Unsampled reports automation for historical data

Question

We have a client who receives 2-4 million visits a day, so off the bat we can only get unsampled reports because it exceeds google's limit :

500,000 maximum sessions for special queries where the data is not already stored.

We are attempting to collect Unique Visitors and Visits for a 1 day period. Using the Google API has proved frivolous as the data is sampled.

We have set up Unsampled reports on a daily basis that get dumped into Google Drive and our application picks up the new files and downloads them just fine. The problem we are running into is that we need 2 years worth of daily data for 20 reports. The maximum range we can run an unsampled report using google analytics web interface is 1 week before we exceed a query limit. So 52 weeks of reports x 2 years x 20 different reports to set up is 2080 scheduled unsampled reports and this is for 1 client only.

EDIT: Can we automate unsampled reports using GA API or any programming method to pull historical data with the constraints previously mentioned? Also we do have Google Analytics Premium

Answer 1

Cris G, the only way to avoid data-sampling in Google Analytics without having an access to Premium is day-parting technique = you split a data-request for selected time period into shorter period queries (typically days) and then add all the numbers up. If your profiles/views are not sampled if you look at daily numbers, this could solve you issue.

However, this doesn't work on Unique Visitors, since they will be unique every single time (you are running data requests on daily basis), so there will be most likely duplicates and inflated totals if your site is attracting lots of returning visitors.

To automate some of the work, I suggest using tools like Analytics Canvas. It can make your life much easier and I think it could be the perfect tool for what you need to. Bear in mind the limitations about unique visitors (and some other metrics).

Having said that, I still think the best choice would be to use the benefits of Premium and the ability to get unsampled data for your reports.