Asual

Tuesday,
18 Nov 2008

Google Analytics for Flash

A cool new library for Google Analytics tracking was released yesterday at Adobe MAX. I learned about it thanks to webmonkey and I wonder why still there is no such info in the Adobe feeds.

So far the tracking of page views and events using the free Analytics tool from Google was pretty straightforward but still hard for many Flash developers. Basically it requires you to include a few lines in the HTML, call some JavaScript from Flash and eventually watch for security restrictions. The nice thing about this new project is that now it will allow you to do all this with just ActionScript. The quality of the library absolutely exceeded my initial expectations and I couldn't resist to not blog about it. You don't have to miss it if your projects require such functionality.

I'll be looking into integration between SWFAddress and GA for Flash in the near future. It won't make it into the upcoming release but I'm definitely interested in playing with it.

Posted by Rostislav at 12:28 PM in ActionScript
Tags: actionscript opensource google analytics
Comments (12)

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Left by jonnymac blog at Mon 19 April 2010, 4:15 PM

Tracking Flash with Google Analytics ActionScript 3 API
Yesterday Google made a significant announcement which seems to have gotten overshadowed by all the MAX Conference goodness: the Google Analytics team has released an ActionScript 3 API for tracking user events within Flash. Yes, you could track events...

Comments:

Left by TargetStat at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Adding tracking calls manually to large Flex application is a pain. This add-on invokes GA tracking calls automatically: http://riatest.com/products/targetstat-flex-analytics.html
Left by Elliot Rock at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Hey Rostislav,

Did you implement this is 2.2? I noticed an Urchin Tracking thing... but the documentation and help file is pretty thin.
Left by Vectanim at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
The google analytics component is a good idea, never had any trouble using swfAddress for my tracking, but can be usefull when you don't use swfAddress. Be careful never use this component in your banners or a light project, it will increase your swf size with 40ko. Using the flash.external.ExternalInterface (not ExternalInterface alone for the firefox 2 bug) is simple when using the Dom support with SWFObject.
The only use I found is tracking a swf, when you don't have it anymore : storage on a another host, no access to the html and javascript code ...and this is why this code is made for !
Left by Ryan at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Hrm guess they are going after more of mochimedia's market with mochibot. I have used that for sometime and it is great for atleast user tracking, not really sections in the flash. Maybe this Google Tracking allows much better tracking within the flash itself.
Left by Rostislav at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
@Elliot
Both urchinTracker and pageTracker._trackPageview will work automatically with 2.2 but we're still not using this library.
Left by dedicated seo expert at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Excellent site google analytics is very helpful once u know how to find all the information about visitors and use this information. I will use this info!

Thanks for the resource.
Left by ickydime at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
At first I didn't see the point since it doesn't seem too difficult to make the calls via ExternalInterface. But their overview makes some good points... such as using it on swf's that you don't control where they are placed (banners, games, video, etc). Right now you can use MochiBot for this type of thing, but its nice to have something plug right into Google Analytics instead of 3rd party software.

Great post, glad you pointed it out!
Left by Aran at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Yes, this is cool. I did some tests in both Flash and Flex yesterday, and it was very easy to get both page views and event tracking calls working. Page view stats were working as they should today. Now Google just need to get event tracking on the actual Analytics page out of closed beta to I can actually see my event calls I made ! ....
Left by DutchBrand at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
I was wondering if the google analytics component is used in combination with the new library in SWFaddress 2.3?

And if so, is there any documentation about the use of it?

Greets WLM
Left by xiaou at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Thank you very much,I have read it now.
And welcome to my site.
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pandora jewelry
Left by Rostislav at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
@DutchBrand
The possible integration of gaforflash with SWFAddress is still not tested by us. I started wondering if we should support it because:

1. SWFAddress is not only for Flash.
2. The capabilities offered by gaforflash exceed the standard page view tracking that the plain deep linking needs.
Left by MSPB lawyer at Mon, 19 Apr 4:15 PM
Google analytics are very helpful in know much about the visitors, it provides the full information about the browser and browser capability, which helps in improving the visitors visibility,

thanks for the resource.

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