Custom events & goals
Pageviews are only part of the picture. Events let you measure the actions that matter: signups, purchases, downloads, clicks and form completions. Mark an event as a goal (conversion) and Otus attributes it to your traffic.
Events that track themselves
The tracker records several events automatically, with no setup:
| Event | When it fires |
|---|---|
page_view | On page load and on every SPA navigation. |
engagement | When a visitor leaves a page, capturing the active time spent. |
outbound_click | When a visitor clicks a link to a different domain. |
See auto-tracked events for the full detail on each one.
Three kinds of events
- Automatic events: the three above, sent for you.
- Standard events: a catalogue of pre-defined events for common and e-commerce actions (
sign_up,login,search,purchase,add_to_cart…). See the standard events catalogue. - Custom events: any event you define yourself, named in
snake_case.
All non-automatic events are sent with the tracking API:
otus('track', 'newsletter_signup', { location: 'footer' });
Goals (conversions)
A goal is an event you've flagged as important. Open Site settings → Events & Conversions and toggle Conversion on:
- a standard event, such as
sign_uporpurchase(no registration needed), or - a custom event, after registering its name (optionally with a description).
form_submit, sign_up, login, search and share are conversions by default; you can switch them off.
Once flagged, the event:
- counts towards Conversions on the Overview and Events reports, and makes its session count towards the conversion rate,
- gets its own card on the Events report, and
- makes a session count as engaged.
Naming rules
Custom event names must match ^[a-z0-9_]{1,64}$: lowercase letters, numbers and underscores, up to 64 characters. Events with invalid names are dropped silently, so stick to names like signup_completed or pricing_cta_click.
Where to go next
- Auto-tracked events: full detail on what's captured for you automatically.
- Standard events catalogue: pre-defined events and their parameters.
- Ecommerce revenue tracking: attribute revenue to traffic.
- Tracking API: the full client API reference.
- Events & conversions: choose conversions and register custom events.