Google Analytics

Introduction

Video related analytics are an important part of a successful online video strategy. It can tell you which content works best for your audience and help with identifying viewing issues.

Our Google analytics integration will help you track video-centric data coming from Radiant Media Player in both real-time or "next-day" reporting. We have done most of the heavy lifting for you, essentially you just need to enter your Google Analytics property ID as an input setting and the player will start sending logs to your Google Analytics back-end.

Our integration is based on Google Universal Analytics (gtag.js) since player version 5.11.0. By default the player sends non-interaction events. Also note that events are sent with disable pageview measurement. Our integration is compatible with Google Analytics 3 and 4.

You can also refer to our analytics API for more advanced use-cases and custom integration.

Google Analytics player settings

gaTrackingId: String

Google Analytics property ID or GA_MEASUREMENT_ID. Typically looks like UA-XXXXXXXX-Y or G-XXXXXXXXXX. Default: ''.

gaTrackingIdAlt: String

Google Analytics property ID or GA_MEASUREMENT_ID alternate in case you need to be sending measurement to an additional Google Analytics property. Typically looks like UA-XXXXXXXX-Z or G-XXXXXXXXXX. Default: ''.

gaCategory: String

Set the Google analytics tracking category. Typically the object that was interacted with (e.g. 'Video'). Default: 'RMP'.

gaLabel: String

Set the Google analytics label for each events. Use it to uniquely identify your content (e.g. 'Fall Campaign'). Default: 'RMP label'.

gaEvents: Array

Lets you customise which events should be sent to Google Analytics. Default: ['ready', 'playerstart', 'bufferstalled', 'ended', 'error', 'adimpression', 'adplayerror', 'adloaderror'].

gaAnonymizeIp: Boolean

When gaAnonymizeIp is set to true, hits sent to Google Analytics will have anonymized IP addresses. This can help with compliance to specific privacy laws like GDRP. Default: false.

Google Analytics player API

getGALabel()

rmp.getGALabel();

This methods returns a String representing the current label used for Google Analytics.

setGALabel(newLabel)

rmp.setGALabel('new video title');

This methods takes as an input a non-empty String and sets this input to be used as the current label for Google Analytics.

getGACategory()

rmp.getGACategory();

This methods returns a String representing the current category used for Google Analytics.

setGACategory(newCategory)

rmp.setGACategory('new video category');

This methods takes as an input a non-empty String and sets this input to be used as the current category for Google Analytics.

sendGAEvent(eventName)

rmp.sendGAEvent('levelswitching');

This methods takes as an input a non-empty String representing a player or custom event and sends this event to Google Analytics according to current player configuration. See below for a complete usage example.

Player code example

<script src="https://cdn.radiantmediatechs.com/rmp/7.11.5/js/rmp.min.js"></script>
<div id="rmp"></div>
<script>
  const src = {
    hls: 'https://your-hls-url.m3u8'
  };
  const settings = {
    licenseKey: 'your-license-key',
    src: src,
    width: 640,
    height: 360,
    contentMetadata: {
      poster: [
        'https://your-poster-url.jpg'
      ]
    },
    // Our Google Analytics settings
    gaTrackingId: 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID',
    gaCategory: 'E-learning video',
    gaLabel: 'How to start with HTML5 video',
    gaEvents: ['ready', 'playerstart', 'bufferstalled', 'ended', 'error', 'adimpression', 'adplayerror', 'adloaderror']
  };
  const rmp = new RadiantMP('rmp');
  rmp.init(settings);
</script>

Specific Google Analytics considerations

Our implementation is based on gtag.js - Measure Google Analytics Events. Refer to this documentation for more information. Events can be tracked in both realtime and on-demand (e.g. "next-day") reporting in your Google Analytics 3 back-end:

• Realtime events: Reports > Realtime > Events > Events (Last 30 min)
• On-demand events: Reports > Behavior > Eevnts > Overview

In Google Analytics 4 back-end:

• Realtime events: Realtime > Event count by Event name
• On-demand events: Life cycle > Engagement > Events

Note that Google Analytics imposes Limits and Quotas. As such the data collected by our Google Analytics implementation may only be partial - if you go over your account limit Google decides when to collect data or not. Our implementation takes this into account and allows to be customised to just send the events you are after. If you have a high volume of monthly video views you may consider upgrading to a Google Analytics 360/premium account for better analytics data accuracy.

