react-ga

React Google Analytics Module

This is a JavaScript module that can be used to include Google Analytics tracking code in a website or app that uses React for its front-end codebase. It does not currently use any React code internally, but has been written for use with a number of Mozilla Foundation websites that are using React, as a way to standardize our GA Instrumentation across projects.

It is designed to work with Universal Analytics and will not support the older ga.js implementation.

This module is mildly opinionated in how we instrument tracking within our front-end code. Our API is slightly more verbose than the core Google Analytics library, in the hope that the code is easier to read and understand for our engineers. See examples below.

If you use react-ga too, we’d love your feedback. Feel free to file issues, ideas and pull requests against this repo.

Installation

With npm:

npm install react-ga --save

With bower:

bower install react-ga --save

Note that React >= 0.14.0 is needed in order to use the <OutboundLink> component.

Usage

With npm

Initializing GA and Tracking Pageviews:

import ReactGA from 'react-ga';
ReactGA.initialize('UA-000000-01');
ReactGA.pageview(window.location.pathname + window.location.search);

With bower

When included as a script tag, a variable ReactGA is exposed in the global scope.

<!-- The core React library -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react@15.5.0/dist/react.min.js"></script>
<!-- The ReactDOM Library -->
<script src="https://unpkg.com/react-dom@15.5.0/dist/react-dom.min.js"></script>
<!-- ReactGA library -->
<script src="/path/to/bower_components/react-ga/dist/react-ga.min.js"></script>

<script>
  ReactGA.initialize('UA-000000-01', { debug: true });
</script>

Demo Code

For a working demo have a look at the demo files or clone this repo and run npm install npm start then open http://localhost:8080 and follow the instructions. Demo requires you to have your own TrackingID.

Upgrading from 1.x to 2.x

You can safely upgrade to 2.x as there are no breaking changes. The main new feature is that the underlying ga function is now exposed via the property ReactGA.ga. This can be helpful when you need a function that ReactGA doesn’t support at the moment. Also, for that reason, it is recommended that you rename your imported value as ReactGA rather than ga so as to distinguish between the React GA wrapper and the original ga function.

Community Components

While some convenience components are included inside the package, some are specific to each application. A community curated list of these is available in the wiki: https://github.com/react-ga/react-ga/wiki/Community-Components. Feel free to add any you have found useful.

API

ReactGA.initialize(gaTrackingID, options)

GA must be initialized using this function before any of the other tracking functions will record any data. The values are checked and sent through to the ga('create', ... call.

If you aren’t getting any data back from Page Timings, you may have to add siteSpeedSampleRate: 100 to the gaOptions object. This will send 100% of hits to Google Analytics. By default only 1% are sent.

Example

ReactGA.initialize('UA-000000-01', {
  debug: true,
  titleCase: false,
  gaOptions: {
    userId: 123
  }
});

Or with multiple trackers

ReactGA.initialize(
  [
    {
      trackingId: 'UA-000000-01',
      gaOptions: {
        name: 'tracker1',
        userId: 123
      }
    },
    {
      trackingId: 'UA-000000-02',
      gaOptions: { name: 'tracker2' }
    }
  ],
  { debug: true, alwaysSendToDefaultTracker: false }
);

If you are having additional troubles and setting debug = true shows as working please try using the Chrome GA Debugger Extension. This will help you figure out if your implementation is off or your GA Settings are not correct.

ReactGA.set(fieldsObject)

This will set the values of custom dimensions in Google Analytics.

Example

ReactGA.set({ dimension14: 'Sports' });

Or with multiple trackers

ReactGA.set({ userId: 123 }, ['tracker2']);

ReactGA.pageview(path)

Example

ReactGA.pageview('/about/contact-us');

Or with multiple trackers

ReactGA.pageview('/about/contact-us', ['tracker2']);

This will send all the named trackers listed in the array parameter. The default tracker will or will not send according to the initialize() setting alwaysSendToDefaultTracker (defaults to true if not provided).

See example above for use with react-router.

ReactGA.modalview(modalName)

A modal view is often an equivalent to a pageview in our UX, but without a change in URL that would record a standard GA pageview. For example, a ‘contact us’ modal may be accessible from any page in a site, even if we don’t have a standalone ‘contact us’ page on its own URL. In this scenario, the modalview should be recorded using this function.

Example

ReactGA.modalview('/about/contact-us');

ReactGA.event(args)

Tracking in-page event interactions is key to understanding the use of any interactive web property. This is how we record user interactions that don’t trigger a change in URL.

