You can use Google Analytics to track your help center traffic. Enabling it involves getting the tracking ID from Google Analytics and then adding it to the help center.
document_head.hbs theme template file, according to the Google Analytics documentation.
This article covers the following topics:
Adding your help center to Google Analytics
To track traffic via Google Analytics, you'll need a Google Analytics account to attach your help center to.
If you do not already have a Google Analytics account, start with Establishing a Google Analytics account.
If you already have a Google Analytics account, and simply want to add your help center to it, see Adding your help center to an existing Google Analytics account
Establishing a Google Analytics account
If you do not have a Google Analytics account, you'll need to create one before getting started.
To create a new Google Analytics account for your help center
- Go to www.google.com/analytics and create an account.
- Create a new property following Google's instructions in Set up Analytics for a website.
- Use your help center information to fill out the account options. For example, if you're creating an account for your company, Mondocam, you'd enter the following:
- Account Name: Mondocam
- Website Name: Mondocam Help Center
- Website URL: (Select https:// from the drop-down menu) mondocam.zendesk.com/hc
Set the remaining options according to your preferences.
- Follow the advanced options to create a Universal Analytics Property to get a tracking ID that begins with UA-. If you only see codes beginning with G-, you may have set up your property incorrectly..
- Copy and add the tracking ID to the help center as described in Adding the tracking ID to the help center, below.
Adding your help center to an existing Google Analytics account
You may already have a Google Analytics account. If so, you can add your help center to your existing account.
To add your help center to an established Google Analytics account
- Sign in to your Google Analytics account.
- If this is the first website associated with this Google Analytics account, click Sign Up.
If you have other websites associated with this Google Analytics account, click Admin at the top of the page, and in the Account column, click the existing account name and select Create new account.
- Use your help center information to fill out the account options. For example, if you're creating an account for your company, Mondocam, you'd enter the following:
- Account Name: Mondocam
- Website Name: Mondocam Help Center
- Website URL: (Select https:// from the drop-down menu) mondocam.zendesk.com/hc
Set the remaining options according to your preferences.
- Click Get Tracking ID and accept the Terms and Conditions.
- Copy and add the tracking ID to the help center as described below.
Adding the tracking ID to the help center
Once you have your help center added to your Google Analytics account, you need to update your settings with the tracking ID you generated in the previous section.
To add the tracking ID to the help center
- In Guide, click the Settings (
) icon in the sidebar. - Under Integrations, select the option to enable the Google Analytics and enter your tracking ID.
- Click Update on the upper-right side of the page.
Using Google Analytics with your help center
See the following resources on using Google Analytics to create the best self-service experience possible for your customers:
- Google Analytics and your help center - Part 1: Asking the right questions
- Google Analytics and your help center - Part 2: Measuring the effectiveness of search
- Google Analytics and your help center - Part 3: Tracking customers' actions
- Google Analytics and your help center - Part 4: Fine-tuning your help center
- Google Analytics and your help center - Part 5: Capturing your help center user data
48 Comments
Neither a general settings or a toolbox in the help desk admin interface anymore. Where to change GA code? :) (Or remove - we are converting to Tag manager)
Hi, Christian. I've updated the section in question to clarify that you need to be in your Help Center (not the Admin interface) to open the General Settings page. Let me know if it is still unclear.
Thanks!
I was given a GA tracking ID and some tracking code to use on our Help Center. I added the ID in the general settings, is adding the code necessary as well? Where would I put it?
Thank you,
Olivia
Hi Olivia, The code is for custom tracking. You do not need to add it anywhere unless you plan on doing more granular tracking. More information can be found about how to use that in this article: https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/203664156-Google-Analytics-and-Help-Center-Part-3-Tracking-customers-actions That entire series of articles is useful.
Hi,
I'm wondering what the impact of selecting http: rather than https: is for the Website URL field, and what would happen if I switched it. I'm in the process of re-implementing GA on our help center and the http: selection was made when this was originally set up. Thanks!
Hey Tony!
