autotrack

Autotrack

Overview

The default JavaScript tracking snippet for Google Analytics runs when a web page is first loaded and sends a pageview hit to Google Analytics. If you want to know about more than just pageviews (e.g. events, social interactions), you have to write code to capture that information yourself.

Since most website owners care about most of the same types of user interactions, web developers end up writing the same code over and over again for every new site they build.

Autotrack was created to solve this problem. It provides default tracking for the interactions most people care about, and it provides several convenience features (e.g. declarative event tracking) to make it easier than ever to understand how people are using your site.

The autotrack.js library is small (3K gzipped), and includes the following plugins. By default all plugin are bundled together, but they can be included and configured separately as well:

Plugin	Description
eventTracker	Declarative event tracking
mediaQueryTracker	Media query and breakpoint tracking
outboundFormTracker	Automatic outbound form tracking
outboundLinkTracker	Automatic outbound link tracking
sessionDurationTracker	Enhanced session duration tracking
socialTracker	Automatic and enhanced declarative social tracking
urlChangeTracker	Automatic URL change tracking for single page applications

Usage

To add autotrack to your site, you have to do two things:

1. Load the autotrack.js script file on your page.
2. Update the tracking snippet to require the autotrack plugin.

If your site already includes the default JavaScript tracking snippet, you can replace it with the following modified snippet (note the added require command as well as the additional autotrack.js script):

<script>
window.ga=window.ga||function(){(ga.q=ga.q||[]).push(arguments)};ga.l=+new Date;
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('require', 'autotrack');
ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
<script async src='//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js'></script>
<script async src='path/to/autotrack.js'></script>

The analytics.js plugin system is designed to support asynchronously loaded scripts, so it doesn't matter if autotrack.js is loaded before or after analytics.js. It also doesn't matter if the autotrack.js library is loaded individually or bundled with the rest of your JavaScript code.

Passing configuration options

The default behavior of autotrack can be customized via configuration options. You can pass configuration options to autotrack via the require command using the optional third parameter.

For example, you could override the default attributePrefix option as follows:

ga('require', 'autotrack', {
  attributePrefix: 'data-ga-'
});

Loading autotrack via npm

If you use npm and a module loader like Browserify, Webpack, or SystemJS, you can include autotrack in your build by requiring it as you would any other npm module:

npm install autotrack

// In your JavaScript code
require('autotrack');

Note that the above code will include the autotrack plugins in the generated JavaScript file, but it won't register the plugin for use on an analytics.js tracker object. Adding the require command to the tracking snippet is still necessary:

// In the analytics.js tracking snippet
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('require', 'autotrack');
ga('send', 'pageview');

Using individual plugins

The autotrack.js source file includes all the plugins described below, but in some cases you might not want to use all of them.

When you require the autotrack plugin, it runs the require command for each of the bundled plugins and passes them a copy of the configuration object it received (if any). To only use select plugins, you can require them individually instead of requiring the autotrack plugin.

For example, to only use the outboundLinkTracker and sessionDurationTracker plugins, you can modify the snippet as follows:

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto');
ga('require', 'outboundLinkTracker');
ga('require', 'sessionDurationTracker');
ga('send', 'pageview');

Individual plugins accept the same set of configuration options as autotrack. Options not relevant to a particular plugin are ignored. To use configuration options when requiring individual plugins, the simplest way is usually to pass each plugin the same object.

var opts = { /* configuration options */ };

ga('require', 'outboundLinkTracker', opts);
ga('require', 'sessionDurationTracker', opts);

When only requiring select plugins, it's important to realize that the autotrack.js source file still includes the code for all plugins. To build a custom version of the script with only the desired plugins, see the custom builds section below.

Plugins

eventTracker

The eventTracker plugin adds declarative event tracking for click events on any element with the data-event-category and data-event-action attributes. The attributes data-event-label and data-event-value are also supported (attribute names are customizable).

Options

• attributePrefix

Example

The following element would send an event hit to Google Analytics with the category "video" and the action "play":

<button data-event-category="video" data-event-action="play">Play</button>

mediaQueryTracker

The mediaQueryTracker plugin allows you to track what media query is active as well as how often the matching media query changes.

You can tell the mediaQueryTracker plugin what media query data to look for via the mediaQueryDefinitions configuration option.

