FlippingBook-specific Google Analytics events

Google Analytics is not an easy product to start with. To retrieve the correct data requires proficiency. For everyday usage, we advise looking at FlippingBook Online's built-in stats first. 

This article is not a tutorial for using Google Analytics 4 (GA4) in general. It contains a full annotated reference of the data we send to GA4 and that you can use in your reports after you have set it up and if the standard data you can track with GA4 are not sufficient. If you have not looked at these articles yet, look at them first. This article is intended for experienced GA users who want to explore additional tracking possibilities.  

FlippingBook generates its own events (in addition to the standard GA-events) specifically related to our flipbooks. Some of these events generate additional data in parameters. To track such event parameters you need to add the parameter as a custom dimension in GA4.

For example, the zoom_in event has a custom parameter event_page. If you don’t add this parameter as a custom dimension then you will be able to see how often your readers zoom in but not on which page.

But if you add a custom dimension to track the event_page, GA will show you an additional pane. This pane shows exactly on which page your users zoomed in.

Note: Google generates a lot of events itself. Some events track data that is similar to what we also gather. For example, Google tracks page_view, and we track page_opened. Both of these are triggered when a page is opened. Generally, they will be pretty similar but we advise you to use our events. They often contain additional information and are more accurate. 

How to track FlippingBook event parameters?

As mentioned above, you can track our parameters by setting them up as custom dimensions. This is done as follows:

1. In GA’s side panel, select Admin.
2. In the Property column, select Custom definitions.

3. Click on the button Create custom dimensions.
4. Fill out the new custom dimension and press Save. Make sure that the event parameter exactly matches the FlippingBook parameter name (without square brackets). The Dimension name will be used as a column header in your reports.

FlippingBook Events

Here is the full list of all events that your flipbooks generate for GA4 with a short description of when they are triggered and which parameters they generate.

(*) these events are generally triggered by a user. They can also occur automatically. For example, if you have set up a ToC to be opened by default, or if you have a video that uses autoplay.  

(**) images are given a unique cryptical filename when uploaded. We do this to prevent duplicate filenames. This looks something like d19c49b1738548b38e24ceaf05c54dd4.customContent_s_{size}.png While advanced users could find out this name using the Developer Tools in the browser, this is very time-consuming and prone to errors. If you are interested in finding out the flipbooks and pages with pop-up images that your readers clicked on, we would advise you to:

1. Open the Engagement tab and select Pages and screens.
2. Change Page title and screen class to Page path+ query string and screen class.
3. Under Event count, change All events to image_click.
4. Sort on Event Count.

You can now see which pages generated image_click events and how many. In the example above, we see that the image on page 2 was clicked.

Parameters

The table below contains all parameters that we use, and in which events they are used. We advise you to add custom dimensions for all parameters that you possibly will ever be interested in. Data will only be gathered starting from the moment that you add a parameter as a custom dimension.

For example, you are interested in finding out on pages your readers zoomed in. If this question comes up, you want to immediately see this data. But if you only add a custom dimension today, then GA only starts tracking this from today. This means that you will need to wait for a month (or maybe even longer) to gather enough relevant data to make a conclusion.

While most parameter values are self-explanatory, the ‘initiator’ has a wide array of possible values. They are listed below