What Scope Levels Available For Dimensions And Metrics?

2.Question: what scope levels available for dimensions and metrics?

Options –

• Hit-level, session-level, product-level, or user-level scope ✔️ 
• Location-level, duration-level, product-level, or user-level scope ❌ 
• Event-level, duration-level, transaction-level, or user-level scope ❌ 
• Event-level, session-level, transaction-level, or user-level scope ❌ 

Answer: Hit-level, session-level, product-level, or user-level scope

In this article, I have answered the question mentioned above. Please go through it to have a clear understanding of the topic. 

What Scope Levels Available For Dimensions And Metrics?

The correct answer to this question is – the first option. The Scope determines the hits associated with a specific custom dimension value. The scopes have different levels, such as – hit, product, session, and user.

Here is an elaborate explanation –

• Product: value applied for the product which it has been set for.
• Hits: Single Hits get value applied to them.
• Sessions: all the hits within a single session get values applied to them.
• User: all the hits in the current and the future sessions get values applied to them until the values are different or the custom dimension is inactive.

The scope is one of many configuration values of the Custom Dimensions and the metrics. It specifies the data to which metrics or custom dimensions will be applied. Here is more about the scope –

What is Scope?  

The Scope is one of the key configuration values of the Custom Dimensions and the metrics. It defines the character of each of the dimensions and metrics. Each of the dimensions and metrics is limited to only one scope (they can have only one scope.) Google Analytics data is organized into four different types of scope –

1. User Data
2. Session Data
3. Hit Data
4. Product Data (e-commerce)

Read More: Pros And Cons Of Google Analytics

Hit Level   

A hit means any single action done on the website. These actions can be page-view or an event that happens when a video is watched or a pdf gets downloaded. These hits also have products associated with them.

Session Level 

While a hit is an action, a session includes a time frame with that action. A session is defined using the number of hits done within a specific time frame. It could be a person’s action during a single browsing session or the pages they load and the files they save. All of these actions are included within a session.

User Level 

Users are a crucial part of previous and future web behaviors. Google Analytics stores client IDs for each and every user that visits the website. The GA can track all the session times spent on a website and connect it to the client ID of a specific user.

The Client ID is a value generated from the Google Analytics tracking code. This ID is stored in a cookie in the web browser of the users. You should understand the users are cookies, not people.

The cookies are connected to the web browser or a device. So, if a person uses a  different web browser on a different device, it will generate two different users. Users consist of one or more sessions, and sessions consist of hits. The hits can be connected to more than one product.

Product Level   

This suggests that metrics and dimensions apply to a specific product in the settings of the eCommerce platform. An example of this can be the product name dimension. It tells us the name of a specific product that the visitors purchased or viewed during a particular session.

What is Scope?

Scope in Google Analytics refers to how data is collected and applied within a platform. Scope is quite important for the correct and proper reporting and use of data, especially in using customized dimensions and metrics. Scope determines how your data is structured and how that data can be linked with specific types of interactions, users, sessions, or hits on your website. There are four key levels of scope in Google Analytics: user, session, hit, and product. Each of the scopes determines where and how data is applied; from customized reports to goal tracking, it influences everything. 

1. Reporting 

Scope fundamentally defines the degree and context of reporting; what you’re looking at makes the difference. For example, if you set the tracking to a custom dimension at the session scope, all hits will be associated with that particular value within the session, while an entire session is applicable for it. On the other hand, if you have configured a custom dimension to be applied at the hit scope, data will only be associated with a particular action or pageview in connection with the hit. 

When building reports in Google Analytics, knowing scope ensures that the data is being attributed correctly. If you mix the wrong scope types-for example, combining user-scoped data with hit-scoped data-your reports might show incorrect or misleading results. By aligning the scope of your custom dimensions and metrics with the goals of your reporting, you can ensure that you’re capturing accurate data for better decision-making. 

2. Custom Dimensions and Metrics 

Custom dimensions and metrics are effective in Google Analytics to track data not automatically captured. Their effectiveness depends on how you define and apply scope. When you create a custom dimension or metric, you must decide the scope that best fits the type of data you’re collecting: 

It will track across multiple sessions and hits for a particular user because the custom dimension is set to user scope, which includes user-specific information like user type (e.g., “new” vs. “returning”) or loyalty program membership. 

• Scope of Session: A dimension that applies to all hits in a session. This is useful to track session-level attributes such as marketing campaign source or whether the user interacted with a certain feature during the session. 

• Hit Scope: A hit-scoped custom dimension applies only to the individual hit that is tracked, such as a pageview or an event. This is ideal for capturing data specific to a single interaction, such as which product a user viewed or whether a particular video was played. 

• Product Scope: This is utilized in the case of tracking eCommerce-associated dimensions, for example, product category, SKU, or brand. The product scope applies a dimension specifically to all kinds of product interactions, whether those be purchases or product views, contained in a session. 

Careful choosing of the right scope for each of the custom dimensions and metrics will ascertain their meaning, which is right up your reporting needs. 

3. The Exceptions 

Scope is very important in data acquisition, but of course, there are exceptions and nuance that might cause things to be more complicated. Following are a few important considerations: 

• Overwriting Custom Dimensions: Sometimes, data that has a narrower scope may overwrite custom dimensions with a wider scope (such as a user or session). Suppose you are tracking a custom dimension at the user level, but then a session-level custom dimension is applied. The session-level data could overwrite the user-level data, which would introduce inconsistencies in your reporting. 

• Sampling Issues: If your site has extremely heavy traffic, Google Analytics likely samples data in generating reports. For sites that have heavy traffic, this can mean the reports are not a full set of data, which may affect scope-based reports, especially those pertaining to custom dimensions and metrics. 

• Data Retention : The retention of some types of data, especially user-level, can also be affected by policies of Google Analytics on retention of data. If data retention settings are too short then important user-level data may be deleted, which can limit the range of your analysis. 

• Cross-Device Tracking: When there is interaction between a user through multiple devices with your site or application, the tracking scope can become complicated. Google Analytics uses cookies to track user behavior, but if a user switches devices, it may be difficult to associate data with the same user unless you’ve set up cross-device tracking or have other identifiers to tie the sessions together. 

What Is The Difference Between Dimension Metrics And Custom In GA?

It is pivotal to know the difference between dimension and metric in GA. Here is an elaborate description of the two –

Dimensions help with describing data in Google Analytics. For instance, a dimension might be a single hit or a page URL. On the other hand, the metric would be the Total Pageview for that URL. dimensions supply context for the metrics and help to improve our understanding of them.

However, we should also know that all the metrics need association with a dimension. An example of this is the user metric. It simply measures how many unique visits a website had. Although it does not give us any contextual information, it can still help us understand website traffic.  Certification in Google Analytics requires a good understanding of both metrics and dimensions.

Read More: Your Small Business Guide to Google Analytics (Info-graphic)

Frequently Asked Questions ! (FAQs):

I hope that you have found the answer to your question. However, here are some questions and answers. You may find them helpful.

Bottom Line

What scope levels available for dimensions and metrics? The answer is – Hit-level, session-level, product-level, or user-level scope. Once you go through this article, the answer to these questions should be clear to you. However, if you have any further queries, you can ask us in the comment below. We will answer your question as soon as possible.

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