January 26, 2021:
Training Videos
You will see a new category on the homepage called Training Videos, in which we will begin uploading various recordings covering different topics. The intention of these videos is to serve as a guide and a resource where we walk through different topics that you can easily follow along on your side. Whether it is setting up GTM, Google Analytics, Goals, Segments, etc., we feel these videos will be immensely helpful for everyone as questions arise and a guiding hand is needed. If you're a GTM user, or interested in getting setup with GTM, we currently have a video in place going through this entire process.
January 13, 2022
Online (Customer) and Instore (Agent) events have been updated to include a description of what each event is, which should help make the data we are sending more clear and easier to look at in GA depending on the kinds of questions you are trying to answer. Please see updates here
January 11, 2022
Tracking Bug Identified
You may have recently noticed a drop in bounce rate. The reason for this is that a number of new, non-interactive events were pushed live that GA was treating as interactive, affecting the bounce rate. For more information on interactive vs non-interactive events, see here
Tagging updates were just published, so you should start seeing the bounce rate begin to normalize again. If you are using GTM, additional updates will need to be made on your side. Our JSON import file has been updated with the most recent changes - please be sure to update as soon as you can, otherwise you will continue to see a lower than normal bounce rate. Updated JSON file can be found here.
January 10, 2022
Upcoming Analytics Changes
On February 1st, we will be pushing some analytics updates that we want everyone to be aware of well in advance. If you are using the native Roadster GA integration, you don't have to worry about making any changes on your side. If you are using GTM, you will be required to make some updates on your side.
Change #1:
We are updating a few of our datalayer events to be more representative and inline with our business. The content we are surfacing and passing is not changing, simply the event names - changes below:
- businessEvent > R-event
- virtualPageview > R-pageview-virtual
If you are using GTM to fire Roadster tags, you must update all applicable tag triggers to the new event names to ensure they continue to fire (ie. The Roadster Event trigger associated with the Roadster Event tag will need to be updated from 'businessEvent' to 'R-event'. If you do not make these updates, your GTM tags will no longer fire because it is looking for an event that no longer exists on the site.
Change #2:
Currently, one of the event categories we are passing into Google Analytics is 'R-online(instore)-dialog'. These events fire on any CTA that brings up a modal/popup. We feel like the current naming structure isn't very intuitive nor does it make it very clear where these events are firing. The name of this event will changing from:
- R-online(instore)-dialog > R-online(instore)-dialog-modal
This update will not require any changes on your side, but we want everyone to be aware and informed about why this change happened.
January 6, 2022
UPDATE: This issue below has been resolved as of January 7th. You should no longer be seeing undefined event categories within Google Analytics. If you are, please send an email to analytics@roadster.com so we can investigate further.
Issue: We were recently alerted of 'undefined' event category values coming through in Google Analytics starting on January 3.
Reason: We recently pushed some vendor specific tagging updates which have inadvertently made their way into Google Analytics.
Next Steps: The good news is that our core tracking has not broken. All events are firing correctly, and data is being passed as expected. Because these undefined events are unique to a specific vendor, they can ultimately be ignored as they are separate from what we send into Google Analytics.
While we work on an internal fix to ensure these do not show up in Google Analytics moving forward, a temporary solution to exclude undefined events would be to add a new filter in Google Analytics
Steps to Implement GA Exclusion Filter: Admin > View Settings > Filters > Add Filter
Having this filter in place will strip these events from reporting and will help keep continue reports clean and clear for users.