2 Specific event tracking with the Javascript tracker v2.8

This documentation is for an old version of this tracker!

🚧 The documentation for the latest version can be found on the Snowplow documentation site.

This page refers to version 2.8.x of the Snowplow JavaScript Tracker

3. Tracking specific events

Snowplow has been built to enable users to track a wide range of events that occur when consumers interact with their websites and webapps. We are constantly growing the range of functions available in order to capture that data more richly.

3.1 Pageviews
- 3.1.1 trackPageView
3.2 Pagepings
- 3.2.1 enableActivityTracking
- 3.2.2 updatePageActivity
3.3 Ecommerce transaction tracking
- 3.3.1 addTrans
- 3.3.2 addItem
- 3.3.3 trackTrans
- 3.3.4 Pulling it all together: an example
3.4 Social tracking
- 3.4.1 trackSocialInteraction
3.5 Campaign tracking
- 3.5.1 Identifying paid sources
- 3.5.2 Anatomy of the query parameter
3.6 Ad tracking methods
- 3.6.1 trackAdImpression
- 3.6.2 trackAdClick
- 3.6.3 trackAdConversion
- 3.6.4 Example: implementing impression tracking with Snowplow and OpenX
3.7 Tracking custom structured events
- 3.7.1 trackStructEvent
3.8 Tracking custom self-describing (unstructured) events
- 3.8.1 trackSelfDescribingEvent
3.9 Link click tracking
- 3.9.1 enableLinkClickTracking
- 3.9.2 refreshLinkClickTracking
- 3.9.3 trackLinkClick
3.10 Form tracking
- 3.10.1 enableFormTracking
3.11 trackAddToCart and trackRemoveFromCart
3.12 trackSiteSearch
3.13 trackTiming
3.14 Enhanced Ecommerce tracking
- 3.14.1 addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext
- 3.14.2 addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext
- 3.14.3 addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext
- 3.14.4 addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext
- 3.14.5 trackEnhancedEcommerceAction
3.15 Custom contexts
3.16 Error tracking
- 3.16.1 trackError
- 3.16.2 enableErrorTracking
3.17 Setting the true timestamp

3.1 Pageviews

Page views are tracked using the trackPageView method. This is generally part of the first Snowplow tag to fire on a particular web page. As a result, the trackPageView method is usually deployed straight after the tag that also invokes the Snowplow JavaScript (sp.js) e.g.

<!-- Snowplow starts plowing -->
<script type="text/javascript">
;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
};p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/snowplow/sp-js-assets@2.5.1/sp.js","snowplow_name_here"));

snowplow_name_here('enableActivityTracking', 30, 10);

snowplow_name_here('trackPageView');

 </script>
<!-- Snowplow stops plowing -->

3.1.1 `trackPageView`

Track pageview is called using the simple:

snowplow_name_here('trackPageView');

This method automatically captures the URL, referrer and page title (inferred from the <title> tag.

If you wish, you can override the title with a custom value:

snowplow_name_here('trackPageView', 'my custom page title');

trackPageView can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Additionally, you can pass a function which returns an array of zero or more contexts to trackPageView. For the page view and for all subsequent page pings, the function will be called and the contexts it returns will be added to the event.

For example:

// Turn on page pings every 10 seconds
window.snowplow('enableActivityTracking', 10, 10);

window.snowplow(
  'trackPageView',

  // no custom title
  null,

  // The usual array of static contexts
  [{
    schema: 'iglu:com.acme/static_context/jsonschema/1-0-0',
    data: {
      staticValue: new Date().toString()
    }
  }],

  // Function which returns an array of custom contexts
  // Gets called once per page view / page ping
  function() {
    return [{
      schema: 'iglu:com.acme/dynamic_context/jsonschema/1-0-0',
      data: {
        dynamicValue: new Date().toString()
      }
    }];
  }
);

The page view and every subsequent page ping will have both a static_context and a dynamic_context attached. The static_contexts will all have the same staticValue, but the dynamic_contexts will have different dynamicValues since a new context is created for every event.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.2 Track engagement with a web page over time: page pings

As well as tracking page views, we can monitor whether a user continues to engage with a page over time, and record how he / she digests content on the page over time.

That is accomplished using 'page ping' events. If activity tracking is enabled, the web page is monitored to see if a user is engaging with it. (E.g. is the tab in focus, does the mouse move over the page, does the user scroll etc.) If any of these things occur in a set period of time, a page ping event fires, and records the maximum scroll left / right and up / down in the last ping period. If there is no activity in the page (e.g. because the user is on a different tab in his / her browser), no page ping fires.

3.2.1 `enableActivityTracking`

Page pings are enabled by:

snowplow_name_here('enableActivityTracking', minimumVisitLength, heartBeat);

where minimumVisitLength is the time period from page load before the first page ping occurs, in seconds. Heartbeat is the number of seconds between each page ping, once they have started. So, if you executed:

snowplow_name_here('enableActivityTracking', 30, 10);

snowplow_name_here('trackPageView');

The first ping would occur after 30 seconds, and subsequent pings every 10 seconds as long as the user continued to browse the page actively.

Notes:

In general this is executed as part of the main Snowplow tracking tag. As a result, you can elect to enable this on specific pages.
The enableActivityTracking method must be called before the trackPageView method.
Activity tracking will be disabled if either minimumVisitLength or heartBeat is not integer. This is to prevent relentless callbacks.

