
• Read & Analyze: Enables users to see report and configuration data, to filter a table, to add a secondary dimension, or create a segment (can manipulate data). Users are also able to create personal assets, and share them, and see shared assets, but cannot collaborate on shared assets.

In our example, you would do the following for each team:

Admins will be shared Manage Users and Edit permissions at the property level to see all reports and assist in managing views for the other teams.

Organic will be shared Read & Analytics access for one view, and they’ll only be able to access and read data within this view.

NonOrganic will also be shared Read & Analytics access for another view, which only they can access and read.

Some helpful links:

• How to add/modify/remove users on the account, property and view levels.
• User permissions that a user can have at the account, property and/or view levels.
• How to make a new view.

For most website owners who have two teams, we recommend the following setup:

Raw Data

A best practice of Google Analytics is to always have one view named “Raw Data”, which contains no filters. Organic or NonOrganic team will not have access to this view.

This unfiltered view serves as a backup for data comparison, in case data is accidentally lost in the other views. When filters are applied to views, data is permanently removed and can’t be recovered from that view.

Views for each team

Following our above example, one view can be named “Organic team” and another view named “Non-Organic team”. Team members can be added to their relevant views with edit permissions, or whichever permissions works best.

Any changes made within the “Organic team” view will not affect the “Non-Organic team” view.

Higher level user management

If a user needs access to all views, you can simply share access at the property level.

If you’d like another user to help manage your GA account, or to be responsible for creating views for the rest of your team, you can share access at the account level.

 

You did it! You learned how to properly handle user management within your Google Analytics account, without resorting to using multiple tracking codes.

What’s next? Learn how your site is doing in the Google Search Results: How to Verify Your Site in Google Search Console with Google Analytics.