Google Analytics Plugin Reporting
Purpose
This guide discusses the Data and Reporting Tools associated with the Google Analytics Plugin for the JW Player.
Introduction
Now that your Google Analytics plugin is installed and configured, you’ll want to start looking at the data being sent out about your videos.
Google Analytics aggregates this data into reports, each of which can help to answer some specific question you have about your viewers. We enumerate these questions below, and demonstrate how to demonstrate a report that helps provide an answer.
Note - Google Analytics generally updates its data once per day, at midnight, but it make take up to 48 hours for event tracking data to first appear.
Overview
Once you have logged into Google Analytics, click on "Content", then "Event Tracking" to get the following overview:
By itself, this screen doesn’t tell you a whole lot; it is simply a list ordered by the number of events in each category.
Categories
From the "Event Tracking / Overview" page, you can click on "Categories" to see all categories of data get the following overview:
Depending on what tracking you have enabled, you may see up to three categories: Video Plays, Seconds Played, Percentage Played.
Video Plays
- How many times were each of my videos viewed?
- How viewers are watching each of my videos?
Clicking on "Video Plays" from the "Categories" page will bring up a report detailing which videos were started, listed by the URL of the video file.
| What it means | Distribution Information | |
| Total Events | The total number of times the specified video was started, across all sites. This includes views that occurred after the viewer pressed stop, or completed the video and pressed play again. |
Clicking on any video from "Video Plays" will give you a site-by-site breakdown of the number of plays of that video on that site. |
| Unique Events | The total number of viewers that viewed the specified video, across all sites. | Clicking on any video from "Video Plays" will give you a site-by-site breakdown of the number of viewer that viewed the video on that site. |
Note - If viewers are re-watching your videos, the value of "Total Events" will be greater than the number of "Unique Events".
Geographic Information
Where are my viewers located? and: What languages do my viewers speak?
It is often interesting to see where a video is popular geographically, and to know the language they speak. After drilling down into a specific video, select from "Language", "Continent", "Sub Continent Region", "Country/Territory", "Region", "City" from the "Dimension" drop-down:
A report will be displayed outlining where each view of the specified video came from.
Seconds Played
How much time are viewers spending watching my videos?
Clicking on "Seconds Played" from the "Categories" page will bring up a report detailing how much time each viewer spent watching your videos, listed by the URL of the video file.
| What it means | Detailed Information | |
| Event Value | The total number of seconds all viewers spent watching the specified video, across all sites. This includes time spent re-watching a section. |
Clicking on any video will give you a site-by-site breakdown of the number of seconds viewers spent watching your video. |
| Average Value | The number of seconds the average viewer spent watching the specified video, across all sites. | Clicking on any video will give you a site-by-site breakdown of the number of seconds the average viewer spent watching your video. |
If viewers are re-watching the video, the average value of "Seconds Played" will increase, as described in the "Terminology" section of this user guide.
In order to determine which sites are generated the greatest amount of video viewing, simply click on the "Detail Level: Label" from the "Seconds Played" category as demonstrated above in the "Video Plays" section of this user guide. Additionally, you can find information on the language groups and geographic regions that watching your videos using the "Dimension" drop down, which is also demonstrated in the "Video Plays" section of this user guide.
Percentage Played
How much of my videos are viewers watching?
Clicking on "Percentage Played" from the "Categories" page will bring up a report detailing what percentage of each video the average viewer watched, listed by the URL of the video file.
| What it means | Detailed Information | |
| Average Value | The percentage of the total video content played by the average viewer, across all sites. This does not include sections that were re-watched. |
Clicking on any video will give you a site-by-site breakdown of the percentage of your video watched by the average viewer. |
The average value of "Percentage Played" is unaffected by repeated watching by viewers, as described in the "Terminology" section of this user guide.
In order to determine which sites are generated the greatest amount of video viewing, simply click on the "Detail Level: Label" from the "Seconds Played" category as demonstrated above in the "Video Plays" section of this user guide. Additionally, you can find information on the language groups and geographic regions that watching your videos using the "Dimension" drop down, which is also demonstrated in the "Video Plays" section of this user guide.