How to Set Up Extractions for Custom Dimension Data

Learn how to set up extractions for custom dimensions, some use cases and tips.

Extractions are good for when you want to use custom dimensions through the URL or if you don't want to add code to your website. 

There is three different ways to automatically extract custom dimension data: 

- Extract from the Page URL 

- Extract from the Page Title

- Extract from the URL Parameter

Extraction from the Page URL and Page Title requires some knowledge about RegEx. When using RegEx to extract data for custom dimensions, note that the first expression in a bracket will extract the value. 

To test that you're extraction is working, you can hoover over the visited page in the Visits log. If the custom dimension is present, it worked! 

Extract from the Page URL 

Extracting from the page URL requires the data you want to extract to be accessible from the URL. 

Example: Product Categories 

In this example, we want to extract the category group for products. 

The URL path is: /products/sofas/supergoodcouch2341 

So to break down the RegEx step by step: 

1. /products/ - specifies that the path starts with /products/   
2. (.*) - selects the actual category text 
3. /*. - matches any character 

The extracted value here is sofas. 

In cases where you'll have you use lazy matching (non-greedy), you simply add a ? after the * in the capture group. For example: /products/(.*?)/.*/ 

Extract from the Page Title 

A page title or title tag is a short description of the web page that appears at the top of the browser window. They're often unique (or should be for SEO reasons!) but sometimes share similarities that allows us to use RegEx to extract a value. 

 

Example: Webinar categories 

In this example, we want to track different webinar categories through their page titles. This is how their page titles are structured: 

" 10 things you didn't know about business - Business Webinar"  

" Useful products for marketing - Marketing Webinar "

While the first half changes for each page, there is a clear pattern for the second part of the page title. This means we can use RegEx pattern to extract the course category:

So to break down the RegEx step by step: 

1. .* - matches any number of characters, until -
2. \s represents a space character to avoid unnecessary spaces within the extracted value 
3. (.*) selects the actual category text 
4.  \s is the final space character  before Webinar 
5. Webinar closes the pattern 

The extracted values in our example would be: 

Business 

Marketing 

Extract from the URL Parameter 

URL parameters (or query strings) are a way to add more information to a given URL, like a campaign or a referrer. 

You've most likely clicked on a campaign link who looked sort of like this: 

https://www.example.com/?utm_source=fallnewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=fall-sale 

This helps companies identify what source, medium, and campaign were behind the visit. Parameters are added at the end of an URL after a '?' and multiple parameters can be included if separated by a '&'. 

Example: Referrers 

If you have an affiliate program or a referral system, you can use custom dimensions to keep track of what referrer are driving traffic. 

The URL parameter is: example.com/products?ref=example

With URL parameters we don't need to use RegEx, so we'll just use ref . 

Example: Product filter  

If you have a product category groups that you want to focus on, and it uses URL parameters, you can use it as a custom dimension. 

The URL parameter is: example.com/product?color=black