Home → Arctic Reservations → Guest-Facing Site → Setting Up & Installing Analytics
30.16. Setting Up & Installing Analytics
Setting up Google Analytics:
To enable Google Analytics for your guest-facing site, you will need to first go to your guest-facing site settings within Arctic and select your preferred version of Google Analytics.
To do this go to the "Settings" page under "Guest-Facing Sites" and click the "Pencil" next to "Manage Guest-Facing Sites".
On the "Browse Guest-Facing Sites" screen click the "Settings" button next to your guest-facing site.
On the "Guest-Facing Site Settings" screen choose your preferred Google Analytics format from the "Google Analytics Format" drop down menu.
Note: As of July 1st 2023, Google stopped support for Google Classic and Google Universal. The only Google Analytics format currently supported by Google is G4. If you select either Classic or Universal for your Google Analytics Format, you will receive no data from your guest-facing site. Be sure you select G4 in order to receive analytics information from your guest-facing site.
If you are using a subdomain guest-facing site implementation, you will then enter your Google Analytics tracking account ID into the "Google Analytics Tracking Account ID" field.
This will tell Arctic what account ID should be used when sending data over to Google Analytics.
Note: If you are using an IFRAME guest-facing site implementation, the system will not show the measurement ID field shown above. The IFRAME configuration with the ID will be handled as described in the next section.
Once you have selected your preferred Google Analytics format and if using a subdomain guest-facing site implementation, entered your Google Analytics tracking account ID, scroll down to the bottom of the screen and click "Save Settings" to save your changes.
Installing Analytics on an IFRAME Guest-Facing Site Implementation:
If you are using an IFRAME guest-facing site implementation, to set up Google Analytics you will install the needed analytics script on your main website. The JavaScript inside the IFRAME of your Arctic guest-facing site reaches out to the page where you installed the IFRAME and detects what analytics software is installed there, sending details about the current guest-facing site page via your main site’s analytics system. The IFRAME guest-facing site implementation natively supports Google Analytics Classic, Google Analytics Universal, Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics G4.
Here is the configuration script that you will need to install on your main website:
<!-- Google tag (gtag.js) -->
<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TAG_ID"></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'G4_Measurement_ID');
</script>
Installing Analytics on a Subdomain Guest-Facing Site Implementation:
You can add any arbitrary analytics code to your primary template (see the Guest-Facing Site Design Tools for Subdomain Implementations section of this chapter for more details on accessing the primary template) to collect information about guest activity and behavior.
By default, during the design import process, Arctic looks for Google Analytics code and adapts it for use in Arctic Reservations. Arctic Reservations is able to dynamically generate Google Analytics code for all three versions (ga.js, analytics.js and gtag.js). To determine what Google Analytics account is being used and where the code is inserted, look for the following snippet in your guest-facing site design primary template:
{$google_analytics|replace:'ACCOUNT-ID':'UA-12345678-9'}That code will be replaced with standard Google Analytics code that will allow tracking guests throughout the booking process.
Tips
Other important notes and tips for Google Analytics:
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Be sure that your "cookie domain" is specified. Rather than "auto" (the default), it should be the main domain excluding "www". For example, if your website is "www.theraftingcompany.com", your cookie domain should be "theraftingcompany.com".
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If Google or another analytics vendor has provided you with a two part analytics code both pieces should still be installed in the header of the primary template if you are using a subdomain guest-facing site implementation or in the header of the page on your website where your IFRAME is embedded.
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Arctic will not send e-commerce data to Google Tag Manager. However, you can still install Google Tag Manager on your guest-facing site. The two scripts can run simultaneously but e-commerce data will ONLY be sent to a GA4 property that is NOT implemented through Google Tag Manager. If you need assistance with how to configure this properly through Google Analytics, you will need to contact Google Analytics support for specific guidance.
- If you have more than one gtag.js script installed on your site, i.e. one for your GA4 property and another for an Adwords property, you can experience data loss. Essentially the two scripts conflict and the data gets lost in the ether. It is possible to configure your Adwords and GA4 property to report through the same script. For guidance on how to configure this you will need to reach out to Google Analytics support for specific guidance.