Events are user interactions with content in Google Analytics that can be measured independently from a web-page or a screen load.
Video plays, link clicks, form submissions, and downloads, are all examples of actions you might want to analyze as Events.
In another way, in the context of Google Analytics, an event is the user’s interaction/activity with a web page element that is being tracked in Google Analytics. The web page element could be:
- Video
- Podcast
- Image
- Button
- Form
- Scroll bar
- External link
- Lightbox
- Ajax content etc.
There are following examples of user interactions/activities that can be tracked in Google Analytics.
- Downloading a file
- Loading of Ajax, JavaScript or flash contents
- Loading of a dynamically generated webpage
- Loading of pop-ups, lightboxes
- Loading of a video on a webpage
- Scrolling down the page
- Viewing of a video
- Viewing video footage of certain length
- Clicking on a video’s play/pause/stop button
- Interaction with a gadget
- Clicking on an image or an external link
- Abandonment of a form field
- Log-ins
- Article, video or image
- Clicking on a button
- Movement of mouse
Event fields
The following table summarizes the event fields:
| Field Name | Value Type | Required | Description |
| Event Category | Text | Yes | Interacted with (e.g. ‘Video’) |
| Event Action | Text | Yes | The type of interaction (e.g. ‘play’) |
| Event Action | Text | No | Useful for categorizing events (e.g. ‘Fall Campaign’) |
| Event Value | Integer | No | The event (e.g. 42) associated with A numeric value |