3.2.2 `updatePageActivity`

You can also trigger a page ping manually with:

snowplow_name_here('updatePageActivity');

This is particularly useful when a user is passively engaging with your content, e.g. watching a video.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.3 Ecommerce tracking

Modelled on Google Analytics ecommerce tracking capability, Snowplow uses three methods that have to be used together to track online transactions:

Create a transaction object. Use addTrans() method to initialize a transaction object. This will be the object that is loaded with all the data relevant to the specific transaction that is being tracked including all the items in the order, the prices of the items, the price of shipping and the order_id.
Add items to the transaction. Use the addItem() method to add data about each individual item to the transaction object.
Submit the transaction to Snowplow using the trackTrans() method, once all the relevant data has been loaded into the object.

3.3.1 `addTrans`

The addTrans method creates a transaction object. It takes nine possible parameters, two of which are required:

Parameter	Description	Required?	Example value
`orderId`	Internal unique order id number for this transaction	Yes	'1234'
`affiliation`	Partner or store affiliation	No	'Womens Apparel'
`total`	Total amount of the transaction	Yes	'19.99'
`tax`	Tax amount of the transaction	No	'1.00'
`shipping`	Shipping charge for the transaction	No	'2.99'
`city`	City to associate with transaction	No	'San Jose'
`state`	State or province to associate with transaction	No	'California'
`country`	Country to associate with transaction	No	'USA'
`currency`	Currency to associate with this transaction	No	'USD'

For example:

snowplow_name_here('addTrans',
    '1234',           // order ID - required
    'Acme Clothing',  // affiliation or store name
    '11.99',          // total - required
    '1.29',           // tax
    '5',              // shipping
    'San Jose',       // city
    'California',     // state or province
    'USA',            // country
    'USD'             // currency
  );

addTrans can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.3.2 `addItem`

The addItem method is used to capture the details of each product item included in the transaction. It should therefore be called once for each item.

There are six potential parameters that can be passed with each call, four of which are required:

Parameter	Description	Required?	Example value
`orderId`	Order ID of the transaction to associate with item	Yes	'1234'
`sku`	Item's SKU code	Yes	'pbz0001234'
`name`	Product name	No, but advisable (to make interpreting SKU easier)	'Black Tarot'
`category`	Product category	No	'Large'
`price`	Product price	Yes	'9.99'
`quantity`	Purchase quantity	Yes	'1'
`currency`	Product price currency	No	'USD'

For example:

snowplow_name_here('addItem',
    '1234',           // order ID - required
    'DD44',           // SKU/code - required
    'T-Shirt',        // product name
    'Green Medium',   // category or variation
    '11.99',          // unit price - required
    '1',              // quantity - required
    'USD'             // currency
  );

addItem can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.3.3 `trackTrans`

Once the transaction object has been created (using addTrans) and the relevant item data added to it using the addItem method, we are ready to send the data to the collector. This is initiated using the trackTrans method:

snowplow_name_here('trackTrans');

3.3.4 Putting the three methods together: a complete example

<html>
<head>
<title>Receipt for your clothing purchase from Acme Clothing</title>
<script type="text/javascript">

  ;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
  p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
  };p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
  n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/snowplow/sp-js-assets@2.5.1/sp.js","snowplow_name_here"));

  snowplow_name_here('newTracker', 'cf', 'my-collector.cloudfront.net');
  snowplow_name_here('enableActivityTracking', 30, 10)
  snowplow_name_here('trackPageView');
  snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking');

  snowplow_name_here('addTrans',
    '1234',           // order ID - required
    'Acme Clothing',  // affiliation or store name
    '11.99',          // total - required
    '1.29',           // tax
    '5',              // shipping
    'San Jose',       // city
    'California',     // state or province
    'USA'             // country
  );

   // add item might be called for every item in the shopping cart
   // where your ecommerce engine loops through each item in the cart and
   // prints out _addItem for each
  snowplow_name_here('addItem',
    '1234',           // order ID - required
    'DD44',           // SKU/code - required
    'T-Shirt',        // product name
    'Green Medium',   // category or variation
    '11.99',          // unit price - required
    '1'               // quantity - required
  );

  // trackTrans sends the transaction to Snowplow tracking servers.
  // Must be called last to commit the transaction.
  snowplow_name_here('trackTrans'); //submits transaction to the collector

</script>
</head>
<body>

  Thank you for your order.  You will receive an email containing all your order details.

</body>
</html>

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.4 Social tracking

Social tracking will be used to track the way users interact with Facebook, Twitter and Google + widgets, e.g. to capture "like this" or "tweet this" events.

3.4.1 `trackSocialInteraction`

The trackSocialInteraction method takes three parameters:

Parameter	Description	Required?	Example value
`action`	Social action performed	Yes	'like', 'retweet'
`network`	Social network	Yes	'facebook', 'twitter'
`target`	Object social action is performed on e.g. page ID, product ID	No	'19.99'

The method is executed in as:

snowplow_name_here('trackSocialInteraction', action, network, target);

For example:

snowplow_name_here('trackSocialInteraction', 'like', 'facebook', 'pbz00123');

Or if the optional parameters were left off:

snowplow_name_here('trackSocialInteraction', 'like', 'facebook');

trackSocialInteraction can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.5 Campaign tracking

Campaign tracking is used to identify the source of traffic coming to a website.

At the highest level, we can distinguish paid traffic (that derives from ad spend) with non paid traffic: visitors who come to the website by entering the URL directly, clicking on a link from a referrer site or clicking on an organic link returned in a search results, for example.

In order to identify paid traffic, Snowplow users need to set five query parameters on the links used in ads. Snowplow checks for the presence of these query parameters on the web pages that users load: if it finds them, it knows that that user came from a paid source, and stores the values of those parameters so that it is possible to identify the paid source of traffic exactly.

