You will use the shiny Custom Dimensions and Metrics to either:

A: Give more context to a dimension in Google Analytics.
Or

B: Pop your own data into Google Analytics to get answers to your questions faster.

Think about it, you have data that sits in another database, a CRM, even an excel sheet. Linking them together and getting them into GA will get you to blissed out marketing nirvana, in the context of analytics of course. We will not lie to you, this is advanced analytics and you need to get this done by someone who knows what they are doing. You wouldn’t have your friendly gardener do open heart surgery on you…

This template is a visual guide, with some example use cases, of actually using this very clever, very useful, but very under utilized option for GA. We also have a process, from a marketing/ business point of view, you want to focus on step 1 and step 2. Want to see what you are missing? Go get our little template, with some big ideas!