Google Analytics for Django Projects

I manage a lot of Django projects that present slightly-different forms to users depending on the site/domain they're visiting. There's also a bunch of custom submission code that differs from form to form, but that's neither here nor there.

I need different Google Analytics codes depending on the sites and after sticking these tags into every single template, I thought it would be cool to be able to manage these Google analytics accounts from the Django admin page. I also added a mode of operation that excludes the admin interface altogether (you can just use the template tag)

Two modes of operation

Administering and associating codes with Django Sites framework

1. Add the google_analytics application to your INSTALLED_APPS section of your settings.py. This mode requires that you be using the Django sites framework too, so make sure you have that set up as well.
2. Add GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_MODEL = True to your settings.py
3. Run a ./manage.py syncdb to add the database tables
4. Go to your project's admin page (usually /admin/) and click into a site objects
5. You'll now see a new field under the normal site information called "Analytics Code". In this box you put your unique analytics code for your project's domain. It looks like UA-xxxxxx-x and save the site.
6. In your base template (usually a base.html) insert this tag at the very top: {% load analytics %}
7. In the same template, insert the following code right before the closing body tag: {% analytics %}

Just using the template tag

1. Add the google_analytics application to your INSTALLED_APPS section of your settings.py.
2. In your base template, usually a base.html, insert this tag at the very top: {% load analytics %}
3. In the same template, insert the following code right before the closing body tag: {% analytics "UA-xxxxxx-x" %} the UA-xxxxxx-x is a unique Google Analytics code for you domain when you sign up for a new account.

Asynchronous Tracking

Google's recent asynchronous tracking API is also supported, as of v0.2. To use it, simply call the templatetag {% analytics_async %} in the document head instead of calling {% analytics %} just before the end of the body. You can also use {% analytics_async "UA-xxxxxx-x" %} as with the old templatetags.

This is being added as an option rather than a replacement for two reasons:

1. Google recommends the Asynchronous Tracking snippet goes in the tag, while the old snippet goes at the end of the tag, so as not to disrupt page loading. Therefore it is not a drop in replacement in your template
2. The new snippet is reported to break sites that have a comment before the head tag. Adding the asynchronous tracking to existing code would cause backwards incompatiblity.

Tracking Page-Load Time

Google has added page-load tracking. To use this feature add the following to your settings file:

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_TRACK_PAGE_LOAD_TIME = True

Supporting other tracking methods

Sometimes, the built-in code snippets are not sufficient for what you want to do with Google Analytics. You might need to use different access methods, or to support more complex Google Analytics functionality. Fortunately, using different code snippets is dead easy, and there are two ways to do it.

Overriding the analytics template

The easiest way is to override the 'google_analytics/analytics_template.html' template in a template directory that gets loaded before the one in the google_analytics app.

Registering a new analytics tag

You may want to keep the existing snippets around, while adding a new method. Perhaps some of your pages need one snippet, but other pages need a different one. In this case all you have to do is register a new tag in your tag library using do_get_analytics like so:

from django import template
from google_analytics.templatetags import analytics

register = template.Library()
register.tag('my_analytics', analytics.do_get_analytics)

Then create a template at 'google_analytics/%(tag_name)s_template.html'. In this case the template name would be 'google_analytics/my_analytics_template.html'. Pass the variable {{ analytics_code }} to the template wherever you need it.

The new tag will have all the same properties as the default tag, supporting site-based analytics codes, as well as explicitly defined codes.

The best way to do this is to create a tiny app just for this purpose, so you don't have to modify the code in google_analytics. Just put the above code in [app_name]/templatetags/[tag_library_name].py. Then put your template in [app_name]/templates/google_analytics/[template_name]. If your app is named my_analytics_app, your tag library is named more_analytics, and your tag is registered as my_analytics, the resulting app will have a directory structure like this:

my_analytics_app/
+-- templatetags/
|   +-- __init__.py
|   \-- more_analytics.py
\-- templates/
     \-- google_analytics/
         \-- my_analytics_template.html

Finally, add 'my_analytics_app' to INSTALLED_APPS in your settings.py file. Your new tag is ready to go. To use the tag, put {% load more_analytics %} at the head of your template. You can now access the {% my_analytics %} tag the same way you would use {% analytics %}.

License

The MIT License

Copyright (c) 2009 Clint Ecker

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.