If the query parameters are not present, Snowplow reasons that the user is from a non paid source of traffic. It then checks the page referrer (the url of the web page the user was on before visiting our website), and uses that to deduce the source of traffic:

If the URL is identified as a search engine, the traffic medium is set to "organic" and Snowplow tries to derive the search engine name from the referrer URL domain and the keywords from the query string.
If the URL is a non-search 3rd party website, the medium is set to "referrer". Snowplow derives the source from the referrer URL domain.

3.5.1 Identifying paid sources

Your different ad campaigns (PPC campaigns, display ads, email marketing messages, Facebook campaigns etc.) will include one or more links to your website e.g.:

<a href="http://mysite.com/myproduct.html">Visit website</a>

We want to be able to identify people who've clicked on ads e.g. in a marketing email as having come to the site having clicked on a link in that particular marketing email. To do that, we modify the link in the marketing email with query parameters, like so:

<a href="http://mysite.com/myproduct.html?utm_source=newsletter-october&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=cn0201">Visit website</a>

For the prospective customer clicking on the link, adding the query parameters does not change the user experience. (The user is still directed to the webpage at http://mysite.com/myproduct.html.) But Snowplow then has access to the fields given in the query string, and uses them to identify this user as originating from the October Newsletter, an email marketing campaign with campaign id = cn0201.

3.5.2 Anatomy of the query parameters

Snowplow uses the same query parameters used by Google Analytics. Because of this, Snowplow users who are also using GA do not need to do any additional work to make their campaigns trackable in Snowplow as well as GA. Those parameters are:

Parameter	Name	Description
`utm_source`	Campaign source	Identify the advertiser driving traffic to your site e.g. Google, Facebook, autumn-newsletter etc.
`utm_medium`	Campaign medium	The advertising / marketing medium e.g. cpc, banner, email newsletter, in-app ad, cpa
`utm_campaign`	Campaign id	A unique campaign id. This can be a descriptive name or a number / string that is then looked up against a campaign table as part of the analysis
`utm_term`	Campaign term(s)	Used for search marketing in particular, this field is used to identify the search terms that triggered the ad being displayed in the search results.
`utm_content`	Campaign content	Used either to differentiate similar content or two links in the same ad. (So that it is possible to identify which is generating more traffic.)

The parameters are descibed in the Google Analytics help page. Google also provides a urlbuilder which can be used to construct the URL incl. query parameters to use in your campaigns.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.6 Ad tracking methods

Snowplow tracking code can be included in ad tags in order to track impressions and ad clicks. This is used by e.g. ad networks to identify which sites and web pages users visit across a network, so that they can be segmented, for example.

Each ad tracking method has a costModel field and a cost field. If you provide the cost field, you must also provide one of 'cpa', 'cpc', and 'cpm' for the costModel field.

It may be the case that multiple ads from the same source end up on a single page. If this happens, it is important that the different Snowplow code snippets associated with those ads not interfere with one another. The best way to prevent this is to randomly name each tracker instance you create so that the probability of a name collision is negligible. See Managing multiple trackers for more on having more than one tracker instance on a single page.

Below is an example of how to achieve this when using Snowplow ad impression tracking.

<!-- Snowplow starts plowing -->
<script type="text/javascript">

// Wrap script in a closure.
// This prevents rnd from becoming a global variable.
// So if multiple copies of the script are loaded on the same page,
// each instance of rnd will be inside its own namespace and will
// not overwrite any of the others.
// See http://benalman.com/news/2010/11/immediately-invoked-function-expression/
(function(){
  // Randomly generate tracker namespace to prevent clashes
  var rnd = Math.random().toString(36).substring(2);

  // Load Snowplow
  ;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
  p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
  };p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
  n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/snowplow/sp-js-assets@2.5.1/sp.js","sp_pm"));

  // Create a new tracker namespaced to rnd
  window.sp_pm('newTracker', rnd, 'my-collector.cloudfront.net', {
    appId: 'myApp',
    platform: 'web'
  });

  // Replace the values below with magic macros from your adserver
  window.sp_pm('trackAdImpression:' + rnd,
    '67965967893',            // impressionId
    'cpm',                    // costModel - 'cpa', 'cpc', or 'cpm'
    5.5,                      // cost
    'http://www.example.com', // targetUrl
    '23',                     // bannerId
    '7',                      // zoneId
    '201',                    // advertiserId
    '12'                      // campaignId
  );
}());
</script>
<!-- Snowplow stops plowing -->

Even if several copies of the above script appear on a page, the trackers created will all (probably) have different names and so will not interfere with one another. The same technique should be used when tracking ad clicks. The below examples for trackAdImpression and trackAdClick assume that rnd has been defined in this way.

3.6.1 `trackAdImpression`

Ad impression tracking is accomplished using the trackAdImpression method. Here are the arguments it accepts:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`impressionId`	No	Identifier for the particular impression instance	string
`costModel`	No*	The cost model for the campaign: 'cpc', 'cpm', or 'cpa'	string
`cost`	No*	Ad cost	number
`targetUrl`	No*	The destination URL	string
`bannerId`	No	Adserver identifier for the ad banner (creative) being displayed	string
`zoneId`	No	Adserver identifier for the zone where the ad banner is located	string
`advertiserID`	No	Adserver identifier for the advertiser which the campaign belongs to	string
`campaignId`	No	Adserver identifier for the ad campaign which the banner belongs to	string

*Note: There are the following restrictions in place

targetUrl should have at least 1 character
cost should have a minimum value of 0
costModel has to be present as cost depends on it

An example:

snowplow_name_here('trackAdImpression:' + rnd,

    '67965967893',             // impressionId
    'cpm',                     // costModel - 'cpa', 'cpc', or 'cpm'
     5.5,                      // cost
    'http://www.example.com',  // targetUrl
    '23',                      // bannerId
    '7',                       // zoneId
    '201',                     // advertiserId
    '12'                       // campaignId
);

Ad impression events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. Here is the JSON schema for an ad impression event.

trackAdImpression can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

You will want to set these arguments programmatically, across all of your ad zones/slots. For guidelines on how to achieve this with the OpenX adserver, please see the following section 3.6.4.

