Tracking User Actions
You can use Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics (GA) to track user interactions on your site by creating an event tag and an event goal. We’ll review the set-up steps to implement both event tags in GTM and event goals in GA in order to track user interactions on your website.
If you do not have access to GTM or GA for your Georgetown website, feel free to reach out to the Web Services team at webservices@georgetown.edu and we’d be happy to help.
An event consists of any user interaction with content on your site that can be measured. This can range from downloading a form, clicking on a link, playing a video, and more. An event consists of 4 components:
- Category: The name of the object you want to analyze
- ex: videos
- Action: The event or interaction you want to measure
- ex: play
- Label: Any additional information for the event
- ex: video title
- Value: The optional numerical value you can assign to the object
- ex: a 10 second load time
The first step in tracking events on your website is to create an Event Tag in Google Tag Manager.
Creating an Event Tag
GTM helps you manage and deploy “tags” on your site that allow you to track user interactions without having to edit the website code. These consist of three main parts:
- Tags: Snippets of code that tell GTM what to do
- ex: GA universal tracking code
- Triggers: A way to fire your tag, tells GTM when to do what you want it to
- ex: link click
- Variables: Additional information GTM may need
- ex: GA tracking ID number
To create an event tag in GTM, you can follow these steps:
- Log into Google Tag Manager and select “Tags” from the left-hand side. Then, click “New”.

- Select “Google Analytics: Universal Analytics” as the tag type.

- Choose “Event” for track type.

- Set your event category, action, label, value, and name your tag.

- Set your GA Settings by selecting the GA Settings Variable (this should already exist, but if you do not see this option contact the Web Services team).

- Next, configure your trigger. To create a new trigger, click on the plus icon in the upper right corner.

- Select your desired trigger type. For tracking clicks on elements such as links, choose the “All Elements” trigger. Check out the GTM help center for more information on trigger types.

- Click the “Some Clicks” button and fill out your conditions. If you need to add multiple conditions, click on the plus icon to the right of the conditions.

- Once you’ve named your trigger and set the conditions, save your trigger by clicking the “Save” button.

- Once you have configured your tag and trigger, save the tag by clicking the “Save’ button.

- Next, test your tag by clicking “Preview” to ensure it’s behaving as expected.

- Clicking preview will open up the debugging mode. Enter the URL of the site you created the tag for and click “Start” to begin debugging.

- Test to make sure your tag does not fire unless all the conditions you set occur.

- Next, complete the action on your site you are tracking and make sure the tag was fired.

- Once you’ve tested your tag, exit the debugger mode. Then, click “Submit” to save your changes.

Once you’ve created your tag, it’s time to create an event goal in Google Analytics.
Creating an Event Goal
- Log in to Google Analytics, go to Admin, then click “Goals”.

- Click on “New Goal”.

- In the Goal setup, select “Custom”. Then, click “Continue”.

- Fill out the Goal description by adding a name. Then, select “Event” for the goal type.

- Fill in the category, action, label, and value fields for your event exactly as you did in GTM and click “Save”.
You can test the goal by completing the event on your site. If your goal was set-up correctly, you should be able to see conversion data in Google Analytics by going to Conversions > Goals.