What is Event Tracking ?

By default 123Count measures the traffic on all pages that contain the 123Count code. This works great most of the time but there are a few cases when this is not enough :

• Tracking of multi-media and other files : you can not edit non-HTML documents (like music, videos, PDF, or images) to add the 123Count code so the loading of these files can not be tracked directly. 123Count's Event Tracking allows you to overcome this limitation
  
  
• Tracking of Flash sites : If your site is built in Flash, the same problem applies and the 123Count code can not be installed. 123Count's Event Tracking allows you to monitor a Flash site
  
  
• Tracking of clicks leaving your site : some people have ads on their site that lead to pages outside of their control - if you sell banner ads for instance - in a case like this you might want to measure the number of clicks that each banner receives. Since you can not install the 123Count code on the target site to measure the page views, you need an alternate solution. 123Count's Event Tracking does just that
  
  

How does it work ?

In the cases above we are trying to detect the loading of documents on which the 123Count code can not be added (either because the document is not an HTML file, or because it is outside of our control). Since we can not add the code to the document we can not directly detect its loading in the visitor browser, however what we can still do is detect the click on a link to that document. 'Event Tracking' is the ability to record that click, as opposed to the default behavior of 123Count which detects page loads. So basically we are now detecting clicks towards a target file as opposed to the actual loading of that file.

So, to give an example : if your visitor sees a link on your site that says 'Listen to My Music' and clicks on that link, 123Count will detect the click and show a 'page view' for the music file.

Use Event Tracking on your site

Let's take two examples : in the first you want to measure the download of an MP3 file on your site (the same principle would apply for any kind of file download). In the second example you want to track the click-paths and page views inside a pure Flash web site (examples are given for both versions 2 and 3 of Action Script).

<a href="/my_music.mp3">Listen to My Music</a>

<a href="/my_music.mp3" 
onClick="javascript:wtslog('al####','#','http','my_music','event_track');"> 
Listen to My Music</a>

on (release) {
    loadMovieNum("flash_file.swf", 1);
    unloadMovieNum(2);
    getURL("javascript:wtslog('al####','#','http','custom_name','event_track');");
}

myMovie.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, myListener);

function myListener:void {
  var jscommand:String = "wtslog('al####','#','http','custom_name','event_track');";
  var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("javascript:" + jscommand + " void(0);");
  navigateToURL(request, '_blank');
}

As you can see, all you need to do is add the 'OnClick' element in red inside the link that you want to track (or the 'getURL' element for a Flash site) and 123Count will take care of the rest.

Important ! two things are needed for this to work :

1. The standard or advanced version of the 123Count code must be installed on the page that contains the link (for a Flash site, simply add the code to the HTML container). The simplified version of the code will not support Event Tracking
   
   
2. The 'OnClick' or 'getURL' element must reflect your account's details. Please enter your user ID and password below and we will display The 'OnClick' element for your account
   
   

Get the Event Tracking code for your account

You are now ready to start using Event Tracking on your site. Please enter your login information below and we'll show you the exact code to use on your site