3.6.2 `trackAdClick`

Ad click tracking is accomplished using the trackAdClick method. Here are the arguments it accepts:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`targetUrl`	Yes	The destination URL	string
`clickId`	No	Identifier for the particular click instance	string
`costModel`	No	The cost model for the campaign: 'cpc', 'cpm', or 'cpa'	string
`cost`	No	Ad cost	number
`bannerId`	No	Adserver identifier for the ad banner (creative) being displayed	string
`zoneId`	No	Adserver identifier for the zone where the ad banner is located	string
`advertiserID`	No	Adserver identifier for the advertiser which the campaign belongs to	string
`campaignId`	No	Adserver identifier for the ad campaign which the banner belongs to	string

An example:

snowplow_name_here('trackAdClick:' + rnd,

    'http://www.example.com',  // targetUrl
    '12243253',                // clickId
    'cpm',                     // costModel
     2.5,                      // cost
    '23',                      // bannerId
    '7',                       // zoneId
    '67965967893',             // impressionId - the same as in trackAdImpression
    '201',                     // advertiserId
    '12'                       // campaignId
);

Ad click events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events.Here is the JSON schema for an ad click event.

trackAdClick can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.6.3 `trackAdConversion`

Use the trackAdConversion method to track ad conversions. Here are the arguments it accepts:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`conversionId`	No	Identifier for the particular conversion instance	string
`costModel`	No	The cost model for the campaign: 'cpc', 'cpm', or 'cpa'	string
`cost`	No	Ad cost	number
`category`	No	Conversion category	number
`action`	No	The type of user interaction, e.g. 'purchase'	string
`property`	No	Describes the object of the conversion	string
`initialValue`	No	How much the conversion is initially worth	number
`advertiserID`	No	Adserver identifier for the advertiser which the campaign belongs to	string
`campaignId`	No	Adserver identifier for the ad campaign which the banner belongs to	string

An example:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackAdConversion',

    '743560297', // conversionId
    10,          // cost
    'ecommerce', // category
    'purchase',  // action
    '',          // property
    99,          // initialValue - how much the conversion is initially worth
    '201',       // advertiserId
    'cpa',       // costModel
    '12'         // campaignId
);

Ad conversion events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. Here is the schema for an ad conversion event.

trackAdConversion can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.6.4 Example: implementing impression tracking with Snowplow and OpenX

Most ad servers enable you to append custom code to your ad tags. Here's what the zone append functionality looks like in the OpenX adserver (OnRamp edition):

zoneappend

You will need to populate the ad zone append field with Snowplow tags for every ad zone/unit which you use to serve ads across your site or network. Read on for the Snowplow HTML code to use for OpenX.

OpenX: Snowplow impression tracking using magic macros

Because OpenX has a feature called magic macros, it is relatively straightforward to pass the banner, campaign and user ID arguments into the call to trackAdImpression() (advertiser ID is not available through magic macros).

The full HTML code to append, using asynchronous Snowplow invocation, looks like this:

<!-- Snowplow starts plowing -->
<script type="text/javascript">
;(function(p,l,o,w,i,n,g){if(!p[i]){p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace=p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace||[];
p.GlobalSnowplowNamespace.push(i);p[i]=function(){(p[i].q=p[i].q||[]).push(arguments)
};p[i].q=p[i].q||[];n=l.createElement(o);g=l.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];n.async=1;
n.src=w;g.parentNode.insertBefore(n,g)}}(window,document,"script","//cdn.jsdelivr.net/gh/snowplow/sp-js-assets@2.5.1/sp.js","snowplow_name_here"));

// Update tracker constructor to use your CloudFront distribution subdomain
window.snowplow_name_here('newTracker', 'cf', 'patldfvsg0d8w.cloudfront.net');

window.snowplow_name_here('trackAdImpression', '{impressionId}' '{costModel}', '{cost}', '{targetUrl}', '{bannerid}', '{zoneid}', '{advertiserId}', '{campaignid}'); // OpenX magic macros. Leave this line as-is

 </script>
<!-- Snowplow stops plowing -->

Once you have appended this code to all of your active ad zones, Snowplow should be collecting all of your ad impression data.

Back to top

3.7 Tracking custom structured events

There are likely to be a large number of AJAX events that can occur on your site, for which a specific tracking method is part of Snowplow. Examples include:

Playing a video
Adding an item to basket
Submitting a lead form

Our philosophy in creating Snowplow is that users should capture "every" consumer interaction and work out later how to use this data. This is different from traditional web analytics and business intelligence, that argues that you should first work out what you need, and only then start capturing the data.

As part of a Snowplow implementation, therefore, we recommend that you identify every type of AJAX interaction that a user might have with your site: each one of these is an event that will not be captured as part of the standard page view tracking. All of them are candidates to track using trackStructEvent, if none of the other event-specific methods outlined above are appropriate.

