Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Google Analytics Goals - Button Tracking
-
Does anyone know if there is a really easy way to track a button in Google Analytics yourself?
It seems that most button click goal setups involve some use of tricky code and I'm wondering if there is a much easier way to do this that will allow us to simply setup and track certain button clicks as goal conversions in Analytics.
Your help here is much appreciated!
-
Hi,
If you use GTM to do it its a piece of cake. Really. I use that regularly. A click on a button its normally the same as clicking on a link. Here is the GTM help to set that up: https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6164470?hl=en
By using GTM to set up conversion tracking goals you gain a lot of flexibility and speed. The first time you use GTM it might take some time to learn it, but its definitely worth the time investment. By the way its the method of choice for conversion tracking if you use it regularly.
I use to track all kind of conversions, A/B testing, add all kind of scripts, etc. with GTM for ourselves and all my clients.
You have to set up the GTM container on your website only once then you can add conversions, scripts, etc. without having to touch your websites code anymore, just by using the GTM backend, its as easy as publishing new versions of a website on Wordpress.
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Cesare
-
Hi,
As Zee said, GTM is great once set up.
<address>This video was useful when I was setting up auto event tracking in GTM Auto-Event Tracking with Google Tag Manager | Lesson 5 - GTM for Beginners and his other posts are good for learning other bits of GTM if you are new to it.</address>
-
I've never used Autotrack, but that sounds really interesting! GTM has a similar "auto event tracking" function.
I second mememax's answer (from a DIY, "right-now" standpoint). However, you might want to consider implementing Google Tag Manager (GTM): GTM has a great interface that's easy to use to set up new events, so regardless of what you add to your site (new campaign, landing page, content, form, etc.), you can just log into your GTM to set this up without needing to code.
- topic:timeago_earlier,24 days
-
It requires a bit more knowledge on coding, but if you want to make things easier over time for a small site and a small team you might want to look into using Autotrack, a feature that the Google team build to make tracking certain interactions easier: https://github.com/googleanalytics/autotrack/
-
well it's easy to explain it here without reading a full article.
you have to use Javascript onclick event tracking, which is essentially a way to say to GA to register data overtime your event is triggered.
on the button action code you can add the following onclick event:
ga('send','event','category','action','opt_label', opt_value,{'nonInteraction':1})
You have to change the category, action, opt_label and opt_value as you wish, considering that the last two are optional. For example you want something like this:
ga('send','event','form sent','click','[URL]', 5)
more info here on the official GA site: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/events it's really clear, if it is not, it means you may want to double check with your dev, or further study Ga documentation about events tracking.
-
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Whatstuffwherebot user agent messing up Google Analytics
Starting yesterday, Aug 26, 2020, I noticed a new bot crawling our site with user agent whatstuffwherebot. Google Analytics is counting these hits as human traffic, completely throwing off my numbers - yesterday, Analytics reported nearly triple my typical number of visitors. As of now, Search Console only shows data through Aug 25 so I don't know if Search Console is also affected. Is anybody else seeing something similar? Does anybody know what the whatstuffwherebot bot is? I don't get any results when I search on Google or Bing. For what it's worth, the traffic is coming from Columbus, OH, running over Amazon AWS via 278 different IP addresses so far. Also, WordFence (my WordPress security plugin) correctly identifies these hits as bot traffic.
Reporting & Analytics | Aug 31, 2020, 8:18 PM | ahirai0 -
How to change domains in Google Analytics without losing the data
Hi there, We recently changed our domain from .COM to .NET so that all our subdomains from external pages matched. Right now in Google Console we have our new .NET website being tracked, but in GA we are still tracking .COM. It is also causing issues with MOZ crawling our site because of the .COM/.NET discrepancy. My question is what is the best way to change our Google Analytics from .COM to .NET without losing historical data and what considerations do we need to change before implementing this? Our team was concerned that just downloading the old data would be too vast and it we wouldn't be able to continue manipulating it dynamically in GA. Thanks!!
Reporting & Analytics | Mar 27, 2019, 6:45 PM | cPanel-LLC.0 -
How does switching to HTTPS effect Google Analytics?
We are looking at making our site HTTPS. We have been using the same Google Analytics account for years and I like having the historical data. All of our pages will be the same, we are just going to redirect from the http to https. Does anything need to be done with Google Analytics? What about other addons such as Optimizely, Crazy Egg, or Share this?
Reporting & Analytics | Sep 16, 2014, 7:50 PM | EcommerceSite0 -
How do I manually add transactions to Google Analytics
We are seeing Google Analytic's drop transaction on our site so therefore all the figures are skewed. Is there a way I can manually add transactions to GA to cover the missing one?
Reporting & Analytics | Feb 15, 2013, 11:49 AM | Towelsrus0 -
Google Analytics and DNS change
Our new alumni application is going be tested at domain uva.imodules.com . We are going to collect traffic data with a Google analytics account number UA-884652-XX. So going to uva.imodules.com/myPage.html would send its data to Google Analytics with that account number. Then when it is ready for production we are going to just change the domain name of the application and switch the DNS over to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu . So going to dardencommunity.darden.virginia.edu /myPage.html would send its data to Google Analtics with that SAME account number. Aside from having the testing domain data in the same profile are there any other issues/problems we may run into?
Reporting & Analytics | Jan 25, 2013, 7:44 PM | Darden0 -
Setting up Google Analytics for Subsites
I currently have one main .com site and am planning on launching geo-location subsites .co.uk, .com.au, .ru, etc... Traffic will flow between both sites and some of the content on the subsites will be duplicate and therefore include a canonical tag to the main site. I want to set up GA to capture who is going to the subsites and vice versa and correctly capture crossover traffic. Any advice on implementing advanced analytics directly (or links to sources that will direct me the right direction for this project)
Reporting & Analytics | Oct 22, 2012, 4:44 AM | theLotter0 -
How can I verify if someone is Google Analytics certified?
I am looking to hire an IC to help with analytics. I need to know how I can verify if they are GA certified. They gave me a link to a http://www.starttest.com profile. Is that legit?
Reporting & Analytics | Jul 2, 2012, 11:19 PM | inhouseseo0 -
No Social Sources in Google Analytics - what am I doing wrong?
Hello Everyone, I'm having a strange issue: I DO NOT have in my Google Analytics the "Social" tab under the Traffic Sources category. Look at the first image of this post: http://marketingland.com/google-analytics-social-reports-8138 How do you "get" that to show? Hope somebody has this issue and can help, Thanks a lot, Alex
Reporting & Analytics | Apr 5, 2012, 5:24 AM | pwpaneuro0