Can you upload data to the Google Analytics API?

There are companies out there that claim to "integrate" data into GA. I know some phone call tracking companies in particular. Is there a way that they are uplo开发者_如何学运维ading data to GA through the API or are they using some other method that doesn't require that?

There is no upload mechanism into Google Analytics besides manual __utm.gif calls like in the browser. Both Google Analytics APIs (Data Export and Management) are completely Read-Only.

There are a few ways these solutions work, but one of them is to generate a unique identifier for the person calling in to give the person on the other line. That code is linked to their referral information (grabbing from the cookies). Another solution is to have the customer manually input their phone number. That phone number is then dialed by the software and connected to the live person, and in the background the phone number is linked to the source information from the cookies.

Then, the person receiving the call either inputs the code it into the system, or automatically has the user's information, and at the completion of the call, depending on how it is resolved, can generate things like e-commerce transactions or particular pageviews for Goals, so it can generate __utm.gif calls with the relevant campaign and user data appended. As far as Google Analytics is concerned, the request formed is the same user. The only thing that will be different is the User Location (which is fairly inaccurate to begin with.)

ie, if I take the __utm.gif call from my computer, paste it to you, and you click it, Google will see that as an another pageview on this visit, and for most purposes ignore that the differing locations.

Well, Google Analytics works off the a tracking GIF with all kinds of data appended to it, so it can certainly be reproduced by these phone call tracking folks without a problem.

Phone call comes, request the 1x1.gif from google with tracking data suiting your needs, and the hit+data will soon register on GA.

http://www.google-analytics.com/__utm.gif?data-here&account=UA-blah&more-stuff

There are several options to send tracking data to Google analytics.

Use a library which implements the ga.js script server-side

When you use Google Analytics in the way described by Google, you include a script on your website. This script sends data from the visitors browser to the Google Analytics server.

This script has been reverse engineered and implemented in server-side libraries. Now you can send the same data from the server to the Google Analytics server. You can use PHP-GA for PHP or pyga for Python.

Use the Google Analytics measurement protocol

The Google Analytics measurement protocol is a new API to send data to Google Analytics. You can send data by sending POST requests to the API.