Klarna tracks third-party iframe with Universal Analytics’ cookieless approach

Klarna is one of the biggest providers in Europe of in-store credit and invoice based payment solutions for the ecommerce sector. The company enables the end-consumer to order and receive products, then pay for them afterwards. Klarna assesses the credit and fraud risk for the  merchant, allowing the merchant to have a zero-friction checkout process – a win-win for the merchant-customer relationship.

Third-party domains pose a problem

Merchants use Klarna’s iframed checkout solution. The iframe is located on the merchant’s domain, but the actual iframe contents are hosted on  Klarna’s own domain. Browsers such as Safari on iPhone and iPad, and later generation desktop browsers such as Internet Explorer 10 prevent  third-party cookies by default. Many analytics solutions rely on the use of cookies though. In order to prevent the loss of nearly all iPhone visits and  many desktop visits, Klarna wanted to address this problem. 

A cookieless approach to the rescue

Working with Google Analytics Certified Partner Outfox, Klarna found exactly what it needed in Universal Analytics, which introduces a set of features that change the way data is collected and organized in Google Analytics accounts. In addition to standard Google Analytics features, Universal Analytics provides new data collection methods, simplified feature configuration, custom dimensions and metrics, and multi-platform tracking.

“Thanks to Universal Analytics we can track the iframe on our merchants’ domains and be sure we get all traffic.”

- David Fock, Vice President Commerce, Klarna

In Klarna’s new cookieless approach, the “storage: none” option was selected in creating the account in Universal Analytics. The checkout iframe meanwhile uses a unique non-personally identifiable ‘client ID’. These measures cause Universal Analytics to disable cookies and instead use the client ID as a session identifier. Because no cookies are in use, browsers that don’t allow for third-party cookies aren’t an issue at all. 

Virtual pageviews are sent on checkout form interactions. Custom dimensions and metrics are used for tagging a visit, with a dimension  indicating which merchant is hosting the iframe, and a metric showing what cart value the user brings to the checkout.

Complete tracking and assured analysis

With Universal Analytics features, Klarna ensures iframe tracking is complete across all browsers. By using the virtual pageviews as URL goals  and funnel steps, goal flow visualizations are used to find bottlenecks in the checkout flow. The new custom dimensions and metrics together with  ecommerce tracking mean that reports can now be set up to reveal how each merchant’s cart value correlates to its final transaction value.

Be sure to check out the whole case study here.

Posted by the Google Analytics Team

Read More

Wrangle Your Site Categories And Product Types With Content Grouping

Viewing your site content in logical groups is important for sites and businesses of all types. It lets you understand how different categories of products are working together and the buckets that generate the most revenue. Or, if you run a news site understand which categories are the hottest and most in demand. Some of you have been analyzing these things in the past via Advanced Segments but we want to make this even easier and more useful across the product. That’s why we’re excited to launch Content Grouping.

Content Grouping allows sites to group their pages through tracking code, a UI-based rules editor, and/or UI-based extraction rules. Once implemented, Content Groupings become a dimension of the content reports and allow users to visualize their data based on each group in addition to the other primary dimensions.

We’ve been hard at work refining Content Grouping based on tester feedback to create a simplified experience that has been unified with the familiar Channel Grouping interface. Content Grouping supports three methods for creating groups: 1) Tracking Code, 2) Rules, 3) Extraction. You can use a single method or a combination of all of them. 

This will help you wrangle those long lists of tens, hundreds or thousands of URLs, most of which have a tiny portion of the pageviews (or entrances, exits, etc) each one being individually not interesting, but together telling a meaningful story. We would like to help you grasp and represent this data in a grouped format, helping you understand the overall areas that the website owner has (e.g. “product pages”, “search pages”, “watch pages”).

Content Grouping lets you group content into a logical structure that reflects how you think about your site. You can view aggregated metrics by group name, and then drill in to individual URLs, page titles, or screen names. For example, you can see the aggregated number of pageviews for all pages in /Men/Shirts rather than for each URL or page title, and then drill in to see statistics for individual pages.

Watch the below video to learn more:

Be sure and visit our Help Center to learn how to get started with Content Grouping today.

Happy Analyzing!

Posted by Russell Ketchum, Google Analytics Team

Read More

Using Universal Analytics to Measure Movement

The following is a guest post by Benjamin Mangold, Director of Digital & Analytics at Loves Data, a Google Analytics Certified Partner.

Universal Analytics includes new JavaScript tracking code for websites and new mobile SDKs. But Universal Analytics is a lot more than that - it also gives us the Measurement Protocol, which allows us to send data to Google Analytics without the need to use the tracking code or SDKs.

Earlier this year, the team at Loves Data used Universal Analytics and the Measurement Protocol to measure their caffeine consumption and tie it to the team’s productivity. Our next challenge: measuring our team’s movement into Google Analytics. With the help of an Xbox Kinect, movement recognition software, and of course the Measurement Protocol, we started getting creative!

Business Applications and Analysis Opportunities

So measuring movement is fun and although we can measure total and unique dance moves you might be wondering about the business applications. This is where the power of measuring offline interactions can really start to be seen. The Measurement Protocol enables business applications such as:

• Measuring in-store purchases and tying purchases to your online data
• Understanding behaviour across any connected device, including gaming consoles
• Comparing offline billboard impressions to online display ad impressions
• Getting insights into your audience’s online to offline journey

Once you have tied your online and offline data together you can begin to analyze the full impact of your different touch points. For example, if you are collecting contact details online, you can use Google Analytics to then understand who actually converts offline, whether this conversion is attending an information session or making a purchase at a cash register. The analysis possibilities made available by the Measurement Protocol are truly amazing.

Read More