Tracking Google Analytics Page Views with AngularJS

Question

I'm setting up a new app using AngularJS as the frontend. Everything on the client side is done with HTML5 pushstate and I'd like to be able to track my page views in Google Analytics.

Answer 1

If you're using ng-view in your Angular app you can listen for the $viewContentLoaded event and push a tracking event to Google Analytics.

Assuming you've set up your tracking code in your main index.html file with a name of var _gaq and MyCtrl is what you've defined in the ng-controller directive.

function MyCtrl($scope, $location, $window) {
  $scope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', function(event) {
    $window._gaq.push(['_trackPageView', $location.url()]);
  });
}

UPDATE: for new version of google-analytics use this one

function MyCtrl($scope, $location, $window) {
  $scope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', function(event) {
    $window.ga('send', 'pageview', { page: $location.url() });
  });
}

Answer 2

When a new view is loaded in AngularJS, Google Analytics does not count it as a new page load. Fortunately there is a way to manually tell GA to log a url as a new pageview.

_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '<url>']); would do the job, but how to bind that with AngularJS?

Here is a service which you could use:

(function(angular) { 

  angular.module('analytics', ['ng']).service('analytics', [
    '$rootScope', '$window', '$location', function($rootScope, $window, $location) {
      var track = function() {
        $window._gaq.push(['_trackPageview', $location.path()]);
      };
      $rootScope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', track);
    }
  ]);

}(window.angular));

When you define your angular module, include the analytics module like so:

angular.module('myappname', ['analytics']);

UPDATE:

You should use the new Universal Google Analytics tracking code with:

$window.ga('send', 'pageview', {page: $location.url()});

Answer 3

app.run(function ($rootScope, $location) {
    $rootScope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess', function(){
        ga('send', 'pageview', $location.path());
    });
});

Answer 4

Just a quick addition. If you're using the new analytics.js, then:

var track = function() {     
 ga('send', 'pageview', {'page': $location.path()});                
};

Additionally one tip is that google analytics will not fire on localhost. So if you are testing on localhost, use the following instead of the default create (full documentation)

ga('create', 'UA-XXXX-Y', {'cookieDomain': 'none'});

Answer 5

I've created a service + filter that could help you guys with this, and maybe also with some other providers if you choose to add them in the future.

Check out https://github.com/mgonto/angularytics and let me know how this works out for you.

Answer 6

Merging the answers by wynnwu and dpineda was what worked for me.

angular.module('app', [])
  .run(['$rootScope', '$location', '$window',
    function($rootScope, $location, $window) {
      $rootScope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess',
        function(event) {
          if (!$window.ga) {
            return;
          }
          $window.ga('send', 'pageview', {
            page: $location.path()
          });
        });
    }
  ]);

Setting the third parameter as an object (instead of just $location.path()) and using $routeChangeSuccess instead of $stateChangeSuccess did the trick.

Hope this helps.

Answer 7

I've created a simple example on github using the above approach.

https://github.com/isamuelson/angularjs-googleanalytics

Answer 8

The best way to do this is using Google Tag Manager to fire your Google Analytics tags based on history listeners. These are built in to the GTM interface and easily allow tracking on client side HTML5 interactions .

Enable the built in History variables and create a trigger to fire an event based on history changes.

Answer 9

In your index.html, copy and paste the ga snippet but remove the line ga('send', 'pageview');

<!-- Google Analytics: change UA-XXXXX-X to be your site's ID -->
<script>
  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
  ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X');
</script>

I like to give it it's own factory file my-google-analytics.js with self injection:

angular.module('myApp')
  .factory('myGoogleAnalytics', [
    '$rootScope', '$window', '$location', 
    function ($rootScope, $window, $location) {

      var myGoogleAnalytics = {};

      /**
       * Set the page to the current location path
       * and then send a pageview to log path change.
       */
      myGoogleAnalytics.sendPageview = function() {
        if ($window.ga) {
          $window.ga('set', 'page', $location.path());
          $window.ga('send', 'pageview');
        }
      }

      // subscribe to events
      $rootScope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', myGoogleAnalytics.sendPageview);

      return myGoogleAnalytics;
    }
  ])
  .run([
    'myGoogleAnalytics', 
    function(myGoogleAnalytics) {
        // inject self
    }
  ]);

Answer 10

I found the gtag() function worked, instead of the ga() function.

In the index.html file, within the <head> section:

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=TrackingId"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'TrackingId');
</script>

In the AngularJS code:

app.run(function ($rootScope, $location) {
  $rootScope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess', function() {
    gtag('config', 'TrackingId', {'page_path': $location.path()});
  });
});

Replace TrackingId with your own Tracking Id.

Answer 11

If someone wants to implement using directives then, identify (or create) a div in the index.html (just under the body tag, or at same DOM level)

<div class="google-analytics"/>

and then add the following code in the directive

myApp.directive('googleAnalytics', function ( $location, $window ) {
  return {
    scope: true,
    link: function (scope) {
      scope.$on( '$routeChangeSuccess', function () {
        $window._gaq.push(['_trackPageview', $location.path()]);
      });
    }
  };
});

Answer 12

For those of you using AngularUI Router instead of ngRoute can use the following code to track page views.

app.run(function ($rootScope) {
    $rootScope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', function (event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams) {
        ga('set', 'page', toState.url);
        ga('send', 'pageview');
    });
});

Answer 13

If you're using ui-router you can subscribe to the $stateChangeSuccess event like this:

$rootScope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', function (event) {
    $window.ga('send', 'pageview', $location.path());
});

For a complete working example see this blog post

Answer 14

Use GA 'set' to ensure routes are picked up for Google realtime analytics. Otherwise subsequent calls to GA will not show in the realtime panel.

