88

I am trying to add Google Analytics to a React Web Application.

I know how to do it in HTML/CSS/JS sites and I have integrated it in an AngularJS app too. But, I'm not quite sure how to go about it when it comes to react.

With HTML/CSS/JS, I had just added it to every single page.

What I had done with AngularJS was adding GTM and GA script to index.html and added UA-labels to the HTML divs (and buttons) to get clicks.

How can I do that with React?

Please help!

Raj
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  • Note that `react-ga` only works with Universal Analytics, whereas new Google Analytics properties are GA4 properties by default. https://stackoverflow.com/q/64623059/9154668 – Andrew Oct 18 '21 at 17:59

8 Answers8

119

Update: August 2023
The old Package react-ga is now archived since it doesn't support Google Analytics version 4. There's a new package named react-ga4.
Add it by running:
npm i react-ga4

Initialization

import ReactGA from "react-ga4";

ReactGA.initialize("your GA measurement id");

To report page view:

ReactGA.send({ hitType: "pageview", page: "/my-path", title: "Custom Title" });

To report custom event:

ReactGA.event({
  category: "your category",
  action: "your action",
  label: "your label", // optional
  value: 99, // optional, must be a number
  nonInteraction: true, // optional, true/false
  transport: "xhr", // optional, beacon/xhr/image
});

Update: Feb 2019
As I saw that this question is being searched a lot, I decided to expand my explanation.
To add Google Analytics to React, I recommend using React-GA.
Add by running:
npm install react-ga --save

Initialization:
In a root component, initialize by running:

import ReactGA from 'react-ga';
ReactGA.initialize('Your Unique ID');

To report page view:

ReactGA.pageview(window.location.pathname + window.location.search);

To report custom event:

ReactGA.event({
  category: 'User',
  action: 'Sent message'
});

More instructions can be found in the github repo

The best practice for this IMO is using react-ga. Have a look at the github rep

Matan Bobi
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  • I agree, I'm using it with react-ga package. Note that you should use ReactGA.set method to trigger following pageviews. – Sebastijan Dumančić Mar 14 '18 at 14:35
  • Yeah, I checked out react-ga before posting this. Is there no other way? Also, how would I get clicks? – Raj Mar 14 '18 at 15:22
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    You can get them by using event. Have a look here: https://github.com/react-ga/react-ga#reactgaeventargs – Matan Bobi Mar 14 '18 at 15:29
  • Ended up using react-ga and it works great. Thanks a lot. :) – Raj Mar 20 '18 at 09:14
  • Is there any way to use ReactGA.initiliaze(trackid) by fetching the trackid from a response. I use a function for returning ReactGA.initiliaze(trackid) when trackid is defined but i get an error that cannot read property parentNode of udefined – RamAlx Jun 29 '18 at 07:06
  • why not just call `ReactGA.initialize(trackid)` once you have an id? after you receive the id from the server – Matan Bobi Jul 03 '18 at 13:16
  • Can we use ReactGA on multiple pages and track page views? – Reema Parakh Dec 03 '18 at 07:34
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    @ReemaParakh Sure. Just call `ReactGA.pageview('your/page');` – Matan Bobi Dec 03 '18 at 08:47
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    If you use `react-router` It seems easiest to me to put this integration in where you set up your routes: ` { ReactGA.pageview(props.location.pathname); return ; }} />` – alaiacano May 30 '19 at 11:38
  • @alaiacano, You can definitely do that, just don't forget to pass the props to your component.. – Matan Bobi Jun 03 '19 at 16:26
  • where in the root component? – s2t2 Oct 12 '20 at 03:58
  • @s2t2 what do you mean? can you elaborate? – Matan Bobi Oct 12 '20 at 06:21
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    @MatanBobi nevermind, I figured it out: init at the top (above component class definition), and you log page views from componentDidMount – s2t2 Oct 12 '20 at 20:42
  • Why not just add an HTML snippet provided by Google Analytics to the index.html file ? – Prateek Goyal Apr 02 '21 at 07:07
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    @Prateek, you can do it, as other answers suggest.. But I believe in encapsulating this and just getting the functionality. – Matan Bobi Apr 04 '21 at 06:52
  • To report page views do you need to add ```ReactGA.pageview(window.location.pathname + window.location.search);``` to each page or just at the root? – SamHeyman Aug 25 '21 at 08:47
  • @SamHeyman you'll need to do that whenever a route changes so you can either do that on the `useEffect` after the first mount of a page component or catch a route change in a generic function. Whatever you choose :) – Matan Bobi Aug 26 '21 at 12:13
  • I have this snippet my colleague provided me: Is that the same as what you are doing? – Ken Russel Sy Aug 10 '22 at 22:16
  • @KenRusselSy Behind the scenes, that's probably what react-ga are doing, but they give you a nicer API and handle the script injection too. I prefer this approach over having that script in my index.html that should be clean. Have a look at this: https://github.com/react-ga/react-ga/blob/master/src/utils/loadGA.js – Matan Bobi Aug 11 '22 at 05:48
  • @MatanBobi But I cannot see any script inside the head tag after initializing ReactGA in my root component. But when I initialize GTM in my root component, then I can see the script tag with the code in the head tag. Is it okay to just initialize ReactGA with my id in the root component, as I have no other way to test? – Zeeshan Safdar Nov 08 '22 at 14:12
  • Not sure I'm following @ZeeshanSafdar.. What's not working for you at the moment? I believe that these questions are better asked in a new question if you think something isn't working :) – Matan Bobi Nov 09 '22 at 07:24
  • It is not recommend to use `ga-react` anymore. It is not maintained since Universal Analytics was deprecated on July 2023 and the Github repo is now archived. – Yacc Aug 18 '23 at 12:27
  • Thanks @Yacc, I've updated the answer :) – Matan Bobi Aug 18 '23 at 16:45
31

