Google Tag Manager is an awesome tool. It gives you lots of flexibility when it comes to tracking various interactions on a website. But you need to learn a lot of things if you wish track something more complex than just a simple page view. To save you some time, I have published a library of ready-made GTM tracking solutions but even they might take some time to be properly configured. If you don’t want to spend time learning how GTM and GA work and just want to get sh*t done FAST, there’s an alternative solution. In this quick blog post, I’ll show you how to track a bunch of different Google Analytics events in less than 2 minutes (thanks to Komito Analytics).
You’ll be able to capture the following interactions:
- Track clicks of social network buttons: Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin.
- Track download link clicks.
- Track form submissions.
- Track outbound link clicks.
- Track page print actions
- Track scroll depth
- track Vimeo, Youtube, HTML5 video players, etc.
WHERE’S THE CATCH?
What we’re going to do here is implement a free 3rd party solution called Komito Analytics. It’s a plugin which automatically tracks various interactions and then fires Google Analytics events to the available GA tracker.
You’ll be surprised how little configuration this requires.
And if you’re thinking it’s too good to be true, you’re right. Although Komito Analytics is awesome, it has its own drawbacks which I’ll mention later in this blog post.
HOW TO INSTALL KOMITO ANALYTICS?
If you don’t use Google Tag Manager, ask a developer to place the following code below the Google Analytics tracking code or right before the closing </body> tag. You can find installation instructions here.
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<script>
var _komito = _komito || {
‘trackTwitter’: 1, // Tracks Twitter events if widget is presented on page.
‘trackFacebook’: 1, // Tracks Facebook events if widget is presented on page.
‘trackLinkedIn’: 1, // Tracks LinkedIn events if plugin is presented on page.
‘trackDownloads’: 1, // Tracks files download links.
‘trackOutbound’: 1, // Tracks outbound links.
‘trackForms’: 1, // Tracks forms submissions.
‘trackUsers’: 1, // Tracks pageviews by users logged in to social networks.
‘trackActions’: 1, // Tracks ‘mailto’, ‘tel’, ‘sms’ and ‘skype’ actions.
‘trackPrint’: 1, // Tracks page print actions.
‘trackMedia’: 1, // Tracks HTML5 video, audio, Vimeo and YouTube players events.
‘trackScroll’: 1, // Tracks scroll depth.
‘debugMode’: 0 // Prints all requests to console.
};
</script>
<script src=“//datamart.github.io/Komito/komito.js”></script>
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That’s it!
If you use Google Tag Manager, follow these steps to install the plugin.
First, you’ll need to have a Universal Analytics Pageview Tag implemented which fires on All Pages.
Then, create a Custom HTML tag which fires on DOM Ready trigger. Paste the aforementioned Komito Analytics plugin code to the Custom HTML tag.
DOM Ready Trigger’s settings are:
- Type: Pageview – DOM Ready
- This Trigger Fires on All DOM Ready events.
That’s it! No further configuration is required. This library does not fire dataLayer.push events, it sends events directly to Google Analytics, so make sure that Universal Analytics tag in GTM is fired before the Komito plugin is initiated.
Enable Preview and Debug mode, go to Google Analytics Real-time Events report and you’ll start seeing events pouring in. Click any outbound link, scroll down, etc. and those interactions will be displayed in the report.
CONFIGURATION
Komito Analytics plugin consists of several settings that can be enabled/disabled, e.g.:
- Track Twitter events
- Track Facebook events
- Track Outbound link clicks, etc.
You can disable/enable each one of them right in the Komito Analytics code. 1 stands for enabled, 0 means disabled.
Enabled Twitter tracking looks like this:
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‘trackTwitter’: 1, // Tracks Twitter events if widget is presented on page.
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While disabled tracking should be set to 0.
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‘trackTwitter’: 0, // Tracks Twitter events if widget is presented on page.
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REQUIREMENTS
Actually, there’s not much. Just make sure Google Analytics Tracking code fires first, otherwise there’s a slight chance that some interactions will not be tracked by Komito.
Google Tag Manager is not required because Komito Analytics works with both hard-coded Google Analytics and GA via GTM.
KOMITO ANALYTICS VS AUTOTRACK FOR ANALYTICS.JS
If you’re not familiar with it, Autotrack.js is a solution developed by Google Analytics developers which automatically tracks various interactions/events and sends that data to Google Analytics. Although both Komito and Autotrack serve the same purpose, they also have differences that are worth mentioning.
That’s why I have prepared a table to compare these two solutions.
You can learn more about Autotrack for Analytics.js here.
PROS AND CONS
Just like every other solution, Komito Analytics has its own advantages and disadvantages you should be aware of. I hope this will help you decide whether this tracking library is suitable for your needs.
PROS
- Super easy to setup (with or without Google Tag Manager)
- It’s a perfect solution for non-developers who just want their web tracking to be set up once. This could be especially useful for agencies who want to give their client a “bonus” and quickly configure a web tracking (even though the client isn’t very into web analytics and does not want to pay for some complex configuration).
CONS
- No control for advanced users. You cannot edit event names, when they are exactly fired, etc. Komito Analytics is a ready-made solution. Well, of course, you can copy the entire Komito library, edit it, and host it on your site, but in this case, I’d just rather implement everything via GTM by myself.
- Form tracking won’t track all forms. If you are familiar with form tracking (via GTM), you already know it might be a pain in the ass, right? There are many different types of forms and they work differently, thus all these magicalautomatic form tracking solutions won’t work with 100% accuracy. They will track some forms, but in other cases, they will miserably fail. What’s my solution here? Do the form tracking by yourself after reading the Google Tag Manager Form Tracking guide.
The latter disadvantage is the reason why I always form tracking disabled in Komito Analytics tracking code.
The final version of the code I’d recommend using is as follows:
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<script>
var _komito = _komito || {
‘trackTwitter’: 1, // Tracks Twitter events if widget is presented on page.
‘trackFacebook’: 1, // Tracks Facebook events if widget is presented on page.
‘trackLinkedIn’: 1, // Tracks LinkedIn events if plugin is presented on page.
‘trackDownloads’: 1, // Tracks files download links.
‘trackOutbound’: 1, // Tracks outbound links.
‘trackForms’: 0, // Tracks forms submissions.
‘trackUsers’: 1, // Tracks pageviews by users logged in to social networks.
‘trackActions’: 1, // Tracks ‘mailto’, ‘tel’, ‘sms’ and ‘skype’ actions.
‘trackPrint’: 1, // Tracks page print actions.
‘trackMedia’: 1, // Tracks HTML5 video, audio, Vimeo and YouTube players events.
‘trackScroll’: 1, // Tracks scroll depth.
‘debugMode’: 0 // Prints all requests to console.
};
</script>
<script src=“//datamart.github.io/Komito/komito.js”></script>
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CONCLUSION
If you’re looking for a quick solution to track some standard interactions on a website, consider using Komito Analytics. It’s a 3rd party ready-made tracking library which sends events directly to Google Analytics.
Komito can be installed with or without the help of Google Tag Manager and is a great solution for those who are not very tech-savvy but want some basic web tracking functionality implemented on a website.
If you’re looking for more custom tracking techniques or if you want to be in control of the entire tracking process, I’d recommend skipping Komito and sticking with Google Tag Manager instead. After all, there is a whole bunch of GTM tracking templates at your service.
Nonetheless, it’s a great solution and time saver which some of you might find useful.
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