Setting debug_mode with Measurement Protocol (GA4)

user_611084 0
Viewed 1856

Can't find a way to set the debug_mode parameter using Measurement Protocol 4. Tried to put it everywhere (and naming it all i can think of) but without luck :) Documentation is still very light and doesn't mention the debug_mode. With web/js and GA4 it works fine!

measurement-protocol google-analytics
3 Answers

Weird. Suddenly the debug mode started to work with code I'm 100% sure didn't work before.

Adding the parameter "debug_mode": true to the measurement protocol request will make it show up in Analytics' DebugView.

Sample json payload that works:

{
  "client_id": "XXXXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYYYY",
  "events": [
    {
      "name": "page_view",
      "params": {
        "page_location": "...",
        "page_path": "...",
        "page_title": "...",
        "debug_mode": true
      }
    }
  ]
}
user_6110840

To add to the answers of @DalmTo and @bang - I wasn't seeing events I was sending over the Measurement Protocol show up in our GA4 Debug View. The root cause in my case was that the Measurement Protocol expects a funky format for the user_properties, but the following steps should help others debug other problems as well.

Steps I took to resolve:

  1. Add the debug_mode: true field to individual event params as described in @bang's answer
  2. Use the /debug/mp endpoint as described in @DalmTo's answer - this pointed me towards the errors in my user_properties format

Regarding the user_properties field, I was sending something along these lines:

{
  "client_id": "XXX.XXX",
  "user_id": "YYY",
  "user_properties": {
    "property_a": "value_a",
    "property_b": "value_b"
  },
  "events": ...
}

Turns out GA4 / Measurement Protocol expect something like this:

{
  "client_id": "XXX.XXX",
  "user_id": "YYY",
  "user_properties": {
    "property_a": { "value": "value_a" },
    "property_b": { "value": "value_b" }
  },
  "events": ...
}

At the time of writing, the only way to figure this out is to carefully check out the example here.

user_9710910

The measurment protocol for ga4 has two endpoints just like the measurment protocol for the old Google anlaytics

  • Measurement Protocol /mp/collect
  • Measurement Protocol Validation Server /debug/mp/collect

So if you send a event to it will be sent to Google anlaytics ga4

POST /mp/collect HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.google-analytics.com

<payload_data>

So if you send a event to it will be sent to debug endpoint for Google anlaytics ga4

POST /debug/mp/collect HTTP/1.1
HOST: www.google-analytics.com

<payload_data>
user_18418390
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