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Connecting Google Analytics to Brushfire

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides statistics and basic analytical tools for search engine optimization and marketing purposes. Many websites use Google Analytics to track where their visitors are coming from, how they interact on the site, and log important events, such as sales. 

By connecting the Google Analytics account on your website to Brushfire, we allow you to view the full story of each customer’s journey: how they found your site to the ultimate purchase value they complete. This article will walk you through the steps to connect your site to Brushfire.

Add Google Analytics tracking to your website

If you already have Google Analytics installed on your site, skip this section

  1. In the Google Analytics Admin, click Data Streams in the Property column.
  2. Click Web and then click a web data stream.
  3. In the web stream details, click View tag instructions (at the bottom).
  4. Follow the instructions to install Google Analytics on all the pages on your site you wish to track.

Set up cross-domain traffic

Once you have Google Analytics installed on your own site, you’ll need to turn on cross domain tracking so your user sessions flow seamlessly between your site and Brushfire.

  1. In the Google Analytics Admin, click Data Streams in the Property column.
  2. Click Web and then click a web data stream.
  3. In the web stream details, click Configure tag settings (at the bottom).
  4. In the Settings section, click Configure your domains.
  5. Under Include domains that match ANY of the following conditions:
  6. Choose the match type "Contains"
  7. Under Domain, enter your domain (e.g. example.com)
  8. Click Add condition to add the next domain. This should also have a match type of "Contains" and a domain of brushfire.com
  9. Click Save.

Verify that cross-domain measurement is working properly

Cross-domain measurement works by appending parameters to the URLs on your website. 

To verify cross-domain measurement works:

  1. Open a page of your site that contains a link or a form that points to one of your events on brushfire.com.
  2. Click the link or submit the form to navigate to the destination domain.
  3.  Verify that the page loads correctly.
  4. Verify that the URL in the destination domain contains the linker parameter _gl. For example: https://www.example.com/?_gl=1*abcde5*

Add Google Analytics tracking to your Brushfire Events

The last step to connect your Google Analytics account to Brushfire is adding your Google Analytics Measure Id to each Brushfire event you want to track.

  1. From your Brushfire Event Dashboard, click the Tracking Tab.
  2. Under the Google Analytics section, add an entry for each Measurement Id you’re trying to track, and your own domain name (e.g. example.com). If you have multiple Measurement Ids, simply add a new row for each.
  3. At the bottom of the page, click Save.

 

Understanding the Google Analytics Events we send

Throughout the purchasing process, Brushfire sends various events to your Google Analytics properties, enabling you to understand exactly how your attendees are interacting with your Brushfire Events, their potential value, and track conversions from your ad campaigns. 

In addition to the events your Google Analytics 4 property tracks automatically (e.g. pageviews and scrolls), we send the following manual events:

  • add_to_cart - Any time an attendee adds items to their cart, we send this event, along with the price, quantity, and name of the items added
  • remove_from_cart - Any time an attendee removes items from their cart, we send this event, along with the price, quantity, and name of the items removed
  • begin_checkout - Any time an attendee starts the checkout process, we send this event, along with the price, quantity, and name of all the items in their cart
  • purchase - Any time an attendee completes the checkout process, we send this event, along with the price, quantity, and name of all the items in their cart. This event is automatically marked as a conversion in Google Analytics.

Google Analytics in the Brushfire Widget

By following the steps listed above, you’ll also be able to track commerce events inside the Brushfire Widget on your own site. Just make sure you have the same Measurement Id running on your site and added to the Tracking settings for each Brushfire Event you’ll be tracking inside the widget. The main difference you’ll see in reports is that users don’t leave your site, but user sessions will still show the source, commerce events, and conversions you’d expect to see if they redirected to Brushfire to purchase tickets.