Newspack’s Analytics lets you enhance the default Google Analytics configuration. Newspack currently offers its analytics-related features only when a site has GA connected via Site Kit.

Quick-Start Guide

  1. Connect Google Analytics to your site via Site Kit. Authenticate using the same email address that is listed as an Admin in your GA account.
  2. Connect the Google Analytics API to enable Newspack custom events.
  3. Wait 24 hours to allow events to trigger, then set up custom dimensions.

What We Track

GA4 automatically collects a wide range of events and parameters on every page that are triggered by basic user interactions. These include pageviews, page title, location, referrer, among others.

Newspack also has a default set of auto-collected custom event tracking to supplement GA4’s auto-collected events. These are enabled and will begin collecting when you connect the GA API and set up the dimensions as outlined in the Quick-Start Guide above.

We encourage you to review the list of both Google and Newspack’s auto-collected events to begin developing an understanding of how and when these events are triggered by user interactions.

Reporting

Generating reports, or Explorations, in GA4 is admittedly challenging, so we’ve created a step-by-step guide for creating a basic exploration to help you get comfortable with the tool. In the example, we’ll analyze Prompt views against Prompt submissions to see conversion rate.

You can also purchase access to the Newspack Data Dashboard. With Data Dashboard, you get a comprehensive view of your top-line data, not just a collection of disparate metrics. And we show how you’re progressing toward specific goals. Those include user acquisition, engagement and conversion, newsletter engagement, advertising and reader revenue performance, and site performance.

Those already subscribed to Parse.ly get Data Dashboard bundled in at no added cost.

FAQ

What GA4 tutorials/resources do you recommend?

Google’s GA4 Skillshop is the best place to learn basics, all the way through advanced uses. MeasureSchool also has a great 5-video course that we highly recommend.

What is an event and a parameter?

An event allows you to measure a specific interaction or occurrence on your website. For example, you can use an event to measure when someone loads a page, clicks a link, or successfully makes a donation.

An event parameter lets you capture information about the event. For example, the value of the donation.

What is a custom dimension?

A dimension is an attribute of your data, but for our purposes, it makes parameter values available in reports. If a custom parameter isn’t made into an dimension, you won’t be able to actually see the data in your GA dashboard. It’s odd, we know.

What if I want to track custom events unique to my site?

That’s great! If there are desired actions not captured by Google or Newspack’s auto-collected events, you are welcome to create custom events using Google Tag Manager (GTM). However, if you feel the event is likely to be a benefit to all Newspack publishers, please flag it to us and we will consider just adding it to our custom event tracking!

BUT, there are some important settings to be mindful of so that GTM doesn’t conflict with how Newspack implements GA on your site.

  • Only implement GTM on your site via Site Kit — do not use any other plugin/method — and make sure to leave GA connected in Site Kit.
  • When setting up your GTM event tags, you’ll be prompted to create a GA4 configuration tag. You must select to not send a pageview, as the pageview trigger is already handled by the GA connection in Site Kit.

What about the old GA (Universal Analytics)?

Universal Analytics (UA) stopped processing data on July 1, 2023. Data is now only sent to GA4. Your historical data in UA is still available to allow you to export any desired reports. To learn more about the differences between UA and GA4, here are a couple resources:

What happened to NTG events?

Google News Initiative’s News Tagging Guide (NTG) has not yet been updated for GA4. However, Newspack has been advised that the NTG, and News Consumer Insights, will be updated to utilize GA4’s auto-collected events. Once the guide is updated, should there be any additional recommended event tracking not covered by GA4’s auto-collected events, Newspack will include those in our set of supplemental auto-collected events.

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