Analytics

Last updated 20 April 2020: Clarified how lazy-loaded videos can be tracked with this trigger. Let’s cut straight to the chase. Google Tag Manager has just released the YouTube Video trigger, which gives you native support for YouTube video tracking. And it’s great! Even though we’ve been more than satisfied with the excellent tracking scripts provided by e.g. Cardinal Path and Bounteous (with a small modification from yours truly), this is a no-brainer for native support in Google Tag Manager. Read More…

The steady increase in mobile use over the last years has introduced some new challenges for web analytics. It’s not just about mismatches in the tracking model (the concept of sessions is even more absurd for apps than it is for desktop browsing), but about something more fundamental, more basic. Think about it: if a visitor visits the website using a mobile device, there’s a significant chance of them losing internet connectivity and going unintentionally offline. Read More…

More often than not, much of what we do in web analytics can be automated. This applies especially to implementations, audits, configurations, and reporting. So when I’m faced with a menial, manual task that might take hours for me to complete if done by hand, I always look at what could be done with some scripting and API work. I want to introduce a couple of Google Sheets add-ons I’ve written and released to the public. Read More…

Let’s face it - most of us use Google Tag Manager for one main purpose: to deploy and configure Google Analytics tracking on a website. I’d wager that once you start using GTM, you won’t be implementing Universal Analytics the old-fashioned way, with on-page code, any more. But running Universal Analytics tags through GTM isn’t yet a perfect workflow. We’re still missing things like proper plugin support and the option to properly differentiate between the tracker and the hit - both of which are easy to do with an on-page implementation. Read More…

Apart from the unlimited number of workspaces, the 360 Suite version of Google Tag Manager didn’t have any differentiation from the free version feature-wise, until today. GTM just introduced an approval workflow, which allows you to exercise some additional control over what changes are pushed to the live site, or created into versions. Note that this update also introduced a small change in the regular GTM UI - mainly, the menu that used to have “Create Version”, “Publish” and “Preview” is now changed into a dual button layout with just Preview and Submit as the options. Read More…

Autocomplete search is a tricky thing to track. The underlying logic is that when the user starts feeding characters into a search form, the search suggests results based on a limited input. If the user is not satisfied with the results, they can continue adding characters to the search, thus increasing the accuracy. Often there’s also the option to revert to a regular search with what they’ve already written. Tracking this logic in tools like Google Analytics is difficult, because there’s really no way to know if the search was successful. Read More…

With the release of the latest Google Tag Manager API version, it’s time to release the new version of GTM Tools. Most of the changes have been done under the hood, with the entire codebase refactored for improved stability. I released the first toolset in October 2014, and quickly released an updated UI a few months later. Aside from a few bug fixes and stability improvements, the tools have remained largely unchanged since then. Read More…

Google Tag Manager has a very nifty programmatic API that lets you do almost anything that’s also possible within the GTM UI. I’ve used the API a lot, most notably for my GTM Tools, which might be getting a new release soon, too! The API was recently updated to its second release version (V2), and in this article I want to go over the additions, removals, and changes that the new version introduced. Read More…

I’ve always been proud to avoid the typical headline clickbait of “Ultimate guide to pigeon care”, “All you need to know about the Great Vowel Shift”, “Did you know that you’ve been smoking peyote wrong your whole life?”. I’m ready to make an exception now by adding a BIG WHOPPING NUMBER to the title. You see, the amount of knowledge one can accumulate about anything they do on a daily basis is mind-blowing. Read More…

A couple of years ago I wrote an article on tracking interactions with the SoundCloud widget via Google Tag Manager. When a platform provides a JavaScript embed API, it’s surprisingly easy to track interactions with the player. You’ve seen this with YouTube, with SoundCloud, with JWPlayer, and now you’ll see how to do this with the Mixcloud player. If you don’t know what Mixcloud is, well it’s a hugely popular streaming service for DJs, podcasts, radio shows, and other published radio media. Read More…