3.7.1 `trackStructEvent`

There are five parameters can be associated with each structured event. Of them, only the first two are required:

Name	Required?	Description
`Category`	Yes	The name you supply for the group of objects you want to track e.g. 'media', 'ecomm'
`Action`	Yes	A string which defines the type of user interaction for the web object e.g. 'play-video', 'add-to-basket'
`Label`	No	An optional string which identifies the specific object being actioned e.g. ID of the video being played, or the SKU or the product added-to-basket
`Property`	No	An optional string describing the object or the action performed on it. This might be the quantity of an item added to basket
`Value`	No	An optional float to quantify or further describe the user action. This might be the price of an item added-to-basket, or the starting time of the video where play was just pressed

The async specification for the trackStructEvent method is:

snowplow_name_here('trackStructEvent', 'category','action','label','property','value');

An example of tracking a user listening to a music mix:

snowplow_name_here('trackStructEvent', 'Mixes', 'Play', 'MrC/fabric-0503-mix', '', '0.0');

Note that in the above example no value is set for the event property.

trackStructEvent can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.8 Tracking custom self-describing (unstructured) events

Note that this is only available on version 2.7.0 and above of the JS tracker.

You may wish to track events on your website or application which are not directly supported by Snowplow and which structured event tracking does not adequately capture. Your event may have more than the five fields offered by trackStructEvent, or its fields may not fit into the category-action-label-property-value model. The solution is Snowplow's self-describing events (previously known as unstructured). Self-describing events use JSONs which can have arbitrarily many fields.

To define your own custom event, you must create a JSON schema for that event and upload it to an Iglu Schema Repository. Snowplow uses the schema to validate that the JSON containing the event properties is well-formed.

3.8.1 `trackSelfDescribingEvent`

To track a self-describing event, you make use the trackSelfDescribingEvent method:

snowplow_name_here('trackSelfDescribingEvent', <<SELF-DESCRIBING EVENT JSON>>);

For example:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackSelfDescribingEvent', {
    schema: 'iglu:com.acme_company/viewed_product/jsonschema/2-0-0',
    data: {
        productId: 'ASO01043',
        category: 'Dresses',
        brand: 'ACME',
        returning: true,
        price: 49.95,
        sizes: ['xs', 's', 'l', 'xl', 'xxl'],
        availableSince: new Date(2013,3,7)
    }
});

The second argument is a self-describing JSON. It has two fields:

A data field, containing the properties of the event
A schema field, containing the location of the JSON schema against which the data field should be validated.

The data field should be flat, not nested.

trackSelfDescribingEvent can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.9 Link click tracking

Link click tracking is enabled using the enableLinkClickTracking method. Use this method once and the Tracker will add click event listeners to all link elements. Link clicks are tracked as unstructured events. Each link click event captures the link's href attribute. The event also has fields for the link's id, classes, and target (where the linked document is opened, such as a new tab or new window).

Here is the JSON schema for a link click event.

3.9.1 `enableLinkClickTracking`

Turn on link click tracking like this:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking');

This is its signature:

enableLinkClickTracking(filter, pseudoclicks, content);

You can control which links are tracked using the second argument. There are three ways to do this: a blacklist, a whitelist, and a filter function.

Blacklists

This is an array of CSS classes which should be ignored by link click tracking. For example, the below code will stop link click events firing for links with the class "barred" or "untracked", but will fire link click events for all other links:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', {'blacklist': ['barred', 'untracked']});

If there is only one class name you wish to blacklist, you don't need to put it in an array:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', {'blacklist': 'barred'});

Whitelists

The opposite of a blacklist. This is an array of the CSS classes of links which you do want to be tracked. Only clicks on links with a class in the list will be tracked.

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', {'whitelist': ['unbarred', 'tracked']});

If there is only one class name you wish to whitelist, you don't need to put it in an array:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', {'whitelist': 'unbarred'});

Filter functions

You can provide a filter function which determines which links should be tracked. The function should take one argument, the link element, and return either 'true' (in which case clicks on the link will be tracked) or 'false' (in which case they won't).

The following code will track clicks on those and only those links whose id contains the string "interesting":

function myFilter (linkElement) {
  return linkElement.id.indexOf('interesting') > -1;
}

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', {'filter': myFilter});

The second optional parameter is pseudoClicks. If this is not turned on, Firefox will not recognise middle clicks. If it is turned on, there is a small possibility of false positives (click events firing when they shouldn't). Turning this feature on is recommended:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', null, true);

The third optional parameter is content. Set it to true if you want link click events to capture the innerHTML of the clicked link:

snowplow_name_here('enableLinkClickTracking', null, null, true);

The innerHTML of a link is all the text between the a tags. Note that if you use a base 64 encoded image as a link, the entire base 64 string will be included in the event.

Each link click event will include (if available) the destination URL, id, classes and target of the clicked link. (The target attribute of a link specifies a window or frame where the linked document will be loaded.)

enableLinkClickTracking can also be passed an array of custom contexts to attach to every link click event as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.9.2 `refreshLinkClickTracking`

enableLinkClickTracking only tracks clicks on links which exist when the page has loaded. If new links can be added to the page after then which you wish to track, just use refreshLinkClickTracking. This will add Snowplow click listeners to all links which do not already have them (and which match the blacklist, whitelist, or filter function you specified when enableLinkClickTracking was originally called). Use it like this:

snowplow_name_here('refreshLinkClickTracking');

3.9.3 `trackLinkClick`

You can manually track individual link click events with the trackLinkClick method. This is its signature:

function trackLinkClick(targetUrl, elementId, elementClasses, elementTarget, elementContent);

Of these arguments, only targetUrl is required. This is how to use trackLinkClick:

snowplow_name_here('trackLinkClick', 'http://www.example.com', 'first-link', ['class-1', 'class-2'], '', 'this page');

trackLinkClick can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.10 Form tracking

Snowplow automatic form tracking detects two event types:

`change_form`

When a user changes the value of a textarea, input, or select element inside a form, a change_form event will be fired. It will capture the name, type, and new value of the element, and the id of the parent form.

`submit_form`

When a user submits a form, a submit_form event will be fired. It will capture the id and classes of the form and the name, type, and value of all textarea, input, and select elements inside the form.

