{"id":133697,"date":"2025-03-14T20:33:51","date_gmt":"2025-03-14T20:33:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/analytics\/track-content-engagement-part-2\/"},"modified":"2025-03-14T20:33:51","modified_gmt":"2025-03-14T20:33:51","slug":"track-content-engagement-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=133697","title":{"rendered":"Track Content Engagement Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"


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A couple of days ago, I wrote an article on tracking content engagement<\/a>. Even though the solution itself works, and it\u2019s a really neat trick if I can say so myself, it has its problems.<\/p>\n

After all the glory I showered on User Timings<\/a> in Google Analytics, they have one serious flaw: they cap at 10,000<\/strong> samples per day. What a ridiculous, arbitrary limit.<\/p>\n

In any case, this means that if you have enough traffic to accumulate 10K user timing hits per day, it means that the solution I provided in the previous article will not work for you, as the Pageviews will not<\/em> be capped, meaning the calculation of Total Engaged Time<\/strong> \/ Pageviews<\/strong> will be skewed.<\/p>\n

After awesome discussions with people like Al Wightman, Zorin Radovancevic, and Yehoshua Coren, this article is meant to replace the User Timings setup from the previous guide with a new solution, which utilizes Events<\/strong> and Custom Metrics<\/strong>. Since most of the article is still valid, please read the previous article<\/a> all the way until you reach 4. User Timings<\/strong>. This is where this post will pick things up, and I\u2019ll make sure to guide you all the way to the finish line, so you don\u2019t have to refer back to the original article, unless you want to make sure you got all the initial steps right.<\/p>\n


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Before we get started<\/h2>\n

Instead of User Timings<\/strong>, which measures milliseconds, this new solution will use a Custom Metric<\/strong>, which measures engagement time in seconds. This will be piggybacked on a non-interactive<\/em> event hit.<\/p>\n

In Google Analytics, we\u2019ll create a Calculated Metric<\/strong> with the following formula:<\/p>\n

Total Engaged Time<\/strong> \/ Pageviews<\/strong><\/p>\n

Since each event is (or should) always be associated with a pageview, we can aggregate these nicely in a Custom Report we\u2019ll build at the end of this tutorial.<\/p>\n

In other words, this solution will use up a Custom Metric<\/strong> slot, and it will increase the event hit count for your site. If you\u2019re already breaching the 500 hits per session limit, this might well take you over the top. But, let\u2019s be honest, if you\u2019re near the 500 hits per session limit, you\u2019ve already fudged up something in your measurement plan, so don\u2019t blame me for those mistakes!<\/p>\n

4. Custom JavaScript Variable<\/h2>\n

Let\u2019s pick up the steps of the previous guide with a new Custom JavaScript Variable. Name it JS – Get Engagement Time In Seconds<\/strong> (or something to that effect), and add the following code within:<\/p>\n

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function<\/span>() {\n  return<\/span> {{DLV - nonIdleTimeElapsed}} \/ 1000<\/span>;\n}\n<\/code><\/pre>\n<\/div>\n
This simply returns the nonIdleTimeElapsed<\/code> key from the data layer divided by 1000, to get the number of seconds of engaged time collected by the script from the previous article.<\/p>\n
5. The Custom Metric (GA)<\/h2>\n
Next, go to Google Analytics Admin<\/strong>. Open Custom Definitions<\/strong> under Property Settings<\/strong>, and click Custom Metrics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Next, create a new Custom Metric, by clicking the big red button.<\/p>\n
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    <\/p>\n
    \"New<\/p>\n
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Give the new Custom Metric a nice, descriptive name: Total Engaged Time<\/strong>. Make sure you\u2019ve got Time<\/strong> selected as the Formatting Type, and you can keep all the other settings as they are.<\/p>\n
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    <\/p>\n
    \"custom<\/p>\n
    <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Finally, click Save<\/strong>.<\/p>\n
Make note of the Index<\/strong> number assigned to the new metric. This is important!<\/p>\n
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    <\/p>\n
    \"custom<\/p>\n
    <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
That\u2019s it for the metric!<\/p>\n
6. The Event Tag<\/h2>\n
The Event Tag can have whatever values you want in the fields. For debugging reasons, I always include the value I\u2019m piggy-backing on the hit (the Custom Metric in this case) as one of the fields.<\/p>\n
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    <\/p>\n
    \"The<\/p>\n
    <\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n
To make this work, you will need<\/strong> the following:<\/p>\n