$scope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess', function() {
    $window.ga('set', 'page', $location.url());
    $window.ga('send', 'pageview');
});

Google strongly advises this approach generally instead of passing a 3rd param in 'send'. https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/single-page-applications

Answer 15

Developers creating Single Page Applications can use autotrack, which includes a urlChangeTracker plugin that handles all of the important considerations listed in this guide for you. See the autotrack documentation for usage and installation instructions.

Answer 16

I am using AngluarJS in html5 mode. I found following solution as most reliable:

Use angular-google-analytics library. Initialize it with something like:

//Do this in module that is always initialized on your webapp    
angular.module('core').config(["AnalyticsProvider",
  function (AnalyticsProvider) {
    AnalyticsProvider.setAccount(YOUR_GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_TRACKING_CODE);

    //Ignoring first page load because of HTML5 route mode to ensure that page view is called only when you explicitly call for pageview event
    AnalyticsProvider.ignoreFirstPageLoad(true);
  }
]);

After that, add listener on $stateChangeSuccess' and send trackPage event.

angular.module('core').run(['$rootScope', '$location', 'Analytics', 
    function($rootScope, $location, Analytics) {
        $rootScope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', function(event, toState, toParams, fromState, fromParams, options) {
            try {
                Analytics.trackPage($location.url());
            }
            catch(err) {
              //user browser is disabling tracking
            }
        });
    }
]);

At any moment, when you have your user initalized you can inject Analytics there and make call:

Analytics.set('&uid', user.id);

Answer 17

I am using ui-router and my code looks like this:

$rootScope.$on('$stateChangeSuccess', function(event, toState, toParams){
  /* Google analytics */
  var path = toState.url;
  for(var i in toParams){
    path = path.replace(':' + i, toParams[i]);
  }
  /* global ga */
  ga('send', 'pageview', path);
});

This way I can track different states. Maybe someone will find it usefull.

Answer 18

I personally like to set up my analytics with the template URL instead of the current path. This is mainly because my application has many custom paths such as message/:id or profile/:id. If I were to send these paths, I'd have so many pages being viewed within analytics, it would be too difficult to check which page users are visiting most.

$rootScope.$on('$viewContentLoaded', function(event) {
    $window.ga('send', 'pageview', {
        page: $route.current.templateUrl.replace("views", "")
    });
});

I now get clean page views within my analytics such as user-profile.html and message.html instead of many pages being profile/1, profile/2 and profile/3. I can now process reports to see how many people are viewing user profiles.

If anyone has any objection to why this is bad practise within analytics, I would be more than happy to hear about it. Quite new to using Google Analytics, so not too sure if this is the best approach or not.

Answer 19

I suggest using the Segment analytics library and following our Angular quickstart guide. You’ll be able to track page visits and track user behavior actions with a single API. If you have an SPA, you can allow the RouterOutlet component to handle when the page renders and use ngOnInit to invoke page calls. The example below shows one way you could do this:

@Component({
  selector: 'app-home',
  templateUrl: './home.component.html',
  styleUrls: ['./home.component.css']
})
export class HomeComponent implements OnInit {
  ngOnInit() {
    window.analytics.page('Home');
  }
}

I’m the maintainer of https://github.com/segmentio/analytics-angular. With Segment, you’ll be able to switch different destinations on-and-off by the flip of a switch if you are interested in trying multiple analytics tools (we support over 250+ destinations) without having to write any additional code. 🙂

Answer 20

Merging even more with Pedro Lopez's answer,

I added this to my ngGoogleAnalytis module(which I reuse in many apps):

var base = $('base').attr('href').replace(/\/$/, "");

in this case, I have a tag in my index link:

  <base href="/store/">

it's useful when using html5 mode on angular.js v1.3

(remove the replace() function call if your base tag doesn't finish with a slash /)

angular.module("ngGoogleAnalytics", []).run(['$rootScope', '$location', '$window',
    function($rootScope, $location, $window) {
      $rootScope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess',
        function(event) {
          if (!$window.ga) { return; }
          var base = $('base').attr('href').replace(/\/$/, "");

          $window.ga('send', 'pageview', {
            page: base + $location.path()
          });
        }
      );
    }
  ]);

Answer 21

If you are looking for full control of Google Analytics's new tracking code, you could use my very own Angular-GA.

It makes ga available through injection, so it's easy to test. It doesn't do any magic, apart from setting the path on every routeChange. You still have to send the pageview like here.

app.run(function ($rootScope, $location, ga) {
    $rootScope.$on('$routeChangeSuccess', function(){
        ga('send', 'pageview');
    });
});

Additionaly there is a directive ga which allows to bind multiple analytics functions to events, like this:

<a href="#" ga="[['set', 'metric1', 10], ['send', 'event', 'player', 'play', video.id]]"></a>