Dimensions – Building Blocks of Your Reports

Tony Villanova - October 30, 2017

With all of the data that Google Analytics (GA) collects, it can be very overwhelming to sort through the information in front of you. One way to make your reports easier to understand or get the information you’re looking for is by utilizing Dimensions. Dimensions allow you to delve into your data by parsing out the information you would like to see.

For example, in a Content report you could use the “Page Title” Dimension. Rather than seeing the URL, this dimension allows you to see a clean page title and easily understand which pages are the most popular.

Understanding the groups of Dimensions will empower you with the ability to easily select the correct dimensions for your report so that you can get the data/ answers you’re looking for.

Dimensions are put into the following groups:

• Acquisition
• Advertising
• Behavior
• Custom Dimensions
• Custom Variables
• Ecommerce
• Social
• Time
• Users

Some of the groups follow the same theme as a few of the standard reports in GA such as Acquisition, Behavior, and Ecommerce. Each group has many dimensions in it. You will notice that not all dimensions will appear in every standard report and this is because the data you’re trying to drill into is not able to use that dimension, so rather than getting zero data or an error, GA simply excludes it from that standard reports Dimension list.

Below is an example of just a few dimensions that are available that you could use in your own reports.

For an expansive list of all Dimensions available within GA check out their Dimensions & Metrics Explorer here.