Comments on: Event tracking tutorial http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/chapters/installation/event-tracking-tutorial A companion site for the book Performance Marketing with Google Analytics Mon, 15 Aug 2011 20:44:01 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.9.2 hourly 1 By: caleb.whitmore http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/chapters/installation/event-tracking-tutorial/comment-page-1#comment-85 caleb.whitmore Fri, 16 Jul 2010 14:27:24 +0000 http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/?p=64#comment-85 <!--more--><!--more-->Keith, Delay or no, the bigger issue is hard-coding a tracking call for outbound links vs. automating it. IMO, you should never hard-code tracking calls into HTML - it's like hard-coding Styles into an HTML element. Why do that when you can use a style sheet and separate formatting control from code? There are many options out there to do just this, some with delay handlers built in, some without. The top three are: 1) APe - Analytics Pros Engine, a complete <a href="http://www.analyticspros.com/products/analytics-pros-engine.html" rel="nofollow">event tracking and universal tag management solution</a> (my company built this). NOT free, but really cheap. 2) Brian Clifton, author of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Web-Metrics-Google-Analytics/dp/0470253126?tag=gaformarketers-20" rel="nofollow">Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics</a> has a script on his blog for <a href="http://www.advanced-web-metrics.com/blog/2008/06/08/updated-tracking-script-for-gajs/" rel="nofollow">automating outbound link tracking</a>. 3) <a href="http://www.actualmetrics.com/" rel="nofollow">Google Analytics Certified Partner Actual Metrics</a> has a script called <a href="http://www.analyticsmarket.com/freetools/link-tagger" rel="nofollow">LinkTagger for outbound link and cross-domain linking automation</a> on their Analytics Market site. You can also build your own code, use jQuery, or other JS libraries. Hope this helps! Best, -Caleb Keith,

Delay or no, the bigger issue is hard-coding a tracking call for outbound links vs. automating it. IMO, you should never hard-code tracking calls into HTML – it’s like hard-coding Styles into an HTML element. Why do that when you can use a style sheet and separate formatting control from code?

There are many options out there to do just this, some with delay handlers built in, some without. The top three are:

1) APe – Analytics Pros Engine, a complete event tracking and universal tag management solution (my company built this). NOT free, but really cheap.

2) Brian Clifton, author of Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics has a script on his blog for automating outbound link tracking.

3) Google Analytics Certified Partner Actual Metrics has a script called LinkTagger for outbound link and cross-domain linking automation on their Analytics Market site.

You can also build your own code, use jQuery, or other JS libraries. Hope this helps!

Best,

-Caleb

]]> By: Keith Wilkinson http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/chapters/installation/event-tracking-tutorial/comment-page-1#comment-75 Keith Wilkinson Thu, 08 Jul 2010 00:44:18 +0000 http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/?p=64#comment-75 I asked (whether a delay is still required) in the GA Help Forum, and the answer was "No". I asked (whether a delay is still required) in the GA Help Forum, and the answer was “No”.

]]> By: Keith Wilkinson http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/chapters/installation/event-tracking-tutorial/comment-page-1#comment-74 Keith Wilkinson Wed, 07 Jul 2010 12:41:01 +0000 http://www.analyticsformarketers.com/?p=64#comment-74 I'm interested in tracking clicks on outgoing links. On p.336 of the Performance Marketing GA book, it notes that "when adding Javascript to a link, It's best to create a custom Javascript function .. to ensure that the GA code executes before the browser redirects .." An example of this approach is shown at http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=55527 . Is it still desirable to add a delay when using the new asynchronous GA code? If so, are there any recommendations for the form that such a delay function should take when using the new asynchronous GA code? I’m interested in tracking clicks on outgoing links. On p.336 of the Performance Marketing GA book, it notes that “when adding Javascript to a link, It’s best to create a custom Javascript function .. to ensure that the GA code executes before the browser redirects ..”
An example of this approach is shown at http://www.google.com/support/analytics/bin/answer.py?hl=en-uk&answer=55527 .
Is it still desirable to add a delay when using the new asynchronous GA code? If so, are there any recommendations for the form that such a delay function should take when using the new asynchronous GA code?

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