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Been searching for an answer for this for a while but nothing that I can find that is useful.

Basically in the organisation I work in we use Shibboleth for user authentication.

We probably have 200+ sites & Shibboleth works effectively for these.

However, one site in particular is protected using Shibboleth (if the user is not a valid user they have to sign up for an account in this process also) which is causing an issue with our Analytics (Google Analytics). The referrer to the site is ALWAYS the shibboleth authenticator.

What we need is a facility to track conversions on this site based on source/campaign the user arrived from. The proposed solution right now is to use a Tag Manager product to fire off specific tags based on a combination the referrer or campaign. This one single site is used for a multitude of things (all prospective leads to EPR) but we need different information based on how the user landed on that page.

We are tracking all the interaction points that lead up to this (i.e. tracking potential leads) but a lot drop out during the signup process and right now we do not have actual conversion data, meaning the Marketing etc is being spent based on highest traffic source rather than which source or campaign is most effective.

The problem is when a user signs in, signs up using Shibboleth, Shibboleth sets a new cookie for that session. In Google Analytics all the referrer to this site are from the authenticator.

Is there some configuration issue with GA that I am overlooking for this scenario or is there something that can be done with Shibboleth so that the initial referrer (rather than the authenticator) being passed as the referrer which in turn would facilitate the rule creation of the Tag Manager to fire off the required tags

user42138
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2 Answers2

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If you use Universal Analytics, you might be able to overcome using the new Referral Exclusion:

You can exclude specific domains from being recognized as referral traffic sources in your Analytics reports. A common use for this feature is to exclude traffic from a third-party shopping cart to prevent customers from being counted in new session and as a referral when they return to your order confirmation page after checking out on the third-party site.

Google Analytics recognizes the URL you use to set up a new property in your account and automatically excludes this domain from your referral traffic, so you won’t see self-referrals in your Analytics reports.

https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/2795830?hl=en

dm-guy
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Another option might be to pass a parameter across the login page when you request an authentication. If you set your fields in the request correctly, you could have Shibboleth send your user back to any page or with any query string, such as adding ?source=original_page_name. After authentication, these parameters should be available to manipulate or pass on to GA. This won't actually spoof your referrers, but it will get you the data you need.

Martin
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