Use Measurement Protocol in Python

Hello everyone. @best_not_best.

By using the Google Analytics Measurement Protocol, you can send raw data directly to the Google Analytics server in an HTTP request. This allows you to connect your online and offline behavior and analyze it on Google Analytics.

About Measurement Protocol

Official documentation

https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/

Difference from data import

Google Analytics has a similar feature called Data Import (https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/3191589), but the differences are (roughly):

	Measurement Protocol	Data import
How to send data	HTTP request	Mainly file upload
User to send	It is also possible to send data of users (new users) that do not exist in Google Analytics	Only users (existing users) existing in Google Analytics
Reflection time	Near real time	It may take up to 24 hours
Official documentation with usage examples in Python	None	Yes (Management API）

Usage example

Google Analytics Free Edition

Get a member ID in Custom Dimension. After combining with system data, data is transmitted by Measurement Protocol. The data sent to Google Analytics can also be used for advertisement distribution.

Google Analytics Paid Edition + Google Cloud Platform

You can use BigQuery Export of Google Analytics data, so after combining with system data on BigQuery, data from Dataflow or Cloud Composer with Measurement Protocol I think it's better to send.

Although the introduction has been lengthened, the following is an example of using the Measurement Protocol.

environment

Machine / OS

$ cat /etc/os-release

PRETTY_NAME="Debian GNU/Linux 9 (stretch)"
NAME="Debian GNU/Linux"
VERSION_ID="9"
VERSION="9 (stretch)"
ID=debian
HOME_URL="https://www.debian.org/"
SUPPORT_URL="https://www.debian.org/support"
BUG_REPORT_URL="https://bugs.debian.org/"

Python

Python: 3.5.3
- urllib3: 1.24

program

`mp.py`


#!/usr/bin/env python
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-

"""send Google Analytics data using MeasurementProtocol."""

import sys
import urllib.parse
import urllib.request
from urllib.request import urlopen

if __name__ == '__main__':
    mp_url = 'https://www.google-analytics.com/collect'
    tid = 'UA-XXXXX-X'
    ua = 'Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.12; rv:71.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/71.0'
    t = 'event'
    ec = 'sample_event_category'
    ea = 'sample_event_action'
    el = 'sample_event_labe'
    v = '1'
    ni = 1

    # url params
    url_params = [
        {
            'v': v,
            'tid': tid,
            'ua': ua,
            't': t,
            'ec': ec,
            'ea': ea,
            'el': el,
            'ni': '1',
            'cid': '11111.11111',
        },
        {
            'v': v,
            'tid': tid,
            'ua': ua,
            't': t,
            'ec': ec,
            'ea': ea,
            'el': el,
            'ni': '1',
            'cid': '22222.22222',
        },
        {
            'v': v,
            'tid': tid,
            'ua': ua,
            't': t,
            'ec': ec,
            'ea': ea,
            'el': el,
            'ni': '1',
            'cid': '33333.33333',
        },
    ]

    try:
        for url_param in url_params:
            # url encode
            data = urllib.parse.urlencode(url_param).encode('utf-8')
            request = urllib.request.Request(mp_url, data)
            response = urlopen(request)
    except Exception as e:
        print(e)
        sys.exit(1)

    sys.exit(0)

For tid, specify the tracking ID of the destination Google Analytics, and for ʻua, specify an appropriate user agent. ʻUrl_params is an API parameter. Please set each Google Analytics client ID in cid. See below for the parameters that can be used. https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/protocol/v1/parameters

Execution method

$ python mp.py

Execution result

If you look at the real-time events in Google Analytics, you can see that the events you set are being tracked.