A custom measurement tracks activities that no social network or advertising system measures for you: a click-through from a newsletter, a view of a PR article on someone else's website, an order submitted on your website. Before it can start collecting data, one of two things has to leave gas: a shortened link that you use instead of the normal address, or a tracking code that belongs on a web page. This article describes the whole route, from creating the measurement to checking that the numbers are loading. What the individual measurement types are good for is explained in the Custom measurement article.
Before you start
Custom measurement is a paid part of gas. If you cannot see the Custom measurement item in the left menu, your plan does not include it. Write through the contact form to ask for it.
Measurements can be created, edited and deleted by the Administrator and User roles. A Viewer can see the results but cannot create measurements.
The number of measurements is limited by your plan. When you get close to the limit, a coloured bar appears above the table telling you how many measurements you have left.
A measurement belongs to the customer account you currently have switched on. Before you create it, make sure the correct account is selected at the top.
Two things need to be thought through in advance, because they cannot be changed once the measurement exists: the Measurement type and, for click-through to link, the target URLs.
For the Impressions and Conversions types you will need someone who can make changes to the website. For the Click-through to link type you do not need anyone like that; inserting the link into a newsletter or into an advertisement is enough.
Procedure
Step 1: Creating the measurement
- In the left menu, expand Custom measurement and click the Campaigns item. This is the list of all measurements of the customer account.
- In the bar above the table, click the Create measurement button on the left. If you do not have any measurement yet, you will find the same button on the card in the middle of the screen with the text "You do not have any custom measurements yet".
- The New measurement window opens. In the Measurement name field, type a name 3 to 60 characters long. You will see it in tables, in graphs and in the report, so choose a name you will still recognise a year from now (for example "November newsletter, Reserve button").
- The Assign to campaign field is optional. Select the campaign the activity belongs to, or leave the field empty. The campaign can also be filled in at any time later.
- In the Measurement type field, tick what you want to track: Click-through to link, Impressions, Conversions. You can tick several types at once. The hint below the field reminds you that the measurement type cannot be changed later.
- When you tick Click-through to link, a URL address field appears. Fill in the full target URL including
https://, that is the page the person should arrive at after clicking. If you need to track several different target pages in one measurement, add another row. The addresses cannot be changed later. - Fill in the Start date and the End date. The start cannot be set in the past, the earliest possible day is today. The end has to be later than the start. Outside this period the measurement records nothing.
- Fill in the Measurement budget: the amount in CZK excluding VAT that you are putting into the activity. gas spreads it evenly across the individual days of the period and shows it as spend. If the activity costs nothing, enter zero.
- Click Create measurement.
The budget is there so that the activity can be compared with paid advertising, that is so gas can calculate the cost per click and the cost per conversion. It is spread evenly across all days of the period, not according to actual daily spending.
Step 2: Where to find the link or the code
Right after the measurement is created, the Integration instructions window opens by itself. This is the most important thing that comes out of the creation process: it contains the link or the code, without which the measurement will never record anything.
The window has three tabs and only those matching the ticked types can be opened:
- Links: the shortened link, which starts with
https://l.gas-online.cz/. Next to it there is a Copy button. If you entered several target URLs, there is one separate link for each of them, and hovering over it shows a Target URL tooltip telling you where the link leads. Below the list there is a Download as CSV table button, which downloads a table with pairs of target URL and the link to use. - Impressions and Conversions: a box with several lines of tracking code and a Copy button.
You can close the window, nothing is lost by doing so. You can open it again at any time:
- Open Custom measurement → Campaigns.
- Find the row with the measurement and, in the Actions column on the right, click the cog icon. Its tooltip says Integration instructions.
Do not modify the copied link or code in any way: do not rewrite characters in them, do not add spaces and do not delete anything from them. Each measurement has its own unique code and any change means the measured data has nowhere to be written. The only place that is filled in manually is the conversion value, see step 4.
Step 3: Inserting the link into a newsletter, banner or article
You use the shortened link everywhere you would otherwise insert a normal address.
- In the Integration instructions window, click the Copy button on the Links tab.
- Open the tool in which you prepare the content: the newsletter sending tool, the content management system, the form for submitting an advertisement.
- Select the text or the button that should be clickable and open the field for inserting a link.
