April 20, 2018 at 14:12Google Analytics: Create Remarketing Lists from Old Users Without Limit
Remarketing is the ability to show ads to users who have previously visited your site on sites on the Google Display Network.
About the benefits and basic settings are written in the official help .
Simplify the logic for launching remarketing:
- Set up remarketing lists.
- Wait until users from your site get into these lists.
- Enable ads through Adwords.
Problem
By creating a remarketing list, you can include users who have already been on your site, but only in the last 30 days.
Let’s say your analysts found an audience that performs targeted actions well, and over the past 90 days there have been ~ 75 thousand users. Of course, you want to set up remarketing for these users.
How to select these users for advertising? Let's figure it out!
Technical side
Google Analytics marks each client application (browser) with _ga cookie, which contains clientID. And then, at each interaction with the site (viewing a page or event), it sends information to itself on the server through the Measurement Protocol , and in this request the required parameter is clientID. In this way, GA understands that the actions are performed by one user.
When you enable the remarketing option in the GA counter, information is also sent to www.google.com/ads/ga-audiences :
https://www.google.com/ads/ga-audiences?v=1&aip=1&t=sr&_r=4&tid=UA-XXXXXX-X&cid=1446135452.1505374077&jid=1601010692&_v=j67&z=633096611
This query is used to combine user information in GA and the Google advertising system.
Create a remarketing list without limits
To create lists through the current method, we need ClientID users.
If you are not collecting them yet - it's time to start. This can be realized, for example, by collecting raw GA data or by setting a special parameter . A better way to configure both methods.
Example of a table with raw data
Example of a table with clientID in a special parameter
Unfortunately, if you have not previously collected clientID, this method will not work for you.
Getting clientID
We select the audience that the analysts found and upload the clientID of these users.
Create a remarketing list
Open Google Analytics - Settings - Define audiences - Audiences.
Click "Create a new audience."
We select the audience of users who committed the events:
Event Category: CustomRemarketing
Event Action: CustomListOne
Save. There are no such users now, the list is empty.
Add users to the list
Now, through Measurement Protocol, we will create events for each of the users.
We need to send the parameters to www.google-analytics.com/collect :
- v = 1
- t = event // type of interaction - event
- tid = UA-XXXXXXX-X // site identifier in GA
- cid = 1001931462.1523543343 // user clientID
- ni = 1 // required - so that the session is not created, but only the event is created
- ea = CustomListOne // Event Action
- ec = CustomRemarketing // Event Category
Example link for request:
https://www.google-analytics.com/collect?v=1&t=event&tid=UA-XXXXXXX-X&cid=1001931462.1523543343&ni=1&ea=CustomListOne&ec=CustomRemarketing
You can send both GET and POST requests.
For simplicity and clarity, I will use the Google Table.
In the Image column, write the formula = IMAGE (C2) and stretch to all lines.
At this point, get requests will be sent to each of the links in column C.
Note that in realtime reports you will not see these events. But a little later, in regular reports, they will catch up.
And during the day the numbers will be updated in Google Adwords.
Due to the latest news - do not forget to turn off the automatic deletion of user data.
Good luck!