Note that this will only work if the original form submission event is actually fired. If you prevent it from firing, for example by using a jQuery event handler which returns false to handle clicks on the form's submission button, the Snowplow submit_form event will not be fired.

3.10.1 `enableFormTracking`

Use the enableFormTracking method to add event listeners to turn on form tracking by adding event listeners to all form elements and to all interactive elements inside forms (that is, all input, textarea, and select elements).

snowplow('enableFormTracking');

This will only work for form elements which exist when it is called. If you are creating a form programatically, call enableFormTracking again after adding it to the document to track it. (You can call enableFormTracking multiple times without risk of duplicated events.)

Note that events on password fields will not be tracked.

3.10.2 Custom form tracking

It may be that you do not want to track every field in a form, or every form on a page. You can customize form tracking by passing a configuration argument to the enableFormTracking method. This argument should be an object with two elements named "forms" and "fields". The "forms" element determines which forms will be tracked; the "fields" element determines which fields inside the tracked forms will be tracked. As with link click tracking, there are three ways to configure each field: a blacklist, a whitelist, or a filter function. You do not have to use the same method for both fields.

Blacklists

This is an array of strings used to prevent certain elements from being tracked. Any form with a CSS class in the array will be ignored. Any field whose name property is in the array will be ignored. All other elements will be tracked.

Whitelists

This is an array of strings used to turn on certail. Any form with a CSS class in the array will be tracked. Any field in a tracked form whose name property is in the array will be tracked. All other elements will be ignored.

Filter functions

This is a function used to determine which elements are tracked. The element is passed as the argument to the function and is tracked if and only if the value returned by the function is truthy.

Examples

To track every form element and every field except those fields named "password":

var config = {
  forms: {
    blacklist: []
  },
  fields: {
    blacklist: ['password']
  }
};

snowplow('enableFormTracking', config);

To track only the forms with CSS class "tracked", and only those fields whose ID is not "private":

var config = {
  forms: {
    whitelist: ["tracked"]
  },
  fields: {
    filter: function (elt) {
      return elt.id !== "private";
    }
  }
};

snowplow('enableFormTracking', config);

3.11 `trackAddToCart` and `trackRemoveFromCart`

These methods let you track users adding and removing items from a cart on an ecommerce site. Their arguments are identical:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`sku`	Yes	Item SKU	string
`name`	No	Item name	string
`category`	No	Item category	string
`unitPrice`	Yes	Item price	number
`quantity`	Yes	Quantity added to or removed from cart	number
`currency`	No	Item price currency	string

An example:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackAddToCart', '000345', 'blue tie', 'clothing', 3.49, 2, 'GBP');
window.snowplow_name_here('trackRemoveFromCart', '000345', 'blue tie', 'clothing', 3.49, 1, 'GBP');

Both methods are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. You can see schemas for the add_to_cart and remove_from_cart events.

Both methods can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.12 `trackSiteSearch`

Use the trackSiteSearch method to track users searching your website. Here are its arguments:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`terms`	Yes	Search terms	array
`filters`	No	Search filters	JSON
`totalResults`	No	Results found	number
`pageResults`	No	Results displayed on first page	number

An example:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackSiteSearch',
    ['unified', 'log'],      // search terms
    {'category': 'books', 'sub-category': 'non-fiction'},  // filters
    14,                      // results found
    8                        // results displayed on first page
);

Site search events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. Here is the schema for a site_search event.

trackSiteSearch can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.13 `trackTiming`

Use the trackTiming method to track user timing events such as how long resources take to load. Here are its arguments:

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`category`	Yes	Timing category	string
`variable`	Yes	Timed variable	string
`timing`	Yes	Number of milliseconds elapsed	number
`label`	No	Label for the event	string

An example:

window.snowplow('trackTiming',
  'load',            // Category of the timing variable
  'map_loaded',      // Variable being recorded
  50,                // Milliseconds taken
  'Map loading time' // Optional label
);

Site search events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. Here is the schema for a timing event.

trackTiming can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

3.14 Enhanced Ecommerce tracking

For more information on the Enhanced Ecommerce functions please see the Google Analytics documentation.

3.14.1 `addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext`

Use the addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext method to add a GA Enhanced Ecommerce Action Context to the Tracker:

Name	Required?	Type
`id`	Yes	string
`affiliation`	No	string
`revenue`	No	number OR string
`tax`	No	number OR string
`shipping`	No	number OR string
`coupon`	No	string
`list`	No	string
`step`	No	integer OR string
`option`	No	string
`currency`	No	string

Adding an action using Google Analytics:

ga('ec:setAction', 'purchase', {
  'id': 'T12345',
  'affiliation': 'Google Store - Online',
  'revenue': '37.39',
  'tax': '2.85',
  'shipping': '5.34',
  'coupon': 'SUMMER2013'
});

NOTE: The action type is passed with the action context in the Google Analytics example. We have seperated this by asking you to call the trackEnhancedEcommerceAction function to actually send the context and the action.

