Google Analytics is an incredibly popular tool to gain insights into who is coming to your site, how they're behaving, and if they're taking desired actions. Drift's integration with Google Analytics allows us to automatically send Drift events to Google Analytics so that you can track your visitors' interactions.

Note: The Drift Integration will work with both Google Analytics 3 (GA3) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4). Universal Analytics is being sunsetted by Google. If you're currently working with or switching to a Google Analytics 4 property, you have a Measurement ID instead of a Tracking ID. Your measurement ID  identifies the web data stream to which you want to send your Google Analytics data. Replace the Tracking ID in Drift with the new Measurement ID. For more information on this change, please refer to this Google Analytics support document.

Billing Plan: 

The Google Analytics Integration is available on the Premium, Advanced, and Enterprise plans.

In this article we'll go over:

• What Drift Events go to Google Analytics
• Understanding Captured Events
• How to Connect the Integration
• Specifying a Tracking ID
• Mark Events as Conversations
• The Google Analytics Event Log
• FAQ's

What Drift Events go to Google Analytics

Currently, we send eleven Drift events to Google Analytics. These events appear as

• startConversation
• message:sent
• message
• emailCapture
• phoneCapture
• scheduling:meetingBooked
• conversation:playbookFired
• conversation:playbookClicked
• conversation:buttonClicked
• conversation:playbookDismissed
• conversation:firstInteraction

This guide walks you through our native integration with Google Analytics. If you would rather connect to Google Analytics via our Javascript SDK, check out our Developer Docs for the more technical solution!

Understanding Captured Events

Understanding Captured Events

Let's define what these captured events mean!

The "startConversation" event fires when the user starts a new chat.

The "message:sent" event fires when the user replies to a conversation. It appears as "Message Sent."

The "message" event fires when the user receives a message from a team member. It appears as "Message Received."

The "emailCapture" event fires when the user identifies through an Email Capture Campaign, completes an email capture from inside the Widget, or if they simply type their email into a message. It appears as "Email Captured."

The "phoneCapture" event fires when a user provides a phone number in chat. Currently, it only works for US phone numbers. It appears as "Phone Number Captured."

The "scheduling:meetingBooked" event fires when the user books a meeting with a member of your team. It appears as "Meeting Booked."

The "conversation:playbookFired" event fires whenever a leadbot Playbook fires to a visitor. It appears as "Playbook Fired."

The "conversation:playbookClicked" event is triggered when the user interacts with a Playbook from a greeting by clicking on the message or widget button. It appears as "Playbook Clicked."

The "conversation:ButtonClicked" event fires when the user clicks on a button in chat as a response to a question. It appears as "Button Clicked.

The "conversation:playbookDismissed" event is triggered when the user dismisses a message from a Playbook by clicking on the close button next to the message. It appears as "Playbook Dismissed."

The "conversation:firstInteraction" event fires for the first site visitor message in each unique conversation thread, or each distinct conversation ID. It appears as "First Interaction."

Tip:

conversation:firstInteraction is a better event for tracking conversations than startConversation, as it applies to all types of playbooks, while startConversation does not apply to bot playbooks.

How to integrate 

How to Connect the Integration

From within your Drift account, head to Settings > App Settings > Integrations and click on Google Analytics, or click here!


 

Then click Connect!

 

If you only have one Tracking ID or Measurement ID, that's all there is to it! You'll automatically start seeing Drift data in your Google Analytics dashboard.   

Specifying a Tracking ID

Specifying a Tracking ID 

If you have more than one Tracking or Measurement ID type in its value. Click Save to enable your changes!  

Make sure that this is an existing Tracking ID.
You can only connect to one Tracking ID at a time.
 

Choosing which Events to Track

While we currently offer eleven trackable events, you may not want to sync all of those. Once you've connected the integration, you can select which Drift events you want to send over to Google Analytics.

We default to sending all events to Google Analytics.

Remember to Save!

Note: The following events are not tracked for Slider Playbooks, Full Screen Takeover Playbooks, and Welcome Message Playbooks: 

• Playbook Dismissed
• Playbook Clicked
• Button Clicked

Within Google Analytics

To see events, navigate to Reports > Engagement > Events

Playbook-related events will currently show up in the "Event Label" as "Playbook ID: [Playbook ID]". You can find your Playbook ID within the URL of the visual builder or within the Playbooks tab!

Mark Events as Conversions

The primary way to measure a Google Analytics conversion is to create or identify an event that measures the important user interaction and then mark the event as a conversion.

By setting up conversions, you can do the following:

Report on conversions: See the actions that matter most to your business using the Acquisition, Engagement, and Advertising reports.

Bid on conversions: Import your conversion data into Google Ads to fuel manual or Smart bidding decisions to help optimize your campaigns.

Attribute credit to conversions: Combine your data with data from other advertising channels to understand the touch points along a user's path to conversion.

Advertise to unconverted users: Use your conversion data to create audiences of users who didn't convert and import those audiences into Google Ads for remarketing.

To learn more about conversions, please visit Google’s official documentation.

In order to Mark Drift events as Conversions, navigate to click the Admin gear icon and click on Events

Once you connect Drift to your GA4 instance and start receiving events, you will see Drift events under Existing Events. Drift events are labeled as “Playbook Fired” , “Meeting Booked”, “Chat Started”. Toggle “Mark as a Conversion” for any Drift events that you want to mark as conversions.

The Google Analytics Event Log

The Google Analytics Log (New as of February 2023) allows you to browse what changes were made to the Google Analytics integration settings. It does not display data that was sent from Drift to Google Analytics.

To View the Google Analytics log:

1. Go to Settings > Integrations
2. Select Google Analytics
3. Select the Event Log tab

From here, you'll be able to view a list of any changes made to the Google Analytics integration along with who made them. 
 
 

FAQs

FAQs

Do these events affect my bounce rate?

Depending on which events you've chosen choosing to sync, these events may be affecting your bounce rate as you're calculating it, according to your personal use case.

All events currently synced to Google Analytics may count against your bounce rate and time metrics, with the exception of "Playbook Fired" and "Message Received," which are sent as non-interaction events. You can mark these events as a "non-interaction hit" by following this Google Analytics help doc.

How many Tracking ID's can I use with Google Analytics?

Currently, our integration with GA is limited to one Tracking ID. However if you'd like to listen to events on a second Tracking ID, you could do so via the widget API.  For further info this check out our dev doc here: https://devdocs.drift.com/docs/drift-events#conversation-events

Can I connect more than one Google Analytics integration to Drift?

While the Drift Integration will work with both Google Analytics 3 (GA3) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics (UA), we can only support connection to one GA integration at a time.