- Paste the copied link into the field instead of the original target URL. You no longer need to write the original address anywhere, it is stored in the measurement.
- Save the content and send it out, or send it to the advertising contact.
Readers will not notice anything unusual on their side: gas records the click and immediately redirects the person to the target URL.
Put the link "underneath" a piece of text or a button, not as a visible address in the text. The reader then sees your wording, not an address starting with l.gas-online.cz.
Step 4: Placing the code on the website (Impressions and Conversions)
What "putting the code on the website" means. Besides the text you read, every web page also has its source code, which the browser understands. The tracking code is a few lines of such code and it belongs exactly there, in the page source. It is not article text and it cannot be pasted into the ordinary text editor of a content management system, that editor would strip such lines out.
If you do not have access to the website or you are not sure, ask whoever manages the website to insert it: your in-house web person, the supplier agency, the administrator of the content management system, or the person in charge of the tag manager (Google Tag Manager). If you do not know who that is, ask the person you usually report website changes to.
What to send that person:
- the copied code (with the Copy button, pasted into an e-mail),
- which page it should be on,
- when it should start running.
The placement rules to write down together with the code:
- The code from the Impressions tab belongs on the page whose views you want to count, and it fires when that page loads.
- The code from the Conversions tab belongs only on the page that appears after the action is completed, typically on the thank-you page after an order or a form is submitted. If it is placed right next to the form, a conversion is counted for everyone who merely sees the form.
- The conversion code contains a line with the value
0and a note saying that this is the conversion value. The zero has to be replaced with the real order amount. If the zero stays there, conversions will still be counted, but with a value of zero.
The tracking code stores a small identifier in the visitor's browser, thanks to which gas recognises the same person when they come back. Whether you need to add anything to your cookie consent bar because of this will be judged by your website administrator, based on how the bar is set up.
Step 5: Checking that the measurement works
- Wait for the Start date. Nothing is counted before that.
- For the Click-through to link type, open the shortened link yourself in a browser. It has to redirect you to the target page. That confirms the link works.
- For the Impressions and Conversions types, load the page where the code was placed. For a conversion, go through the whole action all the way to the thank-you page.
- Open Custom measurement → Campaigns. At the top, set the period so that it includes the days when the measurement is running. The table only shows measurements that fall into the selected period.
- Click the name of the measurement. Its detail opens with the Measurement code and Last update time entries.
- Watch the values in the graphs and cards. They are recalculated roughly once an hour, so up to an hour can pass between the first event and the numbers appearing. The Last update time entry shows when the recalculation last ran.
For measurements with several target URLs, the detail has a Link click-throughs card with the number of clicks for each address separately. These numbers appear almost immediately, so they are handy for a quick test that the link is collecting data.
What happens next
The results appear in these places:
- on the measurement detail, where there are graphs and cards according to the selected types (impressions, reach, clicks, engagement rate, conversions, spend),
- in the left menu under Custom measurement, in the items Overview, Spend, Reach, Impressions, Clicks, Engagement rate and Conversions, where all measurements of the customer account are added up,
- in the Campaigns table, where each measurement has its own row with the measured values,
- in the campaign detail on the Custom measurement tab, if you have assigned the measurement to a campaign. The values are then also added to the campaign totals, that is to spend, reach, impressions and click-throughs.
What can be changed later and what cannot
| Entry | Can be changed |
|---|---|
| Measurement name | yes |
| Assignment to a campaign | yes |
| End date | yes |
| Measurement budget | yes |
| Measurement type | no |
| Target URLs | no |
| Start date | no |
You open the edit form in the Campaigns table using the pencil icon in the Actions column on the right. The tooltip on the icon says "Edit campaign", but the window that opens is Edit measurement. Fields that cannot be changed are greyed out in the window.
Assignment to a campaign is done exactly here: in the Edit measurement window, in the Assign to campaign field. Look for the campaign by typing its name; the list also shows the period of each campaign. The assignment can be changed or removed at any time.
Exporting data
- The whole measurements table: on the right-hand side of the bar above the table in Custom measurement → Campaigns there are buttons with the tooltips Export CSV and Export Excel. After you click, they ask whether you want All rows (that is including those not on the current page) and All columns (including those you have hidden in the table). Next to them there is a Print button.
- The list of links for a measurement with several target URLs: the Download as CSV table button in the Integration instructions window.
