Using advanced filters - Google Analytics

Question

A client I am working for has a requirement to use historical data in Google Analytics to present a report that shows them page views on a specific page, but only when refereed to said page from the homepage, basically like in-site ad tracking. I have discovered that I can create reports that are grouped on a user-defined variable, however I need previous data to also be included in this report, and therefore cannot simply define this inside of my Google Analytics call.

I have therefore been experimenting with Advanced filters, in an attempt to populated the user-defined field with a query-string variable. I have attached an image below illustrate my current configuration:

This configuration isn't populating the "User-Defined" field, and therefore not producing the desired results.

Any help would be appriciated.

Answer 1

Any filters you set will only be applied to new data, not historic. Probably what you are after can be retrieved through the Analytics API (you can use the Query explorer for that).

Try the following:

dimensions: ga:nextPagePath
metrics: ga:uniquePageviews
filters: ga:previousPagePath=~<YOUR STARTING PAGE>;ga:nextPagePath=~page\=
sort: -ga:uniquePageviews

What the query is asking is "Which are the top pages that include 'page=' did users click on from your starting page?"