If you prefer not to use a package this is how it can work in a react application. Add the "gtag" in index.html

<!-- index.html -->

<script>
            window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
            function gtag() {
                dataLayer.push(arguments);
            }
            gtag("js", new Date());

            gtag("config", "<GA-PROPERTYID>");
        </script>

In the submit action of the login form, fire off the event

window.gtag("event", "login", {
            event_category: "access",
            event_label: "login"
        });
Giwan
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  • Any ideas how to gather all the information you need to pass to the gtag, which is scattered all across the app? It's easy to pass hardcoded string but when you have dynamic data (let's say for logged in users) that's complicated. – mkupiniak Jan 30 '23 at 14:52
  • @mkupiniak I would use a "closure" for that. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Closures. It should allow you to capture state data from all over in the client and send it when firing the event. – Giwan Jan 31 '23 at 13:50
25

Without using a package this is how I would do it:

In your index.js (in the render method):

    {/* Global site tag (gtag.js) - Google Analytics */}
    <script
      async
      src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=YOUR_TRACKING_ID"
    />
    <script>{injectGA()}</script>

And outside the class:

const injectGA = () => {
  if (typeof window == 'undefined') {
    return;
  }
  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
  function gtag() {
    window.dataLayer.push(arguments);
  }
  gtag('js', new Date());

  gtag('config', 'YOUR_TRACKING_ID');
};
cameck
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5

There are 2 types of Google Analytics properties: Universal Analytics (UA-xxxxxxxxx-x) which is deprecated with the end of life on 2023.07.01 and Google Analytics 4 property (G-xxxxxxxxxx) which is the replacement.

react-ga was popular for Universal Analytics but the maintainer doesn't plan to update it (related issues: 1, 2, 3) and it had maintenance issues (1). react-ga4 and ga-4-react popped up as replacements but since these are similar wrappers you're at the mercy of the maintainers to implement and support all functionality.

The simplest way to get started is to follow Google's guide: include gtag on the page and use it as window.gtag. This method works for both old and new tags and there's even TypeScript support via @types/gtag.js. The script can be loaded async as recommended.

index.html

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
  <head>
    <!-- ... -->

    <script
      async
      src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=G-xxxxxxxxxx" >
    </script>
    <script>
      window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
      function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
      gtag('js', new Date());
      gtag('config', 'G-xxxxxxxxxx')
    </script>

    <!-- ... -->
  </head>

  <body>
    <!-- ... -->
  </body>
</html>

Keep in mind that Google Analytics does automatic page tracking, but this will not work for every use case. For example, hash and search parameter changes are not tracked. This can lead to a lot of confusion. For example, when using HashRouter or anchor links the navigation will not be tracked. To have full control over page view tracking you can disable automatic tracking. See for a detailed explanation: The Ultimate Guide to Google Analytics (UA & GA4) on React (Or Anything Else

Manual page tracking: https://stackoverflow.com/a/63249329/2771889

You can see this working in cra-typescript-starter where I'm also setting the tag from an env var.

thisismydesign
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4

One other great library that you can check is redux-beacon.