Adding an action using Snowplow:

window.snowplow('addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext',
  'T12345', // The Transaction ID
  'Google Store - Online', // The affiliate
  '37.39', // The revenue
  '2.85', // The tax
  '5.34', // The shipping
  'WINTER2016' // The coupon
);

3.14.2 `addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext`

Use the addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext method to add a GA Enhanced Ecommerce Impression Context to the Tracker:

Name	Required?	Type
`id`	Yes	string
`name`	No	string
`list`	No	string
`brand`	No	string
`category`	No	string
`variant`	No	string
`position`	No	integer OR string
`price`	No	number OR string
`currency`	No	string

Adding an impression using Google Analytics:

ga('ec:addImpression', {
  'id': 'P12345',
  'name': 'Android Warhol T-Shirt',
  'list': 'Search Results',
  'brand': 'Google',
  'category': 'Apparel/T-Shirts',
  'variant': 'Black',
  'position': 1
});

Adding an impression using Snowplow:

window.snowplow('addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext',
  'P12345', // The ID
  'Android Warhol T-Shirt', // The name
  'Search Results', // The list
  'Google', // The brand
  'Apparel/T-Shirts', // The category
  'Black', // The variant
  '1' // The position
);

3.14.3 `addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext`

Use the addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext method to add a GA Enhanced Ecommerce Product Field Context:

Name	Required?	Type
`id`	Yes	string
`name`	No	string
`list`	No	string
`brand`	No	string
`category`	No	string
`variant`	No	string
`price`	No	number OR string
`quantity`	No	integer OR string
`coupon`	No	string
`position`	No	integer OR string
`currency`	No	string

Adding a product using Google Analytics:

ga('ec:addProduct', {
  'id': 'P12345',
  'name': 'Android Warhol T-Shirt',
  'brand': 'Google',
  'category': 'Apparel/T-Shirts',
  'variant': 'Black',
  'position': 1
});

Adding a product using Snowplow:

window.snowplow('addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext',
  'P12345', // The ID
  'Android Warhol T-Shirt', // The name
  'Search Results', // The list
  'Google', // The brand
  'Apparel/T-Shirts', // The category
  'Black', // The variant
  1 // The quantity
);

3.14.4 `addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext`

Use the addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext method to add a GA Enhanced Ecommerce Promotion Field Context:

Name	Required?	Type
`id`	Yes	string
`name`	No	string
`creative`	No	string
`position`	No	string
`currency`	No	string

Adding a promotion using Google Analytics:

ga('ec:addPromo', {
  'id': 'PROMO_1234',
  'name': 'Summer Sale',
  'creative': 'summer_banner2',
  'position': 'banner_slot1'
});

Adding a promotion using Snowplow:

window.snowplow('addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext',
  'PROMO_1234', // The Promotion ID
  'Summer Sale', // The name
  'summer_banner2', // The name of the creative
  'banner_slot1' // The position
);

3.14.5 `trackEnhancedEcommerceAction`

Use the trackEnhancedEcommerceAction method to track a GA Enhanced Ecommerce Action. When this function is called all of the added Ecommerce Contexts are attached to this action and flushed from the Tracker.

Name	Required?	Type
`action`	Yes	string

The allowed actions:

click
detail
add
remove
checkout
checkout_option
purchase
refund
promo_click
view

Adding an action using Google Analytics:

ga('ec:setAction', 'refund', {
  'id': 'T12345'
});

Adding an action using Snowplow:

window.snowplow('addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext',
  'T12345' // ID
);
window.snowplow('trackEnhancedEcommerceAction',
  'refund'
);

3.15 Custom contexts

Custom contexts can be used to augment any standard Snowplow event type, including unstructured events, with additional data.

Custom contexts can be added as an extra argument to any of Snowplow's track..() methods and to addItem and addTrans.

Each custom context is a self-describing JSON following the same pattern as an unstructured event. As with unstructured events, if you want to create your own custom context, you must create a JSON schema for it and upload it to an Iglu repository. Since more than one (of either different or the same type) can be attached to an event, the context argument (if it is provided at all) should be a non-empty array of self-describing JSONs.

Important: Even if only one custom context is being attached to an event, it still needs to be wrapped in an array.

Here are two example custom context JSONs. One describes a page, and the other describes a user on that page.

{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/page/jsonschema/1-2-1",
    data: {
        pageType: 'test',
        lastUpdated: new Date(2014,1,26)
    }
}

{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/user/jsonschema/2-0-0",
    data: {
      userType: 'tester'
    }
}

How to track a page view with both these contexts attached:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackPageView', null, [{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/page/jsonschema/1-2-1",
    data: {
        pageType: 'test',
        lastUpdated: new Date(2014,1,26)
    }
},
{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/user/jsonschema/2-0-0",
    data: {
      userType: 'tester'
    }
}]);

In this case an empty string has been provided to the optional customTitle argument in order to reach the context argument.

For more information on custom contexts, see this blog post.

3.16 Error tracking

Note that this is only available on version 2.7.0 and above of the JS tracker.

Snowplow JS tracker provides two ways of tracking exceptions: manual tracking of handled exceptions using trackError and automatic tracking of unhandled exceptions using enableErrorTracking.

3.16.1 `trackError`

Use the trackError method to track handled exceptions (application errors) in your JS code. This is its signature:

function (message, filename, lineno, colno, error, contexts)

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`message`	Yes	Error message	string
`filename`	No	Filename or URL	string
`lineno`	No	Line number of problem code chunk	number
`colno`	No	Column number of problem code chunk	number
`error`	No	JS `ErrorEvent`	ErrorEvent

Of these arguments, only message is required. Signature of this method defined to match window.onerror callback in modern browsers.

try {
  var user = getUser()
} catch(e) {
  snowplow_name_here('trackError', 'Cannot get user object', 'shop.js', null, null, e);
}

trackError can also be passed an array of custom contexts as an additional final parameter. See Contexts for more information.

Using trackError it's assumed that developer knows where error could happen, which is not often the case. Therefor it's recommended to use enableErrorTracking as it allows you to discover errors that weren't expected.

