Easily Track Button Clicks in Google Analytics 4 — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00Hey there, I'm Benjamin from Loves Data.
2. 0:02In this video, I'm going to show you how to track button clicks in Google Analytics 4
3. 0:06with the help of Google Tag Manager.
4. 0:08The technique I'm going to share is the quickest and easiest way I've found to track buttons.
5. 0:13I hope you like it!
6. 0:18To track buttons, we're going to use Google Tag Manager.
7. 0:21So if you're not using GTM yet, I've included a link to my tutorial series in the description
8. 0:26below this video.
9. 0:27And if you run into any issues as you're following along, please let me know in the comments.
10. 0:32Okay, let's head to Google Tag Manager.
11. 0:35To track button clicks in Google Analytics 4, we will need to create a tag and trigger.
12. 0:41The trickiest step will be to configure the trigger to only fire our tag for the specific
13. 0:46button (or buttons) we want to track.
14. 0:49So we're going to use another trigger, along with some variables to help us identify the
15. 0:55best way to track the button.
16. 0:58This should make it easier to get up and running quickly.
17. 1:01To do this, let's navigate to 'Triggers'.
18. 1:09And let's create a new trigger.
19. 1:16Let's name the trigger 'All Elements'.
20. 1:22Now let's select 'Trigger Configuration'.
21. 1:26And let's select 'All Elements'.
22. 1:30This trigger will fire every time we click something on our website.
23. 1:34So it's going to help us identify how to track our button.
24. 1:39Now let's save the trigger.
25. 1:42Next, we need to navigate to 'Variables'.
26. 1:51And let's select 'Configure' at the top.
27. 1:55This lets us enable and disable the built-in variables.
28. 2:01If you're just getting started with GTM, the built-in variables allow you to use different
29. 2:05pieces of information that are available on your website.
30. 2:09For example, the 'Page URL' variable lets you use the full URL someone has loaded on
31. 2:14your website.
32. 2:16Now I want you to look for 'Clicks'.
33. 2:19And I want you to enable all of the built-in 'click' variables.
34. 2:29These will allow us to see details about the elements we click on our website.
35. 2:33I also want you to go ahead and enable all of the built-in variables under 'Forms'.
36. 2:40This is because buttons can be contained inside forms on our website.
37. 2:44By enabling the click and form variables it makes it easier to identify the best way to
38. 2:50track our buttons.
39. 2:52Once we've identified how we'll track our button, we can come back here and disable
40. 2:57any of the built-in variables we're not using.
41. 3:00Okay, now let's close this.
42. 3:04And let's click 'Preview'.
43. 3:11We enter the URL of our website.
44. 3:16And click 'Connect'.
45. 3:21Our website loads.
46. 3:23Next, we need to find the button we want to track.
47. 3:27On my demo website, I want to track when people click on the 'Search' button, so let's scroll
48. 3:32down.
49. 3:33And let's click the button.
50. 3:37Now let's open Tag Assistant.
51. 3:42On the left, we need to look for the 'click' event.
52. 3:46Let's select this.
53. 3:49Now let's select the 'Variables' tab.
54. 3:53This shows us the values for all of the variables we've enabled in GTM.
55. 3:58We can see our 'Click' variables.
56. 4:01And further down we can see our 'Form' variables.
57. 4:06If you're tracking a button contained in a form, then you might want to use one of the
58. 4:10'Form' variables.
59. 4:12Or if you want to track a button that's not contained in a form, you might want to use
60. 4:16one of the 'Click' variables.
61. 4:19The main thing you need to look for is something unique about the button you want to track.
62. 4:25For example, if you just see 'Submit', then this is likely to be used for multiple buttons
63. 4:30on your website, so using something like that might mean your tracking additional button
64. 4:37clicks.
65. 4:38For my button, we can see the 'Form Classes' has a value of 'search', 'dash', 'submit'.
66. 4:46Since it includes 'search' and 'submit', this is likely to only be used for the search button.
67. 4:52So let's copy this.
68. 4:54And we will also need to remember that we will be using 'Form Classes'.
69. 5:02Now let's head back to GTM.
70. 5:05We're still looking at the variables, so while we're here, let's disable the built-in variables
71. 5:10that we won't be using.
72. 5:12To do this, let's select 'Configure'.
73. 5:16And let's disable the variables we enabled but aren't going to use.
74. 5:27We just need to leave 'Form Classes' enabled.
75. 5:34Now let's close this.
76. 5:36And let's navigate to 'Triggers'.
77. 5:40We're going to edit the 'All Elements' trigger we created to only track clicks on our button.