Examples

ReactGA.event({
  category: 'User',
  action: 'Created an Account'
});

ReactGA.event({
  category: 'Social',
  action: 'Rated an App',
  value: 3
});

ReactGA.event({
  category: 'Editing',
  action: 'Deleted Component',
  label: 'Game Widget'
});

ReactGA.event({
  category: 'Promotion',
  action: 'Displayed Promotional Widget',
  label: 'Homepage Thing',
  nonInteraction: true
});

ReactGA.timing(args)

Allow to measure periods of time such as AJAX requests and resources loading by sending hits using the analytics.js library. For more detailed description, please refer to https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/user-timings.

Example

Usage:

ReactGA.timing({
  category: 'JS Libraries',
  variable: 'load',
  value: 20, // in milliseconds
  label: 'CDN libs'
});

This is equivalent to the following Google Analytics command:

ga('send', 'timing', 'JS Libraries', 'load', 20, 'CDN libs');

ReactGA.ga()

The original ga function can be accessed via this method. This gives developers the flexibility of directly using ga.js features that have not yet been implemented in ReactGA. No validations will be done by ReactGA as it is being bypassed if this approach is used.

If no arguments are passed to ReactGA.ga(), the ga object is returned instead.

Example

Usage with arguments:

ReactGA.ga('send', 'pageview', '/mypage');

Usage without arguments:

var ga = ReactGA.ga();
ga('send', 'pageview', '/mypage');

ReactGA.outboundLink(args, hitCallback)

Tracking links out to external URLs (including id.webmaker.org for OAuth 2.0 login flow). A declarative approach is found in the next section, by using an <OutboundLink> component.

Example

ReactGA.outboundLink(
  {
    label: 'Clicked Create an Account'
  },
  function () {
    console.log('redirect here');
  },
  ['tracker2']
);

<OutboundLink> Component

Outbound links can directly be used as a component in your React code and the event label will be sent directly to ReactGA.

Example

var ReactGA = require('react-ga');

render() {
  return (
    <div>
      <ReactGA.OutboundLink
        eventLabel="myLabel"
        to="http://www.example.com"
        target="_blank"
        trackerNames={['tracker2']}
      >
        My Link
      </ReactGA.OutboundLink>
    </div>
  );
}

For bower, use the <ReactGA.OutboundLink> component.

ReactGA.exception(args)

GA exception tracking

Example

ReactGA.exception({
  description: 'An error occurred',
  fatal: true
});

ReactGA.plugin.require(name, [options])

Require GA plugins.

Example

ReactGA.plugin.require('localHitSender', { path: '/log', debug: true });

ReactGA.plugin.execute(pluginName, action, [actionType], [payload])

Execute the action for the pluginName with the payload.

Example

ReactGA.plugin.execute('ecommerce', 'addTransaction', {
  id: 'jd38je31j',
  revenue: '3.50'
});

You can use this function with four arguments to pass actionType and payload along with executed action

Example

ReactGA.plugin.execute('ec', 'setAction', 'purchase', {
  id: 'jd38je31j',
  revenue: '3.50'
});

Test Mode

To enable test mode, initialize ReactGA with the testMode: true option. Here’s an example from tests/utils/testMode.test.js

// This should be part of your setup
ReactGA.initialize('foo', { testMode: true });
// This would be in the component/js you are testing
ReactGA.ga('send', 'pageview', '/mypage');
// This would be how you check that the calls are made correctly
expect(ReactGA.testModeAPI.calls).toEqual([
  ['create', 'foo', 'auto'],
  ['send', 'pageview', '/mypage']
]);

Standard Implementation

To enable standard implemention of google analytics.

Add this script to your html

<!-- Google Analytics -->
<script>
  (function (i, s, o, g, r, a, m) {
    i['GoogleAnalyticsObject'] = r;
    (i[r] =
      i[r] ||
      function () {
        (i[r].q = i[r].q || []).push(arguments);
      }),
      (i[r].l = 1 * new Date());
    (a = s.createElement(o)), (m = s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0]);
    a.async = 1;
    a.src = g;
    m.parentNode.insertBefore(a, m);
  })(
    window,
    document,
    'script',
    '<%=htmlWebpackPlugin.options.analyticsURL%>',
    'ga'
  );
  ga('create', 'UA-XXX-X', 'auto');
  ga('send', 'pageview');
</script>
<!-- End Google Analytics -->

Initialize ReactGA with standardImplementation: true option.

// This should be part of your setup
ReactGA.initialize('UA-XXX-X', { standardImplementation: true });

Development

Prerequisites

• node.js
• npm
• npm install
• npm install react@^15.6.1 prop-types@^15.5.10 - This is for the optional dependencies.

To Test

npm test

Submitting changes/fixes

Follow instructions inside CONTRIBUTING.md

Acknowledgements

• Quite a lot of the code in this repo, came from webmaker-analytics.