Important: unlike the other autotrack plugins, to use the mediaQueryTracker plugin you have to first make a few changes to your property settings in Google Analytics. Here's what needs to be done:

1. Log in to Google Analytics, choose the account and property you're sending data too, and create a custom dimension for each set of media queries you want to track (e.g. Breakpoints, Resolution/DPI, Device Orientation)
2. Give each dimension a name (e.g. Breakpoints), select a scope of hit, and make sure the "active" checkbox is checked.
3. In the mediaQueryDefinitions config object, set the name and dimensionIndex values to be the same as the name and index shown in Google Analytics.

Refer to the mediaQueryDefinitions configuration option documentation for an example definition that will track breakpoint, device resolution, and device orientation data.

Options

• mediaQueryDefinitions

outboundFormTracker

The outboundFormTracker plugin automatically detects when forms are submitted to sites on different domains and sends an event hit. The event category is "Outbound Form", the event action is "submit", and the event label is the value of the form's action attribute.

By default a form is considered outbound if its action is not a relative path and does not contain the current location.hostname value. Note that this means forms pointing to different subdomains within the same higher-level domain are (by default) still considered outbound. This logic can be customized via the shouldTrackOutboundForm configuration option.

Options

• shouldTrackOutboundForm

outboundLinkTracker

The outboundLinkTracker plugin automatically detects when links are clicked with href attributes pointing to sites on different domains and sends an event hit. The event category is "Outbound Link", the event action is "click", and the event label is the value of the link's href attribute.

By default a link is considered outbound if its hostname property is not equal to location.hostname. Note that this means links pointing to different subdomains within the same higher-level domain are (by default) considered outbound. This logic can be customized via the shouldTrackOutboundLink configuration option.

Options

• shouldTrackOutboundLink

sessionDurationTracker

Session duration in Google Analytics is defined as the amount of time between the first and last hit of a session. For a session where a user visits just one page and then leaves, the session duration is zero, even if the user stayed on the page for several minutes. Even for sessions with multiple pageviews, it can still be a problem because the duration of the last pageview is usually not considered.

The sessionDurationTracker plugin partially solves this problem by sending an event hit to Google Analytics (in browsers that support navigator.sendBeacon) when the document is being unloaded. The event category is "Window" and the action is "unload".

socialTracker

The socialTracker plugin adds declarative social interaction tracking for click events on any element with the data-social-network, data-social-action, and data-social-target attributes, similar to the eventTracking plugin.

It also automatically adds social tracking for the official Twitter tweet/follow buttons and the Facebook like button. In other words, if you include official Twitter or Facebook buttons on your page and you're using autotrack (or even just the socialTracker plugin), user interactions with those buttons will be automatically tracked.

The following table outlines the social fields captured:

Widget	Social Network	Social Action	Social Target
Like button	Facebook	like or unlike	The URL of the current page.
Tweet button	Twitter	tweet	The widget's data-url attribute or the URL of the current page.
Follow button	Twitter	follow	The widget's data-screen-name attribute.

urlChangeTracker

The urlChangeTracker plugin detects changes to the URL via the History API and automatically updates the tracker and sends additional pageviews. This allows single page applications to be tracked like traditional sites without any extra configuration.

Note, this plugin does not support tracking hash changes as most Google Analytics implementations do not capture the hash portion of the URL when tracking pageviews. Also, developers of single page applications should make sure their framework isn't already tracking URL changes to avoid collecting duplicate data.

Options

• shouldTrackUrlChange

Configuration options

The following options can be passed to the autotrack plugin or individual sub-plugins:

attributePrefix

Type: string

Default: 'data-'

The attribute prefix for declarative event and social tracking. The value used after the prefix is a kebab-case version of the field name, for example: the field eventCategory with the prefix 'data-ga-' would be data-ga-event-category.

mediaQueryDefinitions

Type: Object|Array|null

Default: null

A media query definitions object or a list of media query definition objects. A media query definitions object contains the following properties:

• name: a unique name that will be used as the eventCategory value for media query change events.
• dimensionIndex: the index of the custom dimension created in Google Analytics.
• items: An array of objects with the following properties:
  • name: The value that will be set on the custom dimension.
  • media: The media query value to test for a match.

