Analytics Implementation for: New Home Page

[wesrowe]

Google Analytics Implementation or QA Request

What this form is for

More Information

Use this template to request Google Analytics implementation or QA for your product. Please fill out all brackets.

Please see the following information for implementation timeline:
New Teams: Implementation will usually be completed in 4 sprints

• Sprint 1: Discovery/Orientation
• Sprint 2: FE Implementation
• Sprint 3: Tagging Implementation
• Sprint 4: QA

All other teams: Implementation will usually be completed in 2 sprints

• Sprint 1: Discovery and FE Implementation
• Sprint 2: Tagging Implementation and QA

Description

Required

• Is this request for Google Analytics implementation or QA?

  • Google Analytics implementation
  • QA

• Who is this request for?

  • Public Websites

• Provide the link(s) for Google Analytics implementation or QA

  • www.va.gov/new-home-page

• When is the launch date?

  • Jan 3, 2023

• What interactions need to be tracked? NOTE: Design System Components are automatically tracked

  • We have implemented code to track all interactions within the new home page (ie., between the header and the footer). However, GTM needs to be configured to send these to GA.
  • The elements of the new home page that were instrumented with GA events were detailed in this ticket: Implement Google Analytics for new homepage va.gov-cms#11467. They were made in this PR.
  • e.g.:
    • recordEvent({ event: 'homepage-search-tools-click', action: 'Other search tools - {{link.label}}' })

Optional

• If applicable, what test users are needed? NOTE: Do not put staging credentials in this ticket; store or reference them in a .md file in the va.gov-team-sensitive repository

  • N/A

• Any additional comments

  • Overall, our intention is to make it easy to find these analytics events in GA.
  • Note: Ideally, all the uniqueness would be visible in either "event action" or "event label" in GA, so that we don't have to waste a secondary dimension on finding the events we're interested in. So for the example above, it would be nice to have this complete Event Label in GA:
    • recordEvent({ Homepage - Other search tools - Link click - {{link.label}}

Please leave the following blank

Acceptance criteria

• All appropriate issue tagging is completed
• QA has been completed
• Events have been added to Product and Benefit Hub Content Groups

Additional information

Please refer to Platform Collaboration Cycle or the Analytics Request Touchpoint on Platform website for more information about the Collaboration Cycle.

[wesrowe]

hi @michelle-dooley, I see you've moved this to Up Next. Do you have an ETA when you'll get to it? I think I'll need to set time aside to support this effort, depending on whether you have the documentation you need from us.

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe - I will begin working on this as part of the new sprint starting tomorrow. Could you please provide me a list of all the new homepage events? I see the following...

homepage-search-tools-click,
homepage-benefit-link-click,
homepage-create-account and
homepage-popular-link-click.

Are there others I should be looking for? And are these unique to the new homepage? So if I see one of these I know its new homepage vs old, correct?

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe - can you also tell me what event category they should each fall under? Interaction, navigation, api call, sign-on, search or transaction. I think I can determine but want to make sure I put them where you expect to see them from category perspective.

[wesrowe]

Thanks @michelle-dooley! Answers to your questions below.

Category: I believe these should all be Interactions. Email sign-up is a possible exception – I would be happy with Interaction there as well, but if there's a standard that it's a "transaction" or something I'll follow that.

The ones you found already:

• homepage-search-tools-click
• homepage-benefit-link-click
• homepage-create-account
• homepage-popular-link-click

Hopefully these will come through with an "action" that includes detail of particular item, e.g. the link text itself.

Additional ones:

VA News promo links
Article title:
event: "homepage-news-promo-title-click",
action: "Homepage News Promo - Pathfinder: The front door for engaging with VA - Title"

Read full article CTA:
event: "homepage-news-promo-click",
action: "Homepage news promo - Pathfinder: The front door for engaging with VA - CTA"

More VA News:
event: "homepage-news-promo-more-news-click",
action: "Homepage news promo - More VA News"

Email sign-ups (bottom of page)
event: "homepage-email-sign-up",
action: "Homepage email sign up"

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe - I created these new events in GTM but when going through to test I don't see any of them triggering. Have they not been implemented yet?

[wesrowe]

Thanks for the update. They have been implemented – I believe I pulled the details in my comment above from AdSwerve. What steps did you try testing?

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe - so something must be missing in the code. The only new homepage event I see at all is 'homepage-benefit-link-click'. Can you please confirm that other events are coded same as this one? I can't figure out why only one is coming through? I have tried everything and from my side they are all set up the exact same?!?!

[wesrowe]

I need to pull in @jtmst (Josh Mills), he has been in the GA code a lot lately and can get into the technical weeds about how GTM makes the connection.

[michelle-dooley]

@jtmst and @wesrowe - I went through and everything is working as expected now expect the 'Search' type in I only see the standard search action for that (not specific to new homepage) and 'Read the full article' I do not see homepage-news-promo-click just the standard Nav Zone One interactions. Here is a doc that shows you everything I see for each new event action

[wesrowe]

@michelle-dooley, @jtmst, I'm not seeing anything at all in prod or staging for the News Promo Title or Read Full Article clicks. (Not even "zone one", which I have seen work in the past.)

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe - I have not released the new homepage to staging or prod yet, there are still in dev in GA and only I can see them. I wanted to confirm it was all working before promoting. However you should still see any zone one or previous events, I did not take anything away.

[jtmst]

@wesrowe I'm testing this on prod and it seems fine to me, this is for the Read Full Article:

and this for the title:

I have no idea why they would be working for me and not elsewhere, can you confirm @michelle-dooley ?

[michelle-dooley]

I did release them to dev, staging and prod so you should seem them in all places now.

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe I just went through them all in staging and they are all working.

[wesrowe]

@jtmst, it turns out that I'm experiencing a bug in AdSwerve just on the News Promo links: the "Read full article" GA event doesn't show in console when I click the links. However, when I hit the back button to return from the external site to the new home page, the original event I was expecting appears back where I was expecting it.

Josh, would you mind seeing if you can reproduce? I can only see this bug on the news promo links (all three). All other new-homepate links trigger events without having to hit Back. Is there anything different about how these events are triggered?

First clicked:

Same console area after going Back to new home page:

[wesrowe]

@michelle-dooley, thanks for your work on GTM.

[jtmst]

@wesrowe I find console events to be inconsistent when going back and forth between pages like this, so usually I'll test links but just cmd+clicking so they open in a new tab and I can see the events firing in real time

[wesrowe]

@jtmst, thanks for that tip! – it 1) really simplifies the view, and 2) bypassed the bug I was seeing earlier.

[michelle-dooley]

@wesrowe sounds like you have everything you need now. I am going to close this ticket. Please reach out with any further questions.