3.16.2 `enableErrorTracking`

Use the enableErrorTracking method to track unhandled exceptions (application errors) in your JS code. This is its signature:

function (filter, contextAdder)

Name	Required?	Description	Type
`filter`	No	Predicate function to filter exceptions	Function ErrorEvent => Boolean
`contextAdder`	No	Function to grab custom contexts	Function ErrorEvent => Array

Unlike trackError you need enable error tracking only once:

snowplow_name_here('enableErrorTracking')

Application error events are implemented as Snowplow unstructured events. Here is the schema for a application_error event.

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

3.17 Setting the true timestamp

As standard, every event tracked by the Javascript tracker will be recorded with two timestamps:

A device_created_tstamp - set when the event occurred
A device_sent_tstamp - set when the event was sent by the tracker to the collector

These are combined downstream in the Snowplow pipeline (with the collector_tstamp) to calculate the derived_tstamp, which is our best estimate of when the event actually occurred.

In certain circumstances you might want to set the timestamp yourself e.g. if the JS tracker is being used to process historical event data, rather than tracking the events live. In this case you can set the true_timestamp for the event. When set, this will be used as the value in the derived_tstamp rather than a combination of the device_created_tstamp, device_sent_tstamp and collector_tstamp.

To set the true timestamp add an extra argument to your track method:

{type: 'ttm', value: unixtimestamp}

e.g. to set a true timestamp with a page view event:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackPageView', null, [{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/page/jsonschema/1-2-1",
    data: {
        pageType: 'test',
        lastUpdated: new Date(2014,1,26)
    }
},
{
    schema: "iglu:com.example_company/user/jsonschema/2-0-0",
    data: {
      userType: 'tester'
    }
}],
{type: 'ttm', value: 1482511723});

e.g. to set a true timestamp for a self-describing event:

window.snowplow_name_here('trackSelfDescribingEvent', {
    schema: 'iglu:com.acme_company/viewed_product/jsonschema/2-0-0',
    data: {
        productId: 'ASO01043',
        category: 'Dresses',
        brand: 'ACME',
        returning: true,
        price: 49.95,
        sizes: ['xs', 's', 'l', 'xl', 'xxl'],
        availableSince: new Date(2013,3,7)
    }
}, null, {type: 'ttm', value: 1482511723});

Back to top Back to JavaScript technical documentation contents

HOME » TECHNICAL DOCUMENTATION » Trackers » Javascript tracker

1. Trackers Overview Javascript Tracker

A. Snowplow Tracker Protocol

2. Collectors Overview Cloudfront Collector Clojure Collector (Elastic Beanstalk) Scala Stream Collector

B. Collector logging formats

3. ETL Overview EmrEtlRunner

C. Canonical Snowplow event model

4. Storage Overview S3 / Hive Amazon Redshift Infobright

D. Snowplow storage formats (to write)

5. Analytics Analytics-documentation

Common Artifact-repositories

2 Specific event tracking with the Javascript tracker v2.8

This documentation is for an old version of this tracker!

3. Tracking specific events

3.1 Pageviews

3.1.1 trackPageView

3.2 Track engagement with a web page over time: page pings

3.2.1 enableActivityTracking

3.2.2 updatePageActivity

3.3 Ecommerce tracking

3.3.1 addTrans

3.3.2 addItem

3.3.3 trackTrans

3.3.4 Putting the three methods together: a complete example

3.4 Social tracking

3.4.1 trackSocialInteraction

3.5 Campaign tracking

3.5.1 Identifying paid sources

3.5.2 Anatomy of the query parameters

3.6 Ad tracking methods

3.6.1 trackAdImpression

3.6.2 trackAdClick

3.6.3 trackAdConversion

3.6.4 Example: implementing impression tracking with Snowplow and OpenX

OpenX: Snowplow impression tracking using magic macros

3.7 Tracking custom structured events

3.7.1 trackStructEvent

3.8 Tracking custom self-describing (unstructured) events

3.8.1 trackSelfDescribingEvent

3.9 Link click tracking

3.9.1 enableLinkClickTracking

3.9.2 refreshLinkClickTracking

3.9.3 trackLinkClick

3.10 Form tracking

change_form

submit_form

3.10.1 enableFormTracking

3.10.2 Custom form tracking

3.11 trackAddToCart and trackRemoveFromCart

3.12 trackSiteSearch

3.13 trackTiming

3.14 Enhanced Ecommerce tracking

3.14.1 addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext

3.14.2 addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext

3.14.3 addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext

3.14.4 addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext

3.14.5 trackEnhancedEcommerceAction

3.15 Custom contexts

3.16 Error tracking

3.16.1 trackError

3.16.2 enableErrorTracking

3.17 Setting the true timestamp

Clone this wiki locally

3.1.1 `trackPageView`

3.2.1 `enableActivityTracking`

3.2.2 `updatePageActivity`

3.3.1 `addTrans`

3.3.2 `addItem`

3.3.3 `trackTrans`

3.4.1 `trackSocialInteraction`

3.6.1 `trackAdImpression`

3.6.2 `trackAdClick`

3.6.3 `trackAdConversion`

3.7.1 `trackStructEvent`

3.8.1 `trackSelfDescribingEvent`

3.9.1 `enableLinkClickTracking`

3.9.2 `refreshLinkClickTracking`

3.9.3 `trackLinkClick`

`change_form`

`submit_form`

3.10.1 `enableFormTracking`

3.11 `trackAddToCart` and `trackRemoveFromCart`

3.12 `trackSiteSearch`

3.13 `trackTiming`

3.14.1 `addEnhancedEcommerceActionContext`

3.14.2 `addEnhancedEcommerceImpressionContext`

3.14.3 `addEnhancedEcommerceProductContext`

3.14.4 `addEnhancedEcommercePromoContext`

3.14.5 `trackEnhancedEcommerceAction`

3.16.1 `trackError`

3.16.2 `enableErrorTracking`