Custom dimensions and metrics make it possible to add data specific to a given company into analytics that the tool does not know on its own – customer type, account login status, product category or brand, shipping method, sales representative or margin group. Thanks to them, reports can be broken down by what actually matters to the company, instead of by generic categories. A practical example is distinguishing orders by margin group, which changes the view of campaign performance completely differently from a view based on revenue. Setting it up requires passing values through the data layer and agreeing on which values are permitted, so that reports do not end up with dozens of variants of the same label. Personal data must not be entered into custom dimensions.
See also: Data layer, Measurement plan, Traffic segmentation.
