Track additional e-commerce data - Impact of x on conversion rate

Question

A client of the company I work for is moving to Google Analytics from Coremetrics and want to track the effect of certain items on the product details page on the conversion rate.

In coremetrics, this type of data can be passed in the Explore attributes (part of the tag where you can add custom data) but I can't find a way to do this is Google Analytics.

Here's an example of what they want to track:

Some of the products pages will have a video on them and they want to know if this helps the conversion rate of the product.

So, in Coremetrics we would have passed this info in the Explore attrribute through the product view tag, the Shop 5 tag (basket/cart tag) and then to the Shop 9 tag (order confirmation tag).

How can I do this is Google Analytics? Is it possible to pass any additional data in the eCommerce tags?

Answer 1

Google Analytics (at this time) doesn't come close to some of the more advanced features you get with a paid service. However, you could look into using a custom variable (custom dimension in Universal Analytics) to provide additional information.

So, for instance:

If a visitors visits a product with a video, then set custom variable/custom dimension.

EDIT:

Appending a custom dimension to an Add to Basket event sounds like it would give you what you're after. Depending if you're using ga.js or analytics.js, the way you pass it will vary. Looking at Google's example for the ga.js, looks pretty close to what you'd like to do (I made a few tweeks):

 _gaq.push(['_setCustomVar',
   1,                   // This custom var is set to slot #1.  Required parameter.
   'Product Video',     // The name acts as a kind of category for the user activity.  Required parameter.
   'Yes - {product}',   // This value of the custom variable.  Required parameter.
   2                    // Sets the scope to session-level.  Optional parameter.
 ]);

 _gaq.push(['_trackEvent',
   'Cart',          // Category of activity
   'Added to Cart', // Action
   '{product}'      // Label
 ]);