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How to Tack Downloads in Google Analytics Automatically
Track File Downloads in Google Analytics Google Analytics doesn’t automatically track downloads of PDFs, Word and Excel documents, videos, or other files from your website. The Google Analytics tracking code relies on JavaScript, which can’t be embedded into these documents. Within Google Analytics, click on Admin in the main navigation. Select the View that you want to set up goals and click on Goals under it. Click on the New Goal button and then Custom to create a custom goal. Set a name for this goal and select the Goal Type as Event. If you’re still stuck and can’t track PDF downloads in Google Analytics, leave a comment below and we’ll see if we can help. Empower also runs Google Analytics training for charities, so take a look at our offering if your charity needs an extra hand in understanding the data from your website visitors.
Track pdf download in google analytics
If you do, you probably want to track how often your visitors download this content. Tracking downloads on your website can help you figure what motivates your visitors.
It can also help you determine which kind of content upgrades your audience really wants. Depending on your website's setup and your resources, there are a number of options for tracking file downloads.
Let's look at how this tracking works in Google Analytics, track pdf download in google analytics. Then we'll walk through the options you have available for tracking downloads. We'll start with the easiest solutions, and end with the most difficult. Google Analytics loves to track pageviews. Because web pages execute JavaScript when they load in your browser.
PDFs and other types of downloadable files don't trigger JavaScript. So the standard Google Analytics tracking code does not record file downloads. The same applies to user activity on a web page.
If track pdf download in google analytics user's action doesn't trigger your code, Google Analytics won't track it. If you want to track events that don't execute browser-based code, you have to do some extra work.
You have to track pdf download in google analytics Google Analytics what you want to track, and how to track it. You can put some additional code on your website. Or you can use a plugin that puts the event tracking code in place for you.
Event tracking is how you tell Google Analytics to record user behavior that doesn't automatically trigger your tracking code. Usually, events are actions on the pages of your website. Common examples of events include video views, page scrolling, or file downloads.
The event code sends a hit to Google with the category of the event. It also tells Google the action that occurred and gives that action a label. In the event code, you can also tell Google to assign a value to the event. An interaction event is a true or false type of command that exists within the event code. It tells Google that something did, or did not happen based on the user interacting with your webpage.
Interaction events can be used to track bounce rate more precisely. Non-interaction events don't affect your bounce rate at all. But if you don't want to add code to your files manually, there are automated alternatives. Automation is also a better solution if you need to track many downloadable files.
There are several automated solutions for tracking downloads on your website. If you have GTM on your website, all you need to do to track your downloads is create an event trigger. The trigger will record an event in Google Analytics every time a visitor clicks your download link. Within the trigger, you track pdf download in google analytics use a regular expression to fire an event based on your file extensions. This expression tells the trigger to fire if any of these extensions are present in your URLs, track pdf download in google analytics.
So, track pdf download in google analytics someone clicks a link on your site that contains. And that action will record a download event in Google analytics. Tracking downloads using GTM is a very straightforward process. And it's the industry standard for measuring this type of event. The MonsterInsights interface allows you to track file downloads automatically.
And they give you the option to use events or virtual page views. Tracking your downloads in MonsterInsights extremely easy to configure, and it's a comparable option to GTM.
I remember you talking about that. The best way is to use Google Tag Manager. Alas, I am stuck with Google Analytics. So I need to set up Event Tracking I believe. Marco can't use GTM for his client's website.
Manually adding code sounds complicated, but there is a tool that can help you create event tracking links.
Raven Tools has a form that allows you to build event tracking code for your download links. Their form will create two sets of tracking code. You can choose to use either line of code in your download URL.
You can copy either of these lines of code and embed them in the link for your downloadable file. This code will trigger a download event in Google Analytics anytime someone clicks your file link.
Autotrack is a javascript library built on top of the analytics tracking code analytics. In the event tracking code, you adjust the data-event-category to register based on your button click. And you make the data-event-action equal your download. For this to work, you need to have Autotrack installed. You track pdf download in google analytics need to have control over the metadata in your website's HTML. These tracking options might be starting to sound pretty advanced, but not every analytics solution is easy.
That's why we started with the simpler solutions first. In general, the more difficult solutions provide more control. But they take more time to implement. With that in mind, let's talk about how you custom code your site to track downloads in Google Analytics. Custom coding is the most advanced solution.
It involves writing your own code. Then you have run tests using your own systems to make sure your code executes correctly. Here's an example of what your code would need to communicate with Google Analytics to track your downloads.
This is not the actual code for this operation. This example is written using a computer science technique known as pseudocode. If the other options we covered so far don't work, you can try to find a third-party tool to help you track your downloads. I know these libraries exist, or they did at one time. But, my searches to find a library to share did not produce any results. It's possible these tools were made extinct by GTM.
So, I don't have an example of a third-party tool that does automatic event tracking. But I'm pretty sure there's one out there somewhere. If you can recommend a third-party tool for event tracking, please leave a comment below. We'll track pdf download in google analytics this section of the post with your suggestions.
The best solution, in my opinion, is GTM. But the strategy you choose depends on your website setup and the resources at your disposal. Let us know, track pdf download in google analytics, which one of these tacking techniques works best for you? Leave a comment below with method you use for track downloads. Also, if you use a strategy we didn't cover, share it in the comments.
We'll continue to expand this post with your recommendations. Jeff Sauer is an independent Digital Marketing Consultant, Speaker and Teacher based out of a suitcase somewhere in the world. Do you have a whitepaper, ebook, PDF, or other files offered as downloads on your website? Google Analytics does not automatically track this activity, track pdf download in google analytics. But… You can set Google Analytics up to track downloads automatically.
Quick Navigation Tracking downloads using events Automated download tracking Google Tag Manager downloads tracking WordPress plugin for downloads tracking Why doesn't Google Analytics automatically track downloads?
But what about web-based activity that doesn't execute JavaScript? Using event tracking and virtual page views to track downloads There are two ways you can tell Google to track downloads on your website. You can use event tracking, track pdf download in google analytics, or you can create what's known as a virtual pageview. Event Tracking There are a couple different ways to set up event tracking.
Event tracking is critical to understand because it's a fundamental part of Google analytics. Event code looks like this: The event code sends a hit to Google with the category of the event. Interaction Events An interaction event is a true or false type of command that exists within the event code. Automated download tracking Adding event tracking code to one file isn't overly complicated, track pdf download in google analytics.
I love using GTM to track downloads because it's easy to set up. You can configure your trigger using the event tracking templates in GTM. Here's an example of data in Google Analytics from tracking. But, if for some reason you can't use GTM, there are other options.
How to Set Up a Download Tracker in Google Tag Manager
, time: 5:05Track pdf download in google analytics
Apr 29, · In this blog post, we’ll be covering the ways to properly track file downloads in Google Analytics. Throughout this blog post, I’ll be assuming that you are wanting to track a PDF download, but keep in mind that you could use this same technique to track the download of blogger.com3,.mp4,.xlsx, etc — it really does not matter. Within Google Analytics, click on Admin in the main navigation. Select the View that you want to set up goals and click on Goals under it. Click on the New Goal button and then Custom to create a custom goal. Set a name for this goal and select the Goal Type as Event. Track File Downloads in Google Analytics Google Analytics doesn’t automatically track downloads of PDFs, Word and Excel documents, videos, or other files from your website. The Google Analytics tracking code relies on JavaScript, which can’t be embedded into these documents.
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