Player events for Google Analytics

Below is the list of default tracked events when a valid gaTrackingId setting is provided:

• ready: the player has reached the ready state. This event only fires once per player session.
• playerstart: this event fires when the first frame of content or pre-roll ad, if any, is presented to the viewer. When using related, playlist or the setSrc API method this event will fire each time a new item has started within the player.
• bufferstalled: the player is not playing content because it needs to get more data from the streaming server. When player resumes content because of bufferstalled a buffernotstalledanymore is sent.
• ended: the player has reached the end of the content. This event may fire multiple times per player session. When loop setting is used this event may not fire.
• error: fires when a fatal error is encountered by the player (often due to a network issue where the player is unable to fetch content).
• adimpression: fires when the impression URL has been pinged. This event may fire multiple times per player session.
• adplayerror: the player could not player the creative returned from the ad-server.
• adloaderror: the player could not load a creative as a result of the VAST request. This could be due to lack of inventory or network errors.
• imasdkloaderror: the Google IMA SDK library has failed to load. No ad will be render in such case. This would mainly be due to an ad-blocker or less often a network error.

Additional events for gaEvents setting:

• enterfullscreen: the player has entered fullscreen mode. This event may fire multiple times per player session.
• exitfullscreen: the player has exited fullscreen mode. This event may fire multiple times per player session.
• seeking: the player has received a seek order. This event may fire multiple times per player session.
• fullminutewatched: one full minute of content has been watched.
• pause: the player has been paused, this could be due to a user interaction or a programmatic pause(). A resume event fires when content starts again.
• adclick: the player has registered a click for an ad. This event may fire multiple times per player session.

If the 'context' event is also provided through the gaEvents setting, the player will also send data about the context in which it is rendered. Note that 'context' event requires 'ready' event to be registered as well. The value of the context event can be one of the following (the related context event only fires once per player session):

• html5-hls: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with HLS.
• html5-dash: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with DASH.
• html5-mp4: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with MP4 progressive download (H.264/AAC).
• html5-webm: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with WebM progressive download.
• html5-m4a: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with M4A (audio-only) progressive download.
• html5-mp3: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with MP3 (audio-only) progressive download.
• html5-ogg: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with OGG (audio-only) progressive download.
• html5-outstream: the player is loaded in HTML5 mode with outstream ads (no content).
• nosupport: the player displays a no-support message to the viewer because it has no valid playback option.

Sending custom events to Google Analytics

Through the sendGAEvent API method it is possible to send custom events to your Google Analytics account. In the following example we will send a new event each time one full minute of content has been consumed by the viewer. We will be using the getTimeViewed analytics API method to get this information.

<script src="https://cdn.radiantmediatechs.com/rmp/7.11.5/js/rmp.min.js"></script>
<div id="rmp"></div>
<script>
  const src = {
    hls: 'https://your-hls-url.m3u8'
  };
  const settings = {
    licenseKey: 'your-license-key',
    src: src,
    width: 640,
    height: 360,
    contentMetadata: {
      poster: [
        'https://your-poster-url.jpg'
      ]
    },
    // Our Google Analytics settings
    gaTrackingId: 'GA_MEASUREMENT_ID',
    gaCategory: 'E-learning video',
    gaLabel: 'How to start with HTML5 video',
    gaEvents: ['context', 'ready', 'playerstart']
  };
  const rmp = new RadiantMP('rmp');
  rmp.init(settings);

  // Here we start our custom script
  let lastDifferential = 0;
  // fullminutewatched event will be sent each time differential threshold has been reached (60000 ms === 1 minute)
  const sendingThreshold = 60000;
  // We will use an interval checking our differential threshold every 500 ms
  setInterval(() => {
    const timeViewed = rmp.getTimeViewed();
    if (timeViewed > 0) {
      const diff = timeViewed - lastDifferential;
      if (diff >= sendingThreshold) {
        lastDifferential = timeViewed;
        console.log('fullminutewatched');
        rmp.sendGAEvent('fullminutewatched');
      }
    }
  }, 500);
</script>