78. 5:49To do this, let's select the trigger.
79. 5:54Let's rename the trigger 'Click, Button, Search'.
80. 6:04And let's select 'Trigger Configuration'.
81. 6:08Now let's select 'Some Clicks'.
82. 6:10And let's select 'Form Classes' from the drop-down.
83. 6:13Remember, this is the built-in variable we used to identify the button on our website.
84. 6:21Now let's change 'Contains' to 'Equals'.
85. 6:25You might need to change this for your button.
86. 6:28For example, if you found multiple values included in 'Form Classes' or the variable
87. 6:34you're going to use, then you might want to leave 'Contains'.
88. 6:38So you might need to use something slightly different for your trigger.
89. 6:43Okay, now let's paste the value we copied from Tag Assistant, this was 'search', 'dash',
90. 6:49'submit' for my example.
91. 6:52Now let's click 'Save'.
92. 6:57We've now created our trigger, so the final step is to create our tag.
93. 7:02To do this, let's navigate to 'Tags'.
94. 7:08We can see there is already a Google Tag that's sending data to Google Analytics.
95. 7:13If you're getting started with GTM, then you might not have this yet.
96. 7:18So again, I recommend watching my GTM tutorial series if you're just getting started.
97. 7:24The link is in the description below this video.
98. 7:28Now let's click 'New'.
99. 7:32I'm going to name the tag 'Google Analytics, GA4, Search Button'.
100. 7:45And let's select 'Tag Configuration'.
101. 7:48Choose 'Google Analytics'.
102. 7:50And select 'Google Analytics, GA4 Event' as the tag type.
103. 7:55Now I'm going to select my Measurement ID variable.
104. 8:02I'm going to name the event 'click', 'underscore', 'button', 'underscore', 'search'.
105. 8:10You can name your event anything you like.
106. 8:12However, I suggest following Google's recommended naming convention when tracking events into
107. 8:18Google Analytics.
108. 8:19To learn more about events and how to name them, I've included a link in the extra resources
109. 8:24below this video.
110. 8:26I'm also going to limit the number of times this tag is fired.
111. 8:30To do this, let's select 'Advanced Settings'.
112. 8:34And under 'Tag Firing Options', let's change 'Once Per Event' to 'Once Per Page'.
113. 8:41You don't need to do this for your tag if you don't want to, but what this does is it
114. 8:46means the button will only be tracked once per page, so if people manage to click the
115. 8:51button multiple times on the page, it will only be counted once in our reports.
116. 8:57Okay, now let's select 'Triggering'.
117. 9:03And let's choose the trigger we just created.
118. 9:08Now let's save our tag.
119. 9:15And let's click 'Preview' to test our changes.
120. 9:25Our website loads.
121. 9:29Now let's scroll down.
122. 9:31And click the button.
123. 9:34And now let's open Tag Assistant.
124. 9:40We can see our button tracking tag has fired.
125. 9:46And let's select the Google Analytics Measurement ID at the top.
126. 9:50We can see our 'click button search' has been set to Google Analytics.
127. 9:55We can select this.
128. 9:57And this shows us all of the information (called 'parameters') which are automatically sent
129. 10:02with our custom event.
130. 10:04When you're happy your buttons are being tracked correctly, you can publish your container.
131. 10:09To do this, let's head back to GTM.
132. 10:12And let's click 'Submit'.
133. 10:16Name our version.
134. 10:24And click 'Publish'.
135. 10:28Moving forward, you will be tracking your custom event into Google Analytics.
136. 10:33You will need to wait a day before data is available in your reports, but since I've
137. 10:37already tested this out on my demo website, let's head to Google Analytics to take a look
138. 10:43at how we can report on our button clicks.
139. 10:47Let's navigate to 'Reports'.
140. 10:52And select 'Engagement'.
141. 10:55And then 'Events'.
142. 10:56You will see your custom event in this report.
143. 11:02And for even more flexibility you can create an exploration report to combine your event
144. 11:07with other available dimensions.
145. 11:11You will now be able to report on the number of times people click the button in Google
146. 11:15Analytics.
147. 11:16You can also use this method to send data to other platforms.
148. 11:19For example, you could use the same trigger with a Google Ads conversion tag to track
149. 11:24button clicks into Google Ads.
150. 11:25Are you going to track buttons using GTM?
151. 11:28I'd love to know!
152. 11:29Let me know in the comments below.
153. 11:31And to learn even more about Google Analytics and GTM, please take a moment to check out
154. 11:35my courses.
155. 11:36I've included a link in the description.
156. 11:38Thanks for watching and I'll see you in the next video!