This guide describes how to use the advertising features plugin for analytics.js.
Overview
Google Analytics advertising features (including Remarketing Lists for Search Ads) can be enabled in Google Analytics from Property Settings > Data Collection. The advertising features plugin for analytics.js can be used to programmatically enable advertising features, as well as to override and disable all advertising reporting and remarketing features established in the Google Analytics UI.
Implementation
The recommended method is to enable advertising reporting features from Google Analytics' property settings.To enable the advertising features plugin, add a require
call and specify the
displayfeatures
plugin.
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto'); ga('require', 'displayfeatures'); ga('send', 'pageview');
The plugin sends a request to stats.g.doubleclick.net
that is used to enable advertising features. The plugin creates a new cookie named _gat
that has a one minute timeout. This cookie does not store any user information; it's just used to limit the number of requests that have to be made to doubleclick.net
.
Change the Cookie Name
The default cookie name is _gat
. You can change it by setting
the cookieName
option when you require the plugin:
ga('require', 'displayfeatures', {cookieName: 'display_features_cookie'});
Note that the third argument is normally used to specify the script location.
Since the this plugin is included in analytics.js, you can simply pass
undefined
.
Use Multiple Trackers
To use the advertising features plugin with multiple trackers, prepend the
require
call with the tracker name:
// create a tracker named 'foo' for property UA-XXXXX-Y ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', {name: 'foo'}); ga('foo.require', 'displayfeatures'); ga('foo.send', 'pageview'); // create a second tracker named 'bar' for a different property UA-XXXX-Z ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Z', {name: 'bar'}); ga('bar.require', 'displayfeatures'); ga('bar.send', 'pageview');
When the advertising features plugin for a named tracker is loaded, the tracker name is appended to the cookie name. The above example creates the cookies _gat_foo
and _gat_bar
.
Disable advertising features
Since advertising features can be enabled through your Google Analytics admin settings, there may be cases where you need to disable it programmatically.
To disable all advertising features with analytics.js, set allowAdFeatures
to
false
after the create
command, and before the
send
command.
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto'); ga('set', 'allowAdFeatures', false); ga('send', 'pageview');
When set to true
(the default value), allowAdFeatures
allows the displayfeatures
plugin and the advertising features settings in Google Analytics to function. This field does not itself turn on these features.
Set allowAdFeatures
to false
to disable beacons for Google Analytics advertising features, whether they have been enabled via the displayfeatures
plugin or from within Google Analytics.
To disable only advertising personalization features, set
allowAdPersonalizationSignals
to false
after the
create
command, and before the send
command.
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto'); ga('set', 'allowAdPersonalizationSignals', false); ga('send', 'pageview');