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I have setup a new Universal Analytics tracking and would like to store ClientID in one of the custom dimensions slots.

The tracking tags are implemented through Google Tag Manager (using the predefined UA tag) and I am having the difficulty to passing the Client ID (via custom JavaScript Macro) with the basic pageview request.

I have named my tracker so that I can access it and this code runs without any error in console, however when used with GTM, it's returning an error.

ga.getByName('trackerGTM').get('clientId'))

produces an error:

Uncaught ReferenceError: ga is not defined

Any tips?

Petr Havlik
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3 Answers3

9

I assume you're firing the pageview {{url}} matches RegEx .*, correct? Could be that Universal hasn't loaded yet. Have you tried {{event}} equals gtm.dom? I haven't tested this, but it's a thought.

EDIT:

This looks like a bug. I was able to run:

function(){
  var client = ga.getAll()[0].get('clientId');
  return client;

}

And have it spit out the client ID with no problem.

Blexy
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  • Blexy, have you used custom JS macro for this? I did exactly the same thing and am still getting undefined. – Petr Havlik Nov 16 '13 at 16:42
  • Yeah, custom JS macro. However I did it with an unnamed tracker. I think there is a bug with trying to getByName using GTM. Is it possible to have unnamed tracker? – Blexy Nov 16 '13 at 17:25
  • Blexy, I am still getting undefined, but I think this might be related to unconventional GTM implementation in general (not directly in source code due to the CMS limitation).I will try to fix it with our development team – Petr Havlik Nov 18 '13 at 13:18
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    So Blexy I finally got back to this and found out that the issue is related to having the tracker object ready. I setup an event that is triggered once "event" equals to "gtm.load" and the value is passed on correctly. Thanks for the input once more :) – Petr Havlik Jan 27 '14 at 15:35
  • Ah, sounds like a race condition - macro was running prior to ga was loaded. Makes sense. Thanks for the follow up - this is good to know! – Blexy Jan 27 '14 at 17:14
  • Also, I used this in combination with Simo's advice how to fire the tag just once per session (http://www.simoahava.com/analytic/universal-analytics-fire-script-just-per-session/) and it works like a charm :) – Petr Havlik Jan 28 '14 at 08:39
1

The real problem is that GTM (Google Tag Manager) creates an object that is NOT called ga (it creates an object named ga followed by a random number), that's why 'ga' is not defined. You should try something on the lines of using the tag manager to put that client id into a javascript variable so you can access it from the page)

Carlos Mauricio López
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0

I was reading up on setting client ids and came across this blog link about accessing client ID in GA while using Google Tag Manager. Might be helpful.

Accessing Client ID in GA using custom dimensions

V_C
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