Comments on: Top 5 Reasons to Create Custom Channel Groupings in Google Analytics

By: Paul Koks

Paul Koks — Tue, 13 Apr 2021 07:24:37 +0000

In reply to Mallory Reese. Hi Mallory, Not sure why this is happening if the same data and time range is included in both channel groupings. The discrepancies look very low (< 1%) so I wouldn't worry too much here. There might be something going on behind the scenes that I don't have visibility on. Best, Paul

By: Mallory Reese

Mallory Reese — Mon, 12 Apr 2021 23:33:29 +0000

Hey Paul,
Curious as to why total user counts/ new users/sessions is different for my custom channel grouping vs. the default channel grouping for the same date range and for the same view? (I’m not talking about for individual channels–that would be expected–I’m talking about the totals column at the top of the table).

I would expect the “(other)” channel to be larger for my default channel grouping to make up for uncategorized traffic, but see no difference for my totals regardless of the grouping I used (ex: custom channel grouping = 3.86M users, 3.594 new users, 5.228M sessions; default channel grouping = 3.82M users, 3.591 new users, 5.229M sessions).

By: Paul Koks

Paul Koks — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 16:18:25 +0000

In reply to Jules. It's true that they have their limitations, but I hope this blogpost sheds some light on how and when they are useful. They don't replace the default channel grouping in any way, but it can be very useful to use them both.

By: Jules

Jules — Thu, 27 Feb 2020 14:10:39 +0000

One issue – I have had custom channels created for some time – but they seem very little use as it only seems possible to select them as a dimension in very few of the standard reports and it is not possible to use them at all in a custom report. I have asked in many places if I am missing something but little response.

By: Paul Koks

Paul Koks — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 09:54:26 +0000

In reply to Okoh Alex.

I would solve this one on the utm tagging side as you have mixed up the medium and source combination.
Change Referral/Quora into Quora/Referral and you are all good. Otherwise you need to expand the Referral bucket in the custom and/or default channel grouping setup with this exact source/medium combination (use an “OR” statement to expand the current setup). Hope this helps!

By: Okoh Alex

Okoh Alex — Thu, 01 Aug 2019 02:08:18 +0000

Actually, i was looking for this kind of information to solve my problem.

I hope you will throw some light on my query. I have detailed it step by step

Step 1

When i clicked on (other), it showed me

Source Sessions

Referral 9

Step 2 – Secondary Dimension changed to Source/Medium

Source Source/Medium

Referral Referral/Quora

There were 7 sessions to two inner pages and 2 sessions to home page – Total 9 sessions

I would like to move these 9 sessions to Referral Channel from the (other ). What should i do ?

Thanks

By: Paul Koks

Paul Koks — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 06:51:24 +0000

In reply to Nikki Stine. Hi Nikki, great to hear this post is useful for you!

By: Nikki Stine

Nikki Stine — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 15:51:01 +0000

This is a very helpful article! I’ve made some changes to the Default channels, but knowing I can create these custom channels and not mess anything up is wonderful!
Also, seeing the historical data is priceless. It also helps me verify I’ve setup the channels correctly.
Thanks for pulling this together!