Google Analytics event tracking was introduced in mid 2009. It is a feature that allows you to track specific events or “actions” on your site. For example you can track when a video is played or paused, when a file is downloaded or when an Ajax response is received.
Tracking events is different from setting “goals” in Google Analytics. Goals are based on three specific types of events: destination URL visited, number of pages viewed and time spent on site. But what about events that do not fall within these categories or those in which the event is simpy of interest but not an ultimate goal for the website? For such events, event tracking can be used instead.
It is worth nothing that in some cases events that do not fall within the three event categories mentioned above might till be considered goals by the site owner. In such case, we might want to set up a virtual page view for such events and create a goals based on the virtual page views generated. For more details on virtual page views and goals, see my posts on virtual page views and event triggered goals.
↧