Google Analytics: custom metrics/dimensions vs events

Question

What is the difference between custom metrics/dimensions and events?

As far as I know, the basic differences are:

• Metrics aren't sent right away when they're set, but on the subsequent hits;
• Dimentsions aren't tied to metrics as events actions are to events categories;
• Events can be used to achieve goals;
• Dimensions and metrics have usage limits.

I learned to use events first. I have the following events in my code (category/action):

Account / create

Transaction / create / <transaction type>

Transaction / create-first (the first time the user interacts with the app)

Transaction / remove

And the following goals for these events:

Create account -> Account/create
Create the first transaction (Transaction/create-first)

I can see these data on my reports using metric widgets configured to show Total events, filtered by the event action and category, or showing directly the goals, since they are metrics.

But then I discovereng custom metrics, and now I don't now which one I should use to track this data. I can achieve the same results with both, though events seems more flexible. Using custom metrics and dimensions, I can have the following configuration:

Metrics

Total transactions
Created accounts
Removed transactions

Dimensions

Transaction type

Did I get something wrong? Both solve the problem, but I believe choosing the right one now might save me from problems in the future.

Answer 1

Dimensions are things that you can filter/group/pivot off of:

• Demographic Information
• Browser Type
• City, State, Country
• Event Categories, Actions, Labels

Metrics are the actual data points

• Pageviews
• Events
• Bounce Rate

Custom Dimensions and metrics can be defined and sent along with pageview or event beacons.

All in all try to think of custom events more with "did the user do something on the page that I want to measure that isn't a pageview" and then tie the event category/action/label to that event. Like "Click / Ajax Login Form" or "Click / Cart / Remove Item".

To get to your question: You can use both, but the best approach seems to be custom dimensions and metrics as long as you can send that information on a pageview beacon. And then you can configure your goals based on that pageview.

Answer 2

I think there is no versus.

You combine custom dimensions and events.

Because with dimension and its metrics you can define groups of something (dimension) and attach data to it (metrics).

With events you can just track an event and combine it later with a group of something defined as dimension.

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Example:

You got a dimension user with values like guest, registered user, premium user. And a few metrics like visited pages, visit duration (both are default metrics) and bought items, volume of sales (custom metrics).

In this case you would know how many items are bought and how much the volume of sales is. But not which are your best sellers.

Here you use an event with category bought item and its value is <item name>. You could use buy as action and labels to group your products. This is something you can not do with dimensions and metrics.

Now you could build a report where you see which user group buys which item (groups).

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Conclusion: There is no versus between Custom Dimensions and Events. It depends on the question you want to have an answer for.