Open the downloaded CSV file in Excel or in Google Sheets.
Common problems
The measurement records nothing at all
Go through these possibilities in the order given:
- The Start date has not arrived yet, or the End date has already passed. Nothing is counted outside the measurement period.
- The link or the code has not got anywhere yet, because the mailing has not been sent or the page has not been published.
- The original address stayed in the newsletter instead of the shortened link. Open the e-mail you sent and click the button; the route has to go through
l.gas-online.cz. - An hour has not yet passed since the first event. The numbers are recalculated roughly once an hour.
I cannot see my measurement in the list
The Campaigns table only shows measurements whose period falls into the period selected at the top of the page. Set the period so that it includes the days when the measurement is running or will run. Also check that you are in the correct customer account, a measurement always belongs to just one.
The shortened link does not work
Try opening it in a browser. If nothing opens, the link was probably damaged along the way: it was split across two lines, a full stop from the end of a sentence got stuck to it, or there is a space in it. Go back to the Integration instructions window, copy the link again with the Copy button and paste it in whole.
The link leads somewhere other than I expected
The target URL is entered when the measurement is created and cannot be changed later. Check it on the measurement detail in the Target URL row, or, for measurements with several addresses, in the Link click-throughs card. If the address is wrong, create a new measurement with the correct address and use its new link.
The code is on the website but no data is coming in
- Check that the code is on a page that someone has actually loaded. Open it yourself.
- Ask the website administrator whether the code was inserted into the page source, not into the article text. Text editors of content management systems strip such lines out.
- Check that it is the code from the correct tab and from the correct measurement. Each measurement has its own code and mixing up two measurements is hard to spot.
- Try loading the page in a different browser or with the ad blocker switched off. Blockers commonly stop tracking codes.
- Wait an hour and look at the Last update time entry on the measurement detail.
The counts do not match what another tool shows
Two tools will never match exactly, because each counts slightly differently. The most common reasons for the difference:
- Reach is the number of different people gas recognised by the small identifier stored in the browser. The same person on a phone and on a computer is therefore counted twice, and a person who has storage disabled is counted again on every visit.
- Clicks are all counted, including repeated clicks from the same person.
- With newsletters, some mail servers open links themselves for a security check, which pushes the click-through counts up.
- Impressions and conversions, on the other hand, are missing for visitors whose ad blocker or strict privacy settings do not let the tracking code through.
- Only events falling within the measurement period are counted into the overviews.
Conversions are counted but their value is zero
The conversion code contains a prepared line with the value 0 and a note saying that this is the conversion value. Someone who manages the website has to replace it with the real order amount. As long as the zero stays there, gas records the number of conversions correctly, but their value will be zero.
I created the measurement with the wrong type
The measurement type cannot be changed after creation, and neither can the target URLs and the start date. Create a new measurement with the correct type and delete the unsuccessful one using the bin icon in the Actions column on the right. The confirmation window is titled "Delete campaign", but it is the selected measurement that is deleted, and the deletion is irreversible, including the measured data.
Before you delete a measurement, make sure its link is not running anywhere. You cannot pull a sent newsletter back, and once the measurement is deleted the click-throughs have nowhere to be written.
A tab in the Integration instructions window is greyed out
Only the tabs matching the types you ticked for the measurement can be opened. A greyed-out Conversions tab therefore means that the measurement does not have this type, and it cannot be added to an existing measurement. Create a new measurement with the type you need.
The Create measurement button is greyed out or missing
A greyed-out button with a tooltip about an exhausted limit means you have already created the maximum number of measurements allowed by your plan. Delete a measurement you do not use, or write through the contact form to ask for an increase. If you cannot see the button at all, you have the Viewer role in the customer account; ask an Administrator to create the measurement.
I do not have Custom measurement in the left menu at all
The whole section is part of the higher plans. Write through the contact form to have it enabled.
Last update time says Never
For a measurement you have just created this is normal, the first recalculation runs within about an hour. If the entry still says Never the next day and the measurement should already have started, write through the contact form.
I need to end the measurement earlier
Open Edit measurement using the pencil icon and set the End date to today. Once the period has ended, nothing new is counted into the measurement and the existing data stays. Do not move the end date into the middle of a period that has already passed, the values measured after the new end date will disappear from the overviews.