Getting Unsampled Data from Google Analytics Standard Accounts with Analytics Canvas:
You will need a trial license key or a subscription to use the features discussed in this tutorial. If you haven’t already done so, sign-up for a free 30-day trial and instantly get your license key so you can begin.
- Open Analytics Canvas and apply your license key (you only need to do this once)
- Go to New Source > Google Analytics and choose Reporting API V4
- If this is your first time using Canvas, it will ask you to authorize a connection to Google Analytics. The authorization is between your machine and the Google Analytics API. Your tokens are not accessible by us and we cannot access your data.
- Select the View you wish to query from your list of Google Analytics Accounts and Properties:
- Make your query by selecting your dimensions and metrics
- Click on the Sampling Tab to view the default settings
- Click OK to run the query.
This will run the Canvas with the default settings for the previous 30 days of data. By default, Canvas will scan for sampling in the query and if found, use partitioning to eliminate it. The number of partitions will be automatically determined for you.
Canvas will also scan for Report Query Limiting and if found, will partition the query in an attempt to eliminate it. In both cases, Canvas will partition down to the smallest possible date range - one day - in order to reduce sampling. If there was no sampling, there will be no indicator shown. If there was sampling detected, Canvas will display one of 5 indicators:
- Sampling detected - you have more than the sampling threshold for at least 1 day in the time period of the query.
- Sampling detected and eliminated. - Canvas found sampling and eliminated it.
- (Other) detected - this is when you have report query limiting that Canvas could not eliminate.
- (Other) detected and eliminated - Canvas has found report query limiting and used partitioning to avoid it and return the full dataset to you.
- Sampling and (Other) detected - both forms of sampling could not be eliminated from this query.
If you still have sampling, it will be minimized by being eliminated on those days where the sampling threshold wasn't met. The only solution to fully eliminate sampling when you have more than 500,000 sessions per day is to upgrade to Google Analytics 360.
Next Steps
If you want to see how much sampling there was and what impact that would have had on your reports, check out our guide: How to Determine if Your Data is Sampled and Calculate the Sample Rate in Google Analytics.
To work with your unsampled data once it has landed on your Canvas, consider using the Data Profiler to inspect it, use data transformation blocks to process it, and use data export blocks to export your unsampled data to Excel, Tableau, Data Studio, your databases, or into flat files.