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You are here: Home / Tracking / Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics Pt. 0

Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics Pt. 0

Posted: March 13, 2007 6 Comments

20070313-click.jpgHave you ever wondered what people click on when they get to your website? I don’t mean which links, I mean which elements. Do they get confused and think that an image is a link and try to click on it? Which outbound links do they click on? I know this may seem like a strange topic, but I am headed somewhere :)

Using Google Analytics we can actually track every single click that a visitor makes. It doesn’t matter what they click on, we can track it. This functionality is great for tracking clicks on:

  • non-html pages (mp3, pdf, exe, etc.)
  • links to other sites
  • form elements

There is some instruction in the GA help docs, but I’m going to dive deep into this topic during during three blog posts.

Part 1: About urchinTracker()

In the first part of this series I’ll discuss the technology that Google Analytics uses to tracks clicks. I’ll explain (in painful detail :) ) how it works and what it does.

Part 2: Basic Implementation

Once we know how GA tracks clicks, I’ll walk through a basic implementation. I’ll show you how to track non-HTML files, clicks on outbound links and clicks on almost any element of your web page.

Part 3: Advanced Implementation

Finally, in Part 3 I’ll give you guys the framework to avoid everything I discuss in Part 2. :)

If you have any specific questions about this topic post them below and I’ll try to cover them in the upcoming posts.

Filed Under: Tracking Tagged With: google-analytics

Comments

  1. Gavin Doolan says

    July 28, 2008 at 4:14 am

    Excellent, just read through these and they really clarify what you can and cannot do and why. I wish the GA help files were a bit more like this.

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Weekly Linkage [04-13-07] at Experience Planner by Scott Weisbrod says:
    April 13, 2007 at 10:22 am

    […] Tracking Clicks With Google Analytics Pt. 0 (Analytics Talk) […]

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  2. How can I track outgoing non affiliate clicks - Affiliate Marketing says:
    March 1, 2008 at 12:56 pm

    […]   Re: How can I track outgoing non affiliate clicks Hi Kylah, Do you have Google Analytics installed on you wordpress blog? You can use it to track your outbound links. The new code for GA has events tracking included in it. Alternatively, you can add in additional code to track clicks via page views in GA. How do I manually track clicks on outbound links? There’s a very good post on it here and part 2. tells you how to implement it. Not sure if there is a wordpress plug in for this so might be worth a look around. […]

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  3. Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics | michaeldonadams.com says:
    March 25, 2008 at 2:05 pm

    […] Excellent articles by Justin Cutroni about using Google Analytics on your website. Tracking Clicks With Google Analytics […]

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  4. Paul Thewlis » links for 2008-05-26 says:
    May 26, 2008 at 6:37 pm

    […] Analytics Talk » Blog Archive » Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics Pt. 0 Nice tip for tracking clicks with GA. (tags: analytics google tracking click) […]

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  5. How to track links with Google Analytics | tutorials blogs says:
    December 4, 2010 at 9:35 am

    […] in Google Analytics | eHow.com How to track your outbound clicks with onclick in Google Analytics Tracking Clicks with Google Analytics Pt. 0 – Analytics Talk Use jQuery with Google Analytics to Track Clicks on Outgoing Links From Your Site. Tracking Clicks […]

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