Facebook Instant Article(FBIA)’s ia_document object (for analytics) and its properties in detail?

Question

I'm trying to track google analytics data for Author in Facebook Instant Articles (FBIA). Please see the comment in the example given below:

<item>
<title>
Article's Title
</title>
<description>Article's description</description>
<link>http://www.example.com/7216240</link>
<guid>7216240</guid>
<pubDate>Mon, 28 Aug 2017 10:31:50 +0200</pubDate>
<author>Author Name</author> // <-- This is the tag that I want to track in analytics
<content:encoded>
<![CDATA[
<!doctype html> <html lang="en" prefix="op: http://media.facebook.com/op#"> <head> ... </head> <body> <article> 
...
</article> </body> </html>
]]>
</content:encoded>
</item>

According to facebook for developers' documentation on Analytics for Instant Articles:

Facebook also exposes a defined set of Instant Article data, which the analytics trackers can use optionally. For JavaScript tracking codes, that data is available in the ia_document JavaScript object.

<figure class="op-tracker">
      <iframe>
          <script>
              // The URL the user shared
              var urlSharedByUser = ia_document.shareURL;

              // The article title
              var title = ia_document.title;

              // Referrer is always set to 'ia.facebook.com'
              var referrer = ia_document.referrer;
          </script>
      </iframe>
</figure>

However, it doesn't describe in detail which properties are inside the ia_document object.

A few Q&A on SO explain only with limited examples, something like

<figure class="op-tracker">
<iframe>         
<script>
  (function(i,s,o,g,r,a,m){i['GoogleAnalyticsObject']=r;i[r]=i[r]||function(){
  (i[r].q=i[r].q||[]).push(arguments)},i[r].l=1*new Date();a=s.createElement(o),
  m=s.getElementsByTagName(o)[0];a.async=1;a.src=g;m.parentNode.insertBefore(a,m)
  })(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

  ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X', 'auto');
  ga('require', 'displayfeatures');
  ga('set', 'campaignSource', 'Facebook');
  ga('set', 'campaignMedium', 'Social Instant Article');
  ga('set', 'title', ia_document.title);
  ga('set', 'referrer', ia_document.referrer);
  ga('send', 'pageview');

</script>
</iframe>
</figure>

Is there any article that explains Facebook Instant Article(FBIA)’s ia_document object (for analytics) and its properties in detail?

What else do we have other than ia_document.title, ia_document.shareURL and ia_document.referrer? in my case, do we have ia_document.author?

@CBroe alright, is there any easy way to inspect Facebook Internal Browser? — Aung Myo Linn, Aug 28 '17 at 09:43
Not really ... probably best if you loop over the object contents, and then output that as text content somewhere. — CBroe, Aug 28 '17 at 09:44
@CBroe Could you kindly elaborate please? I'm not an expert in that context :) — Aung Myo Linn, Aug 28 '17 at 09:50
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/684672/how-do-i-loop-through-or-enumerate-a-javascript-object ... just instead of console.log, you append to a string variable. — CBroe, Aug 28 '17 at 09:52
Uh!, good point, I think I can also try `ga('set', ia_document)` instead, ref: https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs/command-queue-reference — Aung Myo Linn, Aug 28 '17 at 09:58

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 29 '17 at 07:44

2

Just figured out that there's a browser debugging tool which provides an approximation of the Instant Articles environment. So let me just answer my own question. The URL for the browser debugging tools is as below:

www.ia-tracker.fbsbx.com/instant_article_test?url=<share-url>

After testing it in a browser console, I can conclude that there are only 3 properties that belong to ia_document, which are ia_document.title, ia_document.shareURL and ia_document.referrer.

See the screenshot below:

answered Aug 29 '17 at 07:44

Aung Myo Linn

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Hi @kolunar, thanks for debugging. According to the official Facebook docs, these three properties are the only ones available: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/instant-articles/analytics/#analytics-services. – natterstefan Jan 09 '19 at 08:22

Facebook Instant Article(FBIA)’s ia_document object (for analytics) and its properties in detail?

1 Answers1