Measurement Protocol Google Analytics Post request not registering page views

Question

I'm trying to register source and medium impressions using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol.

I'm not seeing pageviews or source/mediums being recorded in the GA dashboard.

I'm running this snippet in my head tag.

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.5.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script>
  var randomid = Math.floor(Math.random() * 1000000);
  var path = window.location.pathname;
  var pathuri = encodeURIComponent(window.location.pathname)
  var url = 'https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XXXXXXXX-X&cid='+randomid+'&t=pageview&cs=tvstest3&cm=ctvtest3&dp='+pathuri;
  $.post(url, function(data, status){
    console.log("Data: " + data + "\nStatus: " + status);
  });
</script>

Which results in a network call of

https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&tid=UA-XXXXXX-X&cid=537396&t=pageview&cs=tvstest3&cm=ctvtest3&dp=%2Ftest3.html

https://ga-dev-tools.appspot.com/hit-builder/ returns "Hit is valid!"

and if I send the request to https://www.google-analytics.com/debug/collect

Data: {
  "hitParsingResult": [ {
    "valid": true,
    "parserMessage": [ ],
    "hit": "/debug/collect?v=1\u0026tid=UA-XXXXXXX-X\u0026cid=521292\u0026t=pageview\u0026cs=tvstest3\u0026cm=ctvtest3\u0026dp=%2Ftest3.html"
  } ],
  "parserMessage": [ {
    "messageType": "INFO",
    "description": "Found 1 hit in the request."
  } ]
}

Status: success

Can anyone shed some light on why I'm not seeing pageviews and source/medium being recorded.

Thanks!

-cwmacken

Answer 1

If bot filtering in your view is enabled the hit may not be recorded. This is because using the Measurement protocol data protocol looks a lot like a bot injecting data into your property.

Try to disable this checkbox in your View settings:

Answer 2

debugging endpoint vs collection endpoint

The Debug endpoint is just for Validating Hits

https://www.google-analytics.com/debug/collect

This document describes how to validate Google Analytics Measurement Protocol hits.

The debug endpoint doesn't actually send the hit to google analytics. If you want the data registered in google analytics you should send it to

https://www.google-analytics.com/collect

Once you have changed the endpoint you should then, check the real time reports to ensure that the hit was received. If not ensure that bot filtering has been disabled on the account.

The wait between 24 - 48 hours to see the data in the standard reports, due to processing latency.

Post data in body

Beyond the data should be sent in the body of your request as post data.

POST /collect HTTP/1.1
Host: www.google-analytics.com

v=1&tid=UA-XXXXXXXX-X&cid='+randomid+'&t=pageview&cs=tvstest3&cm=ctvtest3&dp='+pathuri

Code

I am not a JavaScript dev but i think you should be looking at something like this.

var http = new XMLHttpRequest();
var url = 'https://www.google-analytics.com/collect';
var params = 'v=1&tid=UA-XXXXXXXX-X&cid='+randomid+'&t=pageview&cs=tvstest3&cm=ctvtest3&dp='+pathuri';
http.open('POST', url, true);

//Send the proper header information along with the request
http.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded');

http.onreadystatechange = function() {//Call a function when the state changes.
    if(http.readyState == 4 && http.status == 200) {
        alert(http.responseText);
    }
}
http.send(params);