A scalable data model for the analytics of multiple websites

A digital agency

Customer case
Data Engineering
Analytics Engineering
Data consultancy
B2B

Dennis de Groot

Data Analyst

3 min

24 Sep 2024

A digital agency develops and manages various websites and analyses their performance using Google Analytics, sharing the results with clients via dashboards. However, the transition from Universal Analytics to GA4 presented challenges because the data structure in GA4 is different, causing the existing dashboards to stop functioning. The agency asked us to help devise a scalable and future-proof solution that would work for all of their clients.

Approach

We decided to prioritise the agency’s many job vacancy websites, as they are often structured in a similar way, making the data collection uniform. We created a basic setup that could be rolled out across all the agency’s clients.

One of our Data Engineers implemented dbt Cloud and built the data model there. This tool has an open-source package that makes it easy to convert GA4 data into usable tables. We chose dbt because it allows reference to one central base from different analytics environments. This way, the agency can keep the core data model the same for every client, while making adjustments for each website.

The standard dbt output was not yet specific enough to meet the agency’s requirements. For instance, there were no custom dimensions, events, or channels included, and the filters could not be applied in the desired way. Our Analytics Engineer customised the data in dbt and wrote it to BigQuery tables so that everything could be visualised in Looker Studio dashboards. We supported the agency in setting up an initial dashboard, which they could further develop themselves.

Outcome

The agency now has a basic setup for a data model that can be implemented across all job vacancy websites. Each website starts from the same base model, with an additional specific layer added for each site.

The Google Analytics 4 data is written to BigQuery via dbt, allowing the agency to build more dashboards in Looker Studio based on this data.

Want to know more?

Reimer will be happy to talk to you about what we can do for you and your organisation as a data partner.

Reimer van de Pol

Commercieel Manager Data Analytics+31(0)20 308 43 90 +31(0)6 83 69 07 78 reimer.vandepol@digital-power.com

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