All you need to know about event tracking
You don’t have to be an event planner to benefit from event tracking. It isn’t what it sounds like. Event tracking is for anyone with a website that wants to track what actions their users are taking.
What is event tracking?
Event tracking is the recording of interactions on your website. It’s a system in GA4 that provides data on how the people using your website are engaging with it.
Some helpful context: event tracking is only applicable to your website if you use GA4.
You’ll probably know by now that Google’s current analytics tool is called Google Analytics 4. ‘GA4 is an analytics service that enables you to measure traffic and engagement across your websites and apps.’ Learn more about the platform and how to install it to better understand your website from Google themselves.
Why is event tracking important?
It helps you to understand how people are using your website
It helps you to make the most of pages, products and actions that people are engaging with
You can work out what to focus on to improve your website based on what isn’t working
Event tracking makes it possible to get the most out of your SEO and marketing campaigns. It’s a learning and improving function that all websites can benefit from.
What kind of events can be tracked?
First, let’s identify what an event is?
An ‘event’ is something you add to your Google analytics that allows you to measure specific interaction on your website or app. For example, you can use an event to measure when:
A user clicks on a link to make a donation
Someone completes a purchase
A user downloads a resource
Types of events that GA4 automatically tracks
GA4 automatically tracks some events for you, it’s that clever and helpful! The list of the events that GA4 default records for you is a long one, so here are some of the top helpful ones you might want to consider taking a look at on your site:
File downloads
When someone starts filling in a form on your site
A user watches to the end of one of your videos
Search result views
It’s great that GA4 is clever enough to track these events (and many more) for you, but they might not fully meet the tracking needs you have. This is where ‘custom’ or ‘manual’ event tracking comes in.
How to set up manual event tracking in GA4
In the events section of your GA4 dashboard there’s a ‘create event’ button in the top right corner.
After you’ve clicked it, choose ‘create’ and then fill in the actions that a user would need to complete to indicate the ‘event’ you want to record. For example, a user would need to click on a button to download a fundraising form.
Enabling event tracking on your website is pretty easy too. You have to add the code ‘_trackEvent’ to the page URL you want to be tracking and replace the following default values:
'Category' - this identifies what you want to track: ‘download form’
'Action’ - is the action you want a user to take: ‘click’
'Opt_label' - explains the type of event you’re tracking: ‘fundraising’
'Opt_value' - what’s the goal for your event?
We’ll admit, this looks complicated! But, we promise that setting up event tracking is worth the work. It’ll help you learn so much more about how people are using your website.
What if you don’t have GA4 set up yet? Or, you don’t feel confident setting up events or reading the data you’re receiving?!
Don’t worry - Wild SEO Agency knows our way around GA4. We’re ready to help you. Get in touch, and let’s chat Google Analytics!