When setting up event tracking, the first thing you’ll need to decide is what you’re tracking on your website. You may be compelled to track every button click on your website, however, as I’ve discussed previously, collecting data for data’s sake is a bad move. In this two-part blog, I’m going to write about some key events to track that help move your business goals forward, such as CTAs and ways people are contacting you.
Tracking Specific CTAs on Your Website
While Google Analytics will tell you how a user moves between pages on your website, it is unable to distinguish which button a user clicked to get to the next page. That is, you won’t be able to get this information from Google Analytics without event tracking. That means if you ever want to be able to determine the most effective CTA on any given page, it’s best to add event tracking to the clicks on these buttons.
Tracking Carousel Advances on Your Website
Despite the hundreds of studies saying no one looks at the second slide on the carousel on your website, people still love carousels. As Google makes page speed a more important factor, tracking the clicks carousel CTAs is going to be an important tool in your arsenal. Only then will you have the data to show whether or not people are advancing through your carousel.
Tracking Buttons You Want to A/B Test
If you’re using Google Optimize to A/B test CTAs on your website, by definition the success or failure of your test would be whether or not someone clicks on the CTA. Google understands this and makes this kind of A/B testing possible through event tracking. By adding event tracking to the button click of that CTA, you can then tell Google “Hey, this button has been clicked!” Google will in return tell you which variation of the button received more clicks (was more successful).
Tracking External Links on Your Website
Tracking external links on your website is something I highly recommend, especially if an external link click on is the desired action on a page. For example, a desired action for a bank might be using a login button that goes to a third-party website. Another example is a music artist who might want you to click on a “Get Tickets” link.
Without implementing external link event tracking, you won’t be able to tie your specific online marketing activities, such as social posting, SEO, or digital ads, to ticket-buying intentions and logins.
Other external links that would be useful to track are:
- Clicks off to any third-party careers page
- Links to your social pages
- Any resources you mention in your blogs
- Social sharing buttons
Tracking PDF Downloads on Your Website
PDFs are not considered external links because when you click on a PDF the domain name almost always stays the same. However, since PDFs are not rendered as a web page, you cannot add Google Analytics tracking to PDFs. As a result, I recommend event tracking any clicks to a link ending in .pdf to give you a better idea of who is looking at PDFs from your website.
Summary
Deciding what to track on your website can be an overwhelming task. Staying focused on business goals and understanding how people are using your website can lead you in the right direction. Missed the first part of this blog? Check out What Should I Track In Google Analytics Event Tracking Part 1.