Defining Client IDs & Google Signals

Defining Client IDs & Google Signals

CXL INSTITUTE Taught us that the Audience Reports are there to answer one primary question which is who are my users.That's what they're there to answer, who are my users.So let's talk about some of the answers that we can get from these Audience Reports.Number one, where are the Audience Reports?Right in here so you click on Audience and you'll see this again, the primary question, whereas real-time was all about testing, the Audience Report's there to answer who are these people, who are these users coming through.And I wanted to show you first what Google Analytics means by users.And there's a particular report here that makes that a little simpler, easier to understand, and that is the User Explorer.So we're going to click there.Now, this is not particularly, I think, a report you're going to use all the time but it does a really good job of explaining what users are to Google Analytics and I think in Google Analytics some of the problems with it is people will jump into Google Analytics and they start answering questions based on information that they see there and they're not really understanding what that information means.So in the example of Users, you might say oh I had a thousand users.But does it really mean you had a thousand individual human beings coming to your page?Probably it doesn't.And so here's what Google Analytics means by users.Client ID.So the client ID is Google Analytics' way of tracking individuals, so what it does is when you come onto the site, any site that's using Google Analytics, you come onto the site.If you've never been there before, it will recognize that you have not been there before because there's no identification, there's no cookie that's been there that shows you've been there before.So it sets a cookie.In that cookie is the client ID and this client ID is unique to you as an individual.Now I cannot tell how you are from this, but Google obviously knows that you're this particular person because nobody else has your particular client ID.Then when you come back later to the site, Google would see that that cookie is there, it's going to see that client ID is there, and it picks it up and now it knows you're a returning user and it starts associating all the different activities that you're taking, all the actions you're taking with that client ID.And that's how it thinks of you, it thinks of you as a user so it's by client ID.But here's the question.If you do that on your phone and then you go to your work computer separately and then you go to maybe you have a laptop and then maybe you've got a tablet that you borrow from your kids and you're using their tablet to check something out, going to the same site over and over again, Google Analytics will actually give one client ID for one particular device, so it'll give another client for another particular browser, it'll give another client ID for another browser, and so even though one user ends up like four or five different users sometimes in Google Analytics, again it's still one user.From a human perspective, when you think about the term user you think human.But don't think that.In Google Analytics think in terms of the client ID.It's really just different identifiers and so again if I come to my site here, I'm in incognito mode, so I'm forcing our Google Analytics to basically count me as a new user.If I open up another browser on a different monitor, and that's how I did the real-time thing before, you saw that happened.When I opened up another browser on the other monitor and I typed it the same page in, and in real-time showed two users, even though it was really just me, right?But I was tricking our Google Analytics.Well, this happens all the time because Google Analytics gets ID. It's just how measurement works in the digital world, it's incredibly hard to track individuals.Now there are some things that Google is doing to try to work around this but for now, in Google Analytics when you think about users, think about client ID.And then all the different information that's associated with that client ID is essentially the user.So if you come through here and I click through here, just to show you this particular report, you can see what I mean.So this is the client ID, this is a BigQuery client that's been assigned to it.This is the last particular date that this particular client ID was seen, this is how many sessions or visits this particular client ID had.Again, don't think about it in terms of a person cause it probably isn't that.That same person theoretically might have six or even client IDs associated with them.So you see things like that in analytics all the time.But this just gives you an example again of how Google Analytics associates information.You can see all the different details coming through, so when we click in here, for example, you can see oh, here's a page view.If I come through here, you'll see three different page views were associated at this particular session, at this particular point in time to this client ID.So, you know, this is how Google Analytics works.This is how it records information and this is why I wanted you to see this and why again the Audience Reports when they think about who the users are, it's really useful as defined by client ID, right? So you're always going to hear users, you're going to say users, everyone around you will always say the word users, but understand in Google Analytics for the most part you're talking about client ID.At least that's currently how it is, that's just the limitations of digital measurement at this point.Now, let's talk about some of the more specifics around what you can find in the Audience Reports and we're going to talk about demographics here because demographics are one of those things that I think are useful or can be useful at a certain point.So if I come into Overview, now number one, you have to set this up.So this is going to be set up in the Properties section of your Google Analytics account.If you do not see information here, you will see directions for setting it up.Typically it's very quick, you'll see a little sign here too, hey, set this thing up and activate it.You click on a box and you need to make sure you've got a few compliance things in place, but assuming you are basically notified, you've got privacy statement's in the right spots, you can go through and accept the permissions, assuming you have the power to do so, otherwise work with somebody who does in your company.And make sure those permissions are accepted, once they are then all of this data starts flowing through.Now, this data comes through the double-clicked network for the most part.So it'll come through double-click then that basically Google Ads coming through.And then all that information will come through.There is something else called Google Signals.So this is the evolution.Now, this particular account you're not going to see, it doesn't allow us to see those details because we have, this is the master account so we're just now allowed to see at our account level.But I wanted to show it to you so I'm going to use mine to see it here.So if we go into our Cross-Device here, this is using something different, and this is how analytics is starting to evolve beyond, and how digital measurement I should say, it's really starting to evolve beyond the client ID, specifically of Google Analytics.So if I come back here to Cross-Device, What you're going to see here, we have very limited data, so you're not going to see a ton.But, back here, this starts to show you the device paths and which devices are actually acquiring customers, which devices are people purchasing on, where do they start, where do they finish, that sort of thing, so it's a model that's based on that.And, the demographic data all of the sudden get its information from Google Signals as well but you have to turn it on.And we'll show you this in the property section so you can see it.But if you come back here and you have these things that say on light up Google Signals, sometimes you'll see a big blue bar at the top of your Analytics that will say hey, you should turn on Google Signals, it's awesome.And it is.But what Google Signals is Google's actually using logged-in accounts that have ads personalization turned on, so basically what that means is when you're logged into your Google account, which all of us are, and you're traveling the web, if I use different devices, I am on my same Google account in most cases.And so Google's ability to know that I am an actual user, right, an actual person based on that Google account now, so it doesn't really use client ID'sfor that it uses the Google account.And all that information kind of flows through but only into certain reports.The vast majority of reports, I think 95%of the reports, are still based on the client ID.So from an analytics perspective, the client ID is what you think in terms of user, so think about the User Explorer. If you're ever confused about it, jump into User Explorer, be like, okay, that's right each client IDs.But, there are starting to report that are available that measure differently, and that's what uses google Signals, that's what this Cross-Device is.Will that continue in the future?My guess is probably will and other reports will start to change as well, but currently, it's mostly client ID based with a few exceptions on this Cross-Device stuff, so.But, you have to remember permissions and you got to make sure that you set these things up, you'll see them on the Property level, and again, I'll show you where all of that is in a future lesson as well, so it makes a little more sense for you.But let's go back to demographics.