Google Analytics Event Tracking Strategy: A Best Way to Know User Conversions
Having a successful social media campaign or huge organic traffic is like a sunshine for every business owners. But if you are not using your data properly for your business profit then it’s really doesn’t make any sense. After all, tracking your events is a wise strategy of the business and guess what!! With Google Analytics Event Tracking you can able to track all information about how people behave on your site, by adding a little bit of extra code in your web page.
Source:TopSpot
Events are user interaction with content which can be with anything such as Downloads, Flash Elements, video plays, Outbound links, and mobile ad clicks. This all are events which can be tracked independently from a webpage or a screen load with the help of adding Google Analytics Event Tracking code.
If you are not aware of Google Analytics then you should read Google Analytics SEO: A Guide to Improve Google Ranking before we proceed further with Google Analytics Event Tracking.
Types of Event Handlers in Google Analytics
There are four types of events which you can manage with Google Analytics Event tracking and same are as mentioned below.
Mouse Event Handler
Keyboard Event Handler
Frame Event Handler
Form Event Handler
Mouse Event Handler
With the Mouse Event Handler, you are able to track the events which are performed through mouse-click on your site and the most common mouse click event is onclick event. It response towards the on page events like outbound link or buttons.
Let me tell you with an example for better understanding.
<button onClick=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘guides’, ‘download-cro’, ‘Google Analytics-beginners-guide.pdf’, 10);“>Download Google analytics Beginners Guide</button>
So, with the help of this code, you are able to measure the total number of downloads for this particular button. In addition, you are also able to measure another mouse events just by adding simple code.
Keep one thing in mind, do not use similar mouse events repetitively in your site such as mouse movement because Google Analytics does not track more than 500 events per session.
Frame Event Handlers
Frame Event will get generated post Image, Frame or page has been completely loaded. The most common Frame Event is Onload event.
Consider the following example for the same.
<img src=”popup.gif” onload=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘popups’, ‘popup-homePage’);
Form Event Handlers
Form event tracking will take place when the form is submitted successfully. Look at the code which is required to add Form Event Handling in your website.
<form name=”processOrders” action=”process.php” onsubmit=”ga(‘send’, ‘event’, ‘Forms’, ‘Order Submitted’);
There are a few most common Form Event Handlers such as page load, OnSelect. On-reset and Onchange.
Keyboard Event Handlers
Keyboard Event Tracking is not found much useful in Event Tracking.
Before getting started with event tracking you need to understand that how they’re put together. Basically, events are made from four essential component and they are as listed below.
Action: An event action is used to specify the particular action that the event is set to perform. For example, if you have set an event for Download then you can name it as Download Action event.
Label: Label is useful to provide more information about the action taken. For example, if you have a bunch of PDFs available for download on your site then you can keep track on the record of downloaded events by just giving separate labeling for each event.
Hence, this is optional but it is always beneficial to use this.
Category: A category is a bunch of events which is like a basket in which you can create more than one event.
For instance, you can create one category called Download to store a number of events related to downloads from your website.
Value: Value is used to represent numerical value related to an event. It is always an integer.
For example, if you wanted to keep track of video load time then you can use the value component. Yes, if you don’t need to keep track of any numerical value then you can avoid using value component.
So, Shell, we start with the coding section?
Of course, your answer is yes!!! let’s see how to set up the source code for Google Analytics Event Tracking. This process requires a few simple steps and the same are as mentioned below.
Decide Structure for Google Analytics Event Tracking
As we all know before performing any action towards the success, we should need a strong and effective strategy. Isn’t it?
Similarly, you need to decide the structure of your event tracking such as which component you will going to use like Action, Label, Category, and Value. Besides that, try to use clear and consistent naming pattern.
Because, if you make any changes in event tracking structure then it’s not easy to reorganize it to have an effective result. So, you need to be clear with your structure planning.
Start Connecting Your Site with Google Analytics
First of all, you need to get your Google analytics Tracking id. To get the same go to the admin section and click on Property tab where you’re easily able to find the Google Analytics Tracking Id.
Here is a code which you need to put in “Head“ section of your web pages to connect with Google Analytics.
script:
<!– Global Site Tag (gtag.js) – Google Analytics –>
<script async src=”https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=GA_TRACKING_ID”></script>
<script>
window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag(‘js’, new Date());
gtag(‘config’, ‘GA_TRACKING_ID’);
</script>
Use your website Google Analytics Tracking Id in the place of “GA_TRACKING_ID”. Now if you want to track particular events of your website then you can apply the code for different event handlers such as a mouse, Keyboard, Frame and form Event handlers as mentioned above.
Besides that, you are easily able to find this code from your Google Analytics account itself. Here are the steps for the same.
Step 1: Open Admin Section and click on the Tracking Code available under Tracking Info Section.
Check Google Analytics Event Tracking is Working or Not
After, performing installation process it is necessary to check is it working or not. Hence, how will you get an effective report if Google Analytics Event Tracking Not Working Properly.
To check the same you need to scroll down through the Event Tab available under the Behaviour section. So, start exploring your Google Analytics Tool for better website performance.
How To Add Google Analytics Event Tracking Code in WordPress?
Above we have mentioned steps for HTML based website, but what if you are owning a website in WordPress? Hence, nowadays people choose to have WordPress website due to it’s simple and reliable structure.
So, for WordPress you need to use different plugins because you cannot find header portion in your WordPress site, right? To get the same you need to install Headers Footers Plugin.
This plugin allows you to add code such as Google Analytics, CSS, Facebook Pixels and many more without editing your theme files. It needs a few Easy Installation Steps to get set with your website and also offers a simple interface for adding your code in order to make your work easier and faster.
Now, we all are well aware of the features and working of Google Analytics Event Tracking. But, there are some additional and interesting features of Google Analytics and one of them is as below.
Google Analytics Video Tracking
With the help of Google Analytics Event Tracking we are able to track the videos and for that, you need to make some minor changes in your tracking code. After applying necessary changes in script your Google Analytics is able to track the videos embedded in the page. As, if anyone clicks or interact with your site, we can track.
So, your developer needs to use Onclick actions with the following script in order to have a successful video tacking.
Code For Classic Google Analytics:
ga.push({
hitType: ‘event’,
eventCategory: ‘Videos’,
eventAction: ‘play’,
eventLabel: ‘Fall Campaign’
});
Code For Universal Google Analytics:
ga(‘send’, {
hitType: ‘event’,
eventCategory: ‘Videos’,
eventAction: ‘play’,
eventLabel: ‘Fall Campaign’
});
Further, you may use the Google Analytics Event Tracking Code Generator in order to get a code as per your event tracking requirements.
Now, are you thinking what is Classic Analytics and Universal Analytics?
Then let me tell you, there is no huge difference between Classic and Universal Google Analytics. It’s just two different versions of Google Analytics. Where new version is called as Universal Analytics and the old one is called as a Classic Analytics.
Want answer for what is the benefit of using Google Analytics Video Tracking?
Then here is the answer, hence only collecting the record of the clicks will not going to work. Therefore, Google Analytics Video Tracking will help you to know how people are interacting with your video content and which channel is performing well with it. This will help you to have some better understanding of marketing and implementing marketing strategies.
So, are you ready to implement Google Analytics Event Tracking Code for your website? I know your answer is “YES” right? Then what are you waiting for? Start implementing all these tactics for your website for getting information about better user conversions for your website and we hope this blog will be helpful to achieve the same. To conclude, we tried our best to cover all the important topics of Google Analytics Event Tracking but if we missed something then please comment below. Hence, we are happy to have your reviews and make necessary implementations in this blog.