The following array is an example of three media query object definitions:

ga('require', 'autotrack', {
  mediaQueryDefinitions: [
    {
      name: 'Breakpoint',
      dimensionIndex: 1,
      items: [
        {name: 'sm', media: 'all'},
        {name: 'md', media: '(min-width: 30em)'},
        {name: 'lg', media: '(min-width: 48em)'}
      ]
    },
    {
      name: 'Resolution',
      dimensionIndex: 2,
      items: [
        {name: '1x',   media: 'all'},
        {name: '1.5x', media: '(min-resolution: 144dpi)'},
        {name: '2x',   media: '(min-resolution: 192dpi)'}
      ]
    },
    {
      name: 'Orientation',
      dimensionIndex: 3,
      items: [
        {name: 'landscape', media: '(orientation: landscape)'},
        {name: 'portrait',  media: '(orientation: portrait)'}
      ]
    }
  ]
});

If multiple media values match at the same time, the one specified later in the items array will take precedence. For example, in the "Breakpoint" example above, the item sm is set to all, so it will always match unless md or lg matches.

mediaQueryChangeTemplate

Type: Function

Default:

function(newValue, oldValue) {
  return oldValue + ' => ' + newValue;
}

A function used to format the eventLabel of media query change events. For example, if the matched media changes from lg to md, by default the result will be lg => md.

mediaQueryChangeTimeout

Type: number

Default: 1000

The debounce timeout, i.e., the amount of time to wait before sending the change hit. If multiple change events occur within the timeout period, only the last one is sent.

shouldTrackOutboundForm

Type: Function

Default:

function(form) {
  var action = form.getAttribute('action');
  return action.indexOf('http') === 0 && action.indexOf(location.hostname) < 0;
};

A function used to determine if a form submit should be tracked as an "Outbound Form". The function is invoked with the <form> element as its only argument, and, if it returns truthy, the form submit will be tracked.

The default shouldTrackOutboundForm option will consider a form submission from blog.example.com to store.example.com an outbound form submit. To customize this logic and exclude forms pointing to any *.example.com subdomain, you could override the option as follows:

ga('require', 'autotrack', {
  shouldTrackOutboundForm: function(form) {
    var action = form.getAttribute('action');
    // Checks that the action starts with "http" to exclude relative paths,
    // then checks that the action does not contain the string "example.com".
    return action.indexOf('http') === 0 && action.indexOf('example.com') < 0;
  }
}

shouldTrackOutboundLink

Type: Function

Default:

function(link) {
  return link.hostname != location.hostname;
};

A function used to determine if a link click should be tracked as an "Outbound Link". The function is invoked with the <a> element as its only argument, and, if it returns truthy, the link click will be tracked.

The default shouldTrackOutboundLink option will consider a link click from blog.example.com to store.example.com an outbound link click. To customize this logic and exclude links pointing to any *.example.com subdomain, you could override the option as follows:

ga('require', 'autotrack', {
  shouldTrackOutboundLink: function(link) {
    // Checks that the link's hostname does not contain "example.com".
    return link.hostname.indexOf('example.com') < 0;
  }
}

shouldTrackUrlChange

Type: Function

Default:

function(newPath, oldPath) {
  return true;
}

A function used to determine if a URL change should be tracked. By default, all changes other than hash changes are captured.

The function is invoked with the string values newPath and oldPath which represent the pathname and search portion of the URL (not the hash portion).

Advanced Usage

Custom builds

The autotrack library is built modularly and each plugin includes its own dependencies, so you can create a custom build of the library using a script bundler such as Browserify.

The following example shows how to create a build that only includes the outboundLinkTracker and sessionDurationTracker plugins:

browserify lib/plugins/outbound-link-tracker lib/plugins/session-duration-tracker

When making a custom build, be sure to update the tracking snippet to only require plugins included in your build. Requiring a plugin that's not included in the build will prevent any subsequent analytics.js commands from running.

If you're already using a module loader like Browserify, Webpack, or SystemJS to build your JavaScript, you can skip the above step and just require the plugins you want directly in your source files:

// In your JavaScript code
require('autotrack/lib/plugins/outbound-link-tracker');
require('autotrack/lib/plugins/session-duration-tracker');

Check out the autotrack source code to get a better idea how this works.

Using autotrack with multiple trackers

All autotrack plugins support multiple trackers and work by specifying the tracker name in the require command. The following example creates two trackers and requires autotrack on both.

ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Y', 'auto', 'tracker1');
ga('create', 'UA-XXXXX-Z', 'auto', 'tracker2');
ga('tracker1.require', 'autotrack');
ga('tracker2.require', 'autotrack');
ga('tracker1.send', 'pageview');
ga('tracker2.send', 'pageview');

Disclaimer

The autotrack library is not an official Google Analytics product and is not covered by Google Analytics Premium support. Developers that choose to use this library are responsible for ensuring that their implementation meets the requirements of the Google Analytics Terms of Service and the legal obligations of their respective country.

Changelog

0.5.0 (2016-02-18)

• Make outbound link/form logic configurable (#3)