Track exact Geolocation with Google Analytics and show on Map

Question

Situation: I want to track some Data with Google Analytics on the server-side.

Problem: My application is able to provide an exact geolocation (lat, lng). I want to track it with GA as the 'users location' so i can show them on a Map in the GA Dashboard.

I know i may track custom variables/events, but am unsure how to plot them on a map in Google Analytics. My company would like to stay with one reporting tool.

Answer 1

You will not be able to plot these in the Google Analytics dashboard, but you should not let this stop you from moving forward. You could do this fairly easily by saving the geolocations in a custom variable and then pulling that data and then plotting it using a combination of the Data Export API and the Google Maps API. You will not, however, be able to embed this within the Google Analytics dashboard.