Laravel Analytics Event Tracking

https://twitter.com/pascalbaljet/status/1257926601339277312

Laravel package to easily send events to Google Analytics

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Laravel Splade

Did you hear about Laravel Splade? 🤩

It's the magic of Inertia.js with the simplicity of Blade. Splade provides a super easy way to build Single Page Applications using Blade templates. Besides that magic SPA-feeling, it comes with more than ten components to sparkle your app and make it interactive, all without ever leaving Blade.

Features

• Use Laravel Events to track events with GA.
• Blade Directive to easily store the Client ID.
• Full access to the underlying library.
• API calls to GA are queued.
• Easy to configure.
• Compatible with Laravel 9.0.
• PHP 8.0 or higher required.

Installation

You can install the package via composer:

composer require protonemedia/laravel-analytics-event-tracking

Configuration

Publish the config and view files:

php artisan vendor:publish --provider="ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\ServiceProvider"

Set your Google Analytics Tracking ID in the .env file or in the config/analytics-event-tracking.php file.

GOOGLE_ANALYTICS_TRACKING_ID=UA-01234567-89

This package supports Google Analytics 4 as of version 1.2.1. Please republish the view file if you're upgrading to a new Google Analytics 4 property.

Blade Directive

This package comes with a @sendAnalyticsClientId directive that sends the Client ID from the GA front-end to your Laravel backend and stores it in the session.

It uses the Axios HTTP library the make an asynchronous POST request. Axios was choosen because it is provided by default in Laravel in the resources/js/bootstrap.js file.

Add the directive somewhere after initializing/configuring GA. The POST request will only be made if the Client ID isn't stored yet or when it's refreshed.

<script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-01234567-89"></script>
<script>
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
  gtag('js', new Date());
  gtag('config', 'UA-01234567-89', { 'send_page_view': false });
  gtag('event', 'page_view', { 'event_callback': function() {
      @sendAnalyticsClientId
  }});
</script>

If you don't use Axios, you have to implement this call by yourself. By default the endpoint is /gaid but you can customize it in the configuration file. The request is handled by the ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\Http\StoreClientIdInSession class. Make sure to also send the CSRF token.

Broadcast events to Google Analytics

Add the ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics interface to your event and you're ready! You don't have to manually bind any listeners.

<?php

namespace App\Events;

use App\Order;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Events\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics;

class OrderWasCreated implements ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics
{
    use Dispatchable, SerializesModels;

    public $order;

    public function __construct(Order $order)
    {
        $this->order = $order;
    }
}

Handle framework and 3rd-party events

If you want to handle events where you can't add the ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics interface, you can manually register them in your EventServiceProvider using the DispatchAnalyticsJob listener.

<?php

namespace App\Providers;

use Illuminate\Auth\Events\Registered;
use Illuminate\Auth\Listeners\SendEmailVerificationNotification;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Support\Providers\EventServiceProvider as ServiceProvider;
use ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\Listeners\DispatchAnalyticsJob;

class EventServiceProvider extends ServiceProvider
{
    /**
     * The event listener mappings for the application.
     *
     * @var array
     */
    protected $listen = [
        Registered::class => [
            SendEmailVerificationNotification::class,
            DispatchAnalyticsJob::class,
        ],
    ];
}

Customize the broadcast

There are two additional methods that lets you customize the call to Google Analytics.

With the withAnalytics method you can interact with the underlying package to set additional parameters. Take a look at the TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\Analytics class to see the available methods.

With the broadcastAnalyticsActionAs method you can customize the name of the Event Action. By default we use the class name with the class's namespace removed. This method gives you access to the underlying Analytics class as well.

<?php

namespace App\Events;

use App\Order;
use TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\Analytics;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Events\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics;

class OrderWasCreated implements ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics
{
    use Dispatchable, SerializesModels;

    public $order;

    public function __construct(Order $order)
    {
        $this->order = $order;
    }

    public function withAnalytics(Analytics $analytics)
    {
        $analytics->setEventValue($this->order->sum_in_cents / 100);
    }

    public function broadcastAnalyticsActionAs(Analytics $analytics)
    {
        return 'CustomEventAction';
    }
}

Handling the Client ID outside a HTTP Request

You might want to track an event that occurs outside of a HTTP Request, for example in a queued job or while handling a 3rd-party callback/webhook. Let's continue with the Order example. When the Order is created, you could save the Client ID in the database.

<?php

namespace App\Http\Controllers;

use App\Order;
use App\Http\Requests\CreateOrderRequest;
use ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\Http\ClientIdRepository;

class CreateOrderController
{
    public function __invoke(CreateOrderRequest $request, ClientIdRepository $clientId)
    {
        $attributes = $request->validated();

        $attributes['google_analytics_client_id'] = $clientId->get();

        return Order::create($attributes);
    }
}

When you receive a webhook from your payment provider and you dispatch an OrderWasPaid event, you can use the withAnalytics method in your event to reuse the google_analytics_client_id:

<?php

namespace App\Events;

use App\Order;
use TheIconic\Tracking\GoogleAnalytics\Analytics;
use Illuminate\Foundation\Events\Dispatchable;
use Illuminate\Queue\SerializesModels;
use ProtoneMedia\AnalyticsEventTracking\ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics;

class OrderWasPaid implements ShouldBroadcastToAnalytics
{
    use Dispatchable, SerializesModels;

    public $order;

    public function __construct(Order $order)
    {
        $this->order = $order;
    }

    public function withAnalytics(Analytics $analytics)
    {
        $analytics->setClientId($this->order->google_analytics_client_id);
    }
}

Additional configuration

You can configure some additional settings in the config/analytics-event-tracking.php file:

• use_ssl: Use SSL to make calls to GA
• is_enabled: Set to false to prevent events from being sent to GA
• anonymize_ip: Anonymizes the last digits of the user's IP
• send_user_id: Send the ID of the authenticated user to GA
• queue_name: Specify a queue to perform the calls to GA
• client_id_session_key: The session key to store the Client ID
• http_uri: HTTP URI to post the Client ID to (from the Blade Directive)

Testing

composer test

Changelog

Please see CHANGELOG for more information what has changed recently.

Contributing

Please see CONTRIBUTING for details.

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Security

If you discover any security related issues, please email [email protected] instead of using the issue tracker.

Credits

• Pascal Baljet
• All Contributors

License

The MIT License (MIT). Please see License File for more information.

Treeware

This package is Treeware. If you use it in production, then we ask that you buy the world a tree to thank us for our work. By contributing to the Treeware forest you’ll be creating employment for local families and restoring wildlife habitats.