When I first learned about the new Google Analytics (GA) Data Export API I was reluctant to use it. There's a wealth of data and customization capabilities already built into the GA portal. But once I learned how simple it was to access the data the possibilities start to appear.
The most obvious application of using the api is exporting data out of GA. The GA portal allows you to export the results of any report to a PDF, XML, CSV for Excel, or TSV file. Note though that there's a limit of 500 records per report. So if the date range you've selected is generating 5,000 records you have to manually export out the report 10 times. Very impractical. Especially since the odds are high you'll be pulling these reports periodically. This is where the Data Export API comes in handy.
The Google Analytics Data Export API allows you to pull 10,000 records at a time and paging becomes easy programmatically. This allows you to write and schedule custom scripts that pull all of the data out of GA for a given time period, optionally process the data and merge with your responders/leads database, and then deliver it to your key people for viewing.
In future posts I'll dig a bit deeper into other applications of the GA Data Export API. Contact us today if you need assistance implementing the GA Data Export API.