One of the new features in the newer versions of Google Analytics (GA) is the ability to track event actions on a link. This can be not only clicks, in our case, on a button, link or graphic, but you can setup javascript triggers when a user starts, stops or pauses a video, for example.

Setting this up is pretty straightforward. First, you’ll need to add a quick snippet to your GA embed code, if you aren’t already. It’s the trackPageview function. You’ll add it under the line in your GA code where you’re account code is. For example:

<script type="text/javascript">

  var _gaq = _gaq || [];
  _gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-XXXXX-X']);
  _gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

  (function() {
    var ga = document.createElement('script'); ga.type = 'text/javascript'; ga.async = true;
    ga.src = ('https:' == document.location.protocol ? 'https://ssl' : 'http://www') + '.google-analytics.com/ga.js';
    var s = document.getElementsByTagName('script')[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
  })();

</script>

That will allow you to start tracking events on your pages. To add the event tracking action to a specific element on your page, you add a line of code that looks like this to your a tags.

onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play', 'Baby\'s First Birthday']);"

There are three fields there to pay attention to. The first is the category field. In the above example, it’s Videos. You can have multiple categories on a certain page. On our WordPress sites, we’re specifically tracking banners and small image buttons, often on the same page.

The second field is the action variable – which in the example above is Play. For our WordPress pages, we use the term Click. Through javascript and PHP variables, you can make your actions very specific, such as:

_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play - Mac Chrome');
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play - Windows Chrome');

And finally, the label. Above, it's Baby's First Birthday. For our uses, we tailor this to the specific banner or button getting clicked. After a few days, we realized it would also be good to know what site the visitor was on. As with the other fields, this should be tailored to the specific content being clicked on. In the video example, you'd have something like this for different videos being played:

_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play', 'Gone With the Wind']);
_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Videos', 'Play', 'Huckleberry Finn']);

To our user, our links look like this:

<a href="http://sites.jcu.edu/newsroom/?p=1697" onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Taters', 'Click', 'Princeton Review Best in the Midwest (Site: JCU Newsroom ID: 1694)']);">
<img src="http://webmedia.jcu.edu/newsroom/files/2011/08/princeton_review-700x230.jpg" alt="Princeton Review Best in the Midwest" />
</a>

In our WordPress templates, it looks like this:

<a href="<?php echo $url; ?>" onClick="_gaq.push(['_trackEvent', 'Taters', 'Click', '<?php echo get_the_title($ID)." (Site: ".get_bloginfo('name')." ID: ".$id.")"; ?>']);">
<img src="<?php echo $img[0]; ?>" alt="<?php echo get_the_title($ID); ?>" />
</a>

We are tracking the individual banner that was clicked on, as well as the site the banner appears on. We add an additional field for our own, the actual ID of the banner asset. We do that just in case we need to find one quickly, or two banners get named the same thing. It’s happened.

That gives us a very nice report in GA that looks like this:

We can very easily filter by a specific site to see what buttons and graphics are getting clicked on. You could also add this to any static link as well, but I’m specifically interested on what specific calls to action are getting noticed by our users.

Woopra is a relatively new addition to the analytics arena. They are in beta right now, and I’ve been using them on a site I run for about a week now. So far, so good, and I’ve dound they have a few interesting things that set them apart from the other services.

First, you view your sites reports through a standalone program, not on the web. You can see some data on the web, but the fancy stuff is viewable through their program. The interface, as you can see in this screenshot, it is colorful and maybe at first glance, a little overwhelming.

Everything’s organized down the side, and as you select sections, other tabbed navigation appears to allow you to dig deeper into your stats.

Second, Woopra gives you “live stats,” or information about the people visiting your site at any given moment. You’ll see their IP, their browser, operating system, screen resolution, where they came from and what pages they looked at on your site. Here’s an example:

If you enlarge that image, you’ll see a few interesting things. You can tag a visitor, giving them a name or other identifier. When they show up again, or as you search through your other stats. I tagged myself to look like this:

What’s also interesting is the ability to start a conversation with that user. Yes, you can start a chat with them while they are browsing your site. Before we get into whether or not this is evil, let me show you what that looks like.

If the user responds, a new window is spawned where the conversation can continue.

Now, this is a feature I think that could be abused the most. Sure, we’d all like the ability to communicate with prospective students as they browse our site, especially since we can see the path they are taking through our sites. On the other hand, I think a lot of people may be put off by an interruption from someone bothering them for information, or encouraging them to visit campus. Personally, I’d be a little weirded out knowing someone was sitting there actively tracking what I was looking at.

So far, I’m pleased with Woopra. Is it ready to be my one and only web analtyics tool? Not at all. One thing I miss is the ability to segment out people and to create campaigns that I can, like I can in Google’s product. I hope Woopra will add that in over time.

If you’re looking for yet another way to look at data about your site’s visitors, you should check out Woopra.