Combining various web services with the power of Universal Analytics, opens up a whole new world of possibilities that will change your Analytics-life forever. In this session we will go through 3 “hacks” for Universal analytics, that will help you visualise valuable insights directly in Universal Analytics with no need to analyse data elsewhere. Topics covered: 1. Combining offline data with online data in the world of retail, is key to success but can be hard to do with Universal Analytics. Learn how to show offline store visits beside your online visits 2. Use GEO-radius data to segment your visitors and measure how local advertising helps you attract more online/offline visits 3. Use weather forecast data to get a better understanding of your customers pre-purchase behaviorAt the end of the session, we will discuss other possible approaches and hopefully share ideas.

1. Mål &
Værdisætning
1
3 retail
”hacks”
for Universal
Analytics

2. Agenda
2
Geo-location tracking
Offline data into Universal Analytics
Weather data to the next level

3. Mål &
Værdisætning
3
Geo
Location
Analytics

4. Geo-Location Analytics
4
Et ikke fleksibelt setup, hvor enkle ændringer var meget
tidskrævendea
På grund af begrænset viden hos udviklerne var der meget
dialog frem og tilbage
Udrulning af ændringer kunne tager måneder
Mange partner involveret i måling på kampagner
Shopping center
location
Current radius
200 km
New radius
400 Km

5. The challenge and the ambition
5
Main target is to get customers to travel
further when they go shopping
Reach more customers and inform them
about promotions and sales events
Today the local advertising isn’t streamlined
and the effect is not measurable

6. The Solution
6
Make it possible to measure the distance from the local shopping
center for each user that visits the homepage
Divide the distance into radius zones
• 0-200 km
• 200-400 km
• 400-600 km
• +600 km
Each visitor is placed into one of
the above segments

7. Solution
7
Create a custom dimension in Universal
Analytics called “Visitor distance”
When a user visits the homepage, the
distance from the shopping center is
detected using the Maxmind GEO2IP
javascript web service
If the user is within 200 Km the value
“0 - 200 Km” is saved into the custom
dimension “Visitor distance”
http://www.maxmind.com/

8. In Universal Analytics
8

9. How can this data be used?
9
Identify how far away the typical customer “lives”
Identify the current reach for each shopping center
See the true value of local advertising
Others????

10. Mål &
Værdisætning
10
Offline
Visits
&
Universal
Analytics

12. Offline visitor data
12
The target is to get offline
Shopping center visits into
Universal Analytics
This would show if there is a
correlation between offline
store visits and online visits
Often visitors go to the
website before they visit the
shopping center

13. We want to be able to do this in UA!
13

14. The challenge
14
Our client does not have hardware
that can send live data to Universal
Analytics
Often offline visitor numbers are
delayed because of the system used
Raw data like the offline visitor
numbers can’t be uploaded into
Universal analytics, so another
solution is needed!

15. Dimension widening to the rescue!
15

16. The solution
16
Each day an automated pageview is fired from our server
with a custom dimension value key ”25-03-2014”
At the end of each week, the offline store visit numbers is
uploaded into Universal Analytics using ”Data upload” and
winding to a custom metric
In that way we get offline store visits for each day into UA
and can easy visualize if peaks in online traffic might
correlate to offline store visits
Daily hit
with dimension
Offline visit
number
Data upload

17. The solution – Step by Step
17
Step 1
Create a custom dimension called ”Offline visits key”
Step 2
Create a custom metrics called ”Offline visits”
Step 3
Create a solution that fires a hit each day with the custom
dimension ”Offline visits key” value set to todays date ”25-04-
2014”
Step 4
Create a ”data upload” where the key is the custom dimension
”Offline visits key” and widening to the custom metric ”Offline
visits”
Step 5
When you have the offline visitor data, just upload it to the
created data upload

18. In Universal Analytics
18

19. The challenges
19
Have to fire an automatic hit each day
Hits might get lost
Might be easier to just do it in EXCEL 
The possibilities
Other numbers can be uploaded like offline sales
What else?

20. Mål &
Værdisætning
20
Weather
forecast

21. Thanks Simo Ahava!
21
http://www.simoahava.com/web-development/universal-
analytics-weather-custom-dimension/

22. How weather data is used today
22
Each time a visitor visit the homepage, the Geo-location is
used to get the current weather conditions
This way we can see in what weather conditions the users
convert!

23. This is what we want
23
Our client sells garden products and sales is highly
dependent of weather conditions
We want to get better insights about the pre-purchase
research behavior
We think the weekend weather is very important for
how much activity the website gets

24. This is what we want
24
18o
22o

25. The solution
25
The current weather condition at the visitor location is
saved into Universal Analytics using the a Maxmind web
service and a Weather API (openweathermap.org)
On a user level we then saved the avg. temperature for the
upcoming weekend using the forecast data in the
Openweather API feed
Data is saved into a Custom dimension on session level
• 0-10
• 11-16
• 17-21
• 22-26
• +26
http://openweathermap.org/

26. How can we use the data?
26
We get a better understanding about how the upcoming
weekend weather affects how much the homepage is
used for research
It will show if a upcoming warm weekend affects how
well the visitors convert using ”find your dealer”
This could be done outside Universal Analytics but..
Any ideas or feedback?

27. Feedback?
Ideas?
Is this crazy?
27