It gets integrated very easily with react/redux application and has a great documentation for it. ReactGA is good too but with redux-beacon, you won't clutter your app code with google analytics code as it works via its own middleware.

Jim G.
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utkarsh
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    This is the better solution *if* you're using `redux` in the application (which you probably should be doing). It's better to treat your analytics as an externality, rather than integral to your code. `redux-beacon` allows you to configure connections to _multiple_ analytics services based on redux actions, avoiding coupling your code to your analytics provider. – Brendan Moore Jul 18 '18 at 14:22
4

Escape the analytics code with dangerouslySetInnerHTML

First you have of course to share the header code to all pages, e.g. as asked at: React js do common header

Then, this Next.js answer https://stackoverflow.com/a/24588369/895245 gives a good working code that should also work outside of Next.js. It escapes the analytics code with dangerouslySetInnerHTML:

  <script async src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-47867706-3"></script>
  <script
    dangerouslySetInnerHTML={{
      __html: `window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'UA-47867706-3', { page_path: window.location.pathname });
`,
    }}
  />

where you should replace UA-47867706-3 with your own code.

This code is exactly the code that Google gives, but with the following modification: we added the:

{ page_path: window.location.pathname }

to gtag('config' for it to be able to get the visited path, since this is a JavaScript SPA.

This generates the desired output on the browser:

<script async="" src="https://www.googletagmanager.com/gtag/js?id=UA-47867706-3"></script><script>window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
gtag('js', new Date());
gtag('config', 'UA-47867706-3', { page_path: window.location.pathname });
</script>

The only other divergence from the exact code given by Google is the async="" vs async, but both of those are equivalent in HTML since it is a boolean attribute, see also: What's the proper value for a checked attribute of an HTML checkbox?

Escaping with dangerouslySetInnerHTML is necessary because otherwise React interprets the code inside script a JSX and that fails with:

Syntax error: Unexpected token, expected "}"

  21 |           <script>
  22 |             window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];
> 23 |             function gtag(){dataLayer.push(arguments);}
     |                                                      ^
  24 |             gtag('js', new Date());
  25 |
  26 |             gtag('config', 'UA-47867706-3');

I wish they would just automatically escape stuff inside script for us.

Finally to get page switches, you also have to track that with more code, see the Next.js answer mentioned above for an example.

Related: Adding script tag to React/JSX

Tested on react 17.0.2, next.js 10.2.2.

Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com
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  • Do not follow such approaches `dangerouslySetInnerHTML` is React’s replacement for using innerHTML in the browser DOM but setting HTML from code is risky because it’s easy to inadvertently expose your users to a cross-site scripting (XSS) attack. – NevetsKuro Feb 05 '22 at 03:53
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    @NevetsKuro there's no risk when injecting a string literal like this, only if you have user input variables. – Ciro Santilli OurBigBook.com Feb 05 '22 at 07:24
  • Yes my bad. It is for the case for user input only. But you need to mention that in this solution, as React keeps popping this as a bug/warning. Ref: https://pragmaticwebsecurity.com/articles/spasecurity/react-xss-part2.html – NevetsKuro Feb 07 '22 at 06:41
0

I suggest embedding the Segment script into your index.html, use the analytics library that is accessible on the window object, and add tracking calls onto React’s event handlers:

export default class SignupButton extends Component {
  trackEvent() {
    window.analytics.track('User Signup');
  }

  render() {
    return (
      <button onClick={this.trackEvent}>
        Signup with Segment today!
      </button>
    );
  }
}

I’m the maintainer of https://github.com/segmentio/analytics-react. I recommend checking it out if you want to solve this problem by using one singular API to manage your customer data, and be able to integrate into any other analytics tool (we support over 250+ destinations) without writing any additional code.

William
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  • Looks like this library is deprecated and no longer supported. This must be the replacement: https://github.com/segmentio/analytics.js. – Ruslan Kazakov Oct 11 '20 at 23:56
0

Looking at google's site https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/collection/analyticsjs,

you could also add Google Analytics using this function:

const enableGA = () => {
  !function(A,n,g,u,l,a,r){A.GoogleAnalyticsObject=l,A[l]=A[l]||function(){
  (A[l].q=A[l].q||[]).push(arguments)},A[l].l=+new Date,a=n.createElement(g),
  r=n.getElementsByTagName(g)[0],a.src=u,r.parentNode.insertBefore(a,r)
  }(window,document,'script','https://www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');

  ga('create', 'UA-XXXXXXXX-X');
  ga('send', 'pageview');
}

This way you don't need an external library, and it's pretty quick to setup.

e_netr
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