You can add custom parameters to automatically collect events to capture information that Google doesn't capture by default. For example, by adding a custom parameter to an automatically collected event, you can collect the author and category of the article on a web page.
Overview
To add custom parameters to automatically collected events, do one of the following:
- Disable and then manually recreate an event with additional parameters
- Send a custom event specifically to capture additional parameters
- Add custom parameters to all events
Once you add the custom parameters, create corresponding custom dimensions and metrics so you can use the parameters for reporting.
Disable and manually recreate an event
If an automatically collected event doesn't capture certain information, you can disable the event and then set up the event as a custom event with custom parameters for the information you want to capture. For example, you could disable and then manually recreate the page_view event so the event captures the information that's important to you.
To learn how to disable:
- Enhanced measurement events, see Enhanced measurement events.
- Pageviews, see Measure pages and screens.
Send a custom event to capture additional parameters
You can also create a separate custom event for the additional information you want to capture. For example, instead of disabling and then manually recreating the page_view event with all its original parameters, you could create a separate event that includes only the additional parameters.
Note: Sending duplicate events increases the total number of events captured at a given time, which could trigger sampling within shorter date ranges or at smaller sample sizes.
This approach may be best when you want to record custom parameters for a small portion of pageviews or screenviews, or when you don't expect to approach the sampling limit.
To learn more about custom events, see Custom events.
Add custom parameters to all events
Alternatively, you can add custom parameters to all events. For more information about how to add custom parameters to all events, see About event parameters.