Event tracking
Also called: event measurement
Event tracking is a method within Web analytics to record not only page views, but also other interactions and associated attributes. Such as which buttons and links someone clicks on. This provides interesting statistics about the use of your website and visitor behavior.
Among other things, the results of event tracking can be used to optimize text and page design for conversion and reduce friction. Event tracking can also be applied to analyze app usage. Often, event tracking is applied in conjunction with A/B testing.
Examples of event tracking
Some examples of visitor actions that can be measured using event tracking:
- Clicking on certain links or buttons
- Checking checkboxes and radio buttons in a form
- Choosing certain options in a drop-down list in a form
- Leaving the site by opening an external website
- Video playback and viewing time
- Interaction with interactive components such as tabs, accordions and configurators
- Recording mouse movements
- The display and clicking away of pop-ups
- Scrolling behavior and how long certain elements have been in view on a page
Well-known tools that support event tracking are Hotjar, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager.
Event tracking strategy
When applying and analyzing event tracking, it is helpful to determine a strategy in advance. Setting up measurements takes time and it is a waste to record events that you then do nothing with.
For meaningful event tracking, events are often linked to a website's key KPIs. Which events and parts of your website are important? What parts do you want to improve and what events do you want to measure to do so? If you are planning a redesign, improving the site structure or navigation, or revamping your content, track events both before and after the migration.
When setting up event tracking, also pay attention to the naming of your events. Assign a category, action and label to each event and be as consistent as possible in the names. This will help you later when searching and interpreting the collected data.
