Web Tracking is a powerful tool that enables your organization to better understand how users visit and use your site. Additionally, it allows you to send targeted emails to your users based on their activity.
NOTE: Web Tracking is very similar to Google Analytics. If you're already using Google Analytics, the Higher Logic Thrive Marketing Professional (Thrive Marketing Professional) Web Tracking code will not conflict with it. Now, you will have the power of all of that data available to build Target Groups and to feed campaigns based on how your subscribers interact with your site.
What can you track?
You can track three types of website activities:
- Page Views - Visits to individual pages and visit duration.
- Page Interactions - Interactions on your website (e.g., completing forms, playing videos, and file downloads).
- Online Purchases - E-commerce and product transactions (e.g., membership renewals, donations, and store purchases).
Step 1 - Embed JavaScript code on your site
To use Web Tracking, you must add JavaScript code to your site (Higher Logic provides this code). This will likely require the skills of a web administrator with the appropriate permissions.
Planning
Before you start adding the code, there are some initial planning steps to consider:
- Place the Page Tracking code in an area of your site that is accessible by ALL pages (this is typically the header or footer of each page).
- Identify the interactions that you want to monitor; interactions that Thrive Marketing Professional will track so that you can further tailor your targeted mailings and campaign flows. Some interactions examples are:
- Who is accessing your event calendar
- Who is downloading a white paper
- Who is using a specific search term
- Who is visiting an event landing page
Look for interactions that will identify the intent or level of interest of the user. But don't go overboard: Tracking too many interactions will make them difficult to interpret.
A spreadsheet is available on the Web Tracking page that will help you map and organize the interactions that you want to track. To access the spreadsheet, navigate to:
- Classic admin interface - Setup > Web Tracking
- New Admin Experience - Settings > Setup > Web Tracking
The code
Code that has been customized to work with your Thrive Marketing Professional account is provided for you on your site. To access the custom code, navigate to:
Classic admin interface - Setup > Web Tracking
New Admin Experience - Settings > Setup > Web Tracking
- Click the View Instructions button for a domain.
The resulting page includes three snippets of code specific to the domain you clicked:
- Page Tracking Code
- Interaction Tracking Code
- Purchase Tracking Code
Depending on what you want to track, one or all of these must be in place for you to begin using Web Tracking for a domain.
Code examples
Three examples of the various JavaScript code that you can add to your website are attached at the bottom of this article.
WARNING: Do NOT use the code examples below! They are examples only!
Page Tracking Code
Place this JavaScript code on every page of your website. It tracks page views and the duration of each visit.
Interaction Tracking Code
This code is used to track website Interactions. As you navigate your site, add a row to your spreadsheet (Admin > Setup > Web Tracking > View Instructions) for each Interaction you want to track. Note that the combination of Category and Action should have a unique identifier for the interaction for your entire site. Your website administrator will use the code samples below to fill-in the code column in the spreadsheet before making the website updates.
Purchase Tracking Code
This code is used to track purchasing information on your site.
- Call addItem for each item of the purchase that you want to track.
- Call trackTrans once per page to submit all of the addItem calls to Thrive Marketing Professional.
Next steps
After the tracking code has been added to the pages of your website:
- Send an email message (with a link to your site's home page) to yourself.
- Open the message and click the link to visit your site's home page.
This will cause the JavaScript to execute for the first time.
NOTE: If everything has been installed properly, Thrive Marketing Professional will indicate that it is receiving data from your domain.
TIP: Before you start tracking, consult the example website in your account to a see a fully working page that you can use as a basis for your own implementation!
Step 2 - Add the domains you want to track
After the necessary JavaScript code has been added to your website, add the domains your organization owns that you want to track.
- Navigate to Admin > Setup > Web Tracking.
- Click Add New Domain and complete the fields.
| Field | Description |
|---|---|
| Domain Name | Enter the name of the domain you want to track. Do not include anything before the actual domain name (e.g., http://, https://, or www). |
| IP Addresses to Ignore | If you have internal IP addresses that are likely to hit the website regularly, you can filter these so that they do not store/trigger additional activity (their activity could skew reporting). |
| Parameters to Retain | If navigation within your website occurs by changing a parameter on the URL (e.g., Wordpress), you can enter the name of the parameter(s) so that web tracking recognizes it as a separate web page. |
- Click Add Domain.
NOTE: If a domain has been set up and information has been collected, that information persists in Thrive Marketing Professional, even if the domain is later removed. Previously-collected data is not deleted.
- Click View Instructions to view a custom page that provides all of the information that you need to submit to your web developers.
- After your web developers have successfully added the Web Tracking code to your website, you can navigate to Web Tracking to view the details for all of the sessions on your website.
Good marketing automation is not about sprinting; it's about setting up campaigns that will go the distance! Web Tracking will provide you with another method to create target groups to feed your campaigns, or to generate new and dynamic lists of subscribers that are interacting with your website.
Code examples
Below are three examples of the JavaScript code that you can add to your website.