Sorry about the delayed response here! I checked with some colleagues, and as far as we can tell this should not have any impact on your GA.
Please let me know if you have any other questions!
A few months ago, Google Analytics changed the way they wanted to see code if two GA codes were used. I updated to the new format:
<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','//www.google-analytics.com/analytics.js','ga');
ga('create', 'UA-XXX7928-1', 'auto');
ga('create', 'UA-XXXX9020-1', 'auto', 'XXtracker');
ga('send', 'pageview');
ga('XXtracker.send', 'pageview');
</script>
This is working fine placed in the "Header" HTML
BUT, it is not recording any mobile traffic.
I understand that using the Google Analytics under the Help Center General Settings will allow the GA code for ONE site and the code is also seen when accessing the mobile versions of the pages.
Would it be possible to add an "Advanced" setting area to drop code?
In other words, have a place that I could insert that code so both sites will receive the GA data.
Thanks,
Norm
Is there any way to add Google Analytics event tracking to the web widget?
You guys currently have some rudimentary tracking enabled for the web widget when chat is enabled, but I'd like to track things like:
1. User clicks on support widget;
2. User searches for an item within the help widget;
3. User views an article from within the help widget;
4. User clicks on "Contact" button from web widget.
I know that metrics for tickets actually submitted from the web widget are available, but I want to know how many tickets are actually being deflected from the widget.
Two things.
1) Based on trying to follow the directions, I think this line:
In Guide, click the Settings (*) icon in the sidebar, then select Help Center settings.
Should be:
In Guide, click the Settings (*) icon in the sidebar, then select Guide settings.
2) With regards to configuring the Google Analytics Website URL, I'm not sure if I should use our ZenDesk URL companyname.zendesk.com or our public facing URL howto.companyname.com?
I am an admin for my org and don't seem to have any way to add my Google Tracking ID to my help center. More specifically, I don't have an "Integrations" tab within Settings (or anywhere else; I've searched everywhere).
Has something changed, or is there something I'm missing?
Hi Jake!
Where are you looking for the Integrations tab? You need to make sure that you're in Guide when you do this. Click the Guide admin link in the upper right corner of your Help Center, and then click the gear icon from there. You'll find the integrations section about halfway down the page.
If this is where you're looking and you're still not seeing it, it may be that you're not a Guide Manager in your Zendesk instance. Depending on what plan your on, you may not have been given that permission.
Hope that helps!
Hi there - I've set up Google Analytics for our page but can't figure out how to view this metric in Insights in Zendesk for reporting needs. Can you help? Thanks!
Hi Darya! Welcome to the Community!
Google Analytics don't link up with Insights, so you'll need to build those reports in Google Analytics itself. We have some documentation to help you get started, which you can find here.
I have set up GA and can see data from the real-time session but no data under the 'audience# section.
Is this an issue with GA or Zendesk?
Hey Massimo -
That's going to be a question for GA; it likely has something to do with how things are set up and whatever data point that report refers to isn't getting captured properly.
Hey,
We set up a google analytics account for our help center. We only use it internally both through the help center itself and the knowledge capture app.
If we use the XXX.zendesk.com/hc url will it only collect the analytics of people directly using the help center or will it pull from the search of the knowledge capture app as well?
Thanks for your time!
Hi Negee,
The Google Analytics add on is designed to track the help center only at this point in time. It will not track data from the Knowledge Capture app. At present there's no way to differentiate what traffic is driven by the Knowledge Capture app also.
If you are looking to report on data from the Knowledge Capture app, you can do so via our Insights tool. You're welcome to check out this guide here with more info on analyzing data from the Knowledge Capture app.
Hope this helps with your query here. :)
Best,
Amie
Hello! Once adding the Google Analytics ID, how long does it take to see results in Google Analytics?
Thanks!
Jill
Hey Jill -
That's really more of a question for Google, but in my experience it has been relatively instantaneous.
Hi,
Can you please confirm if a new account is really required for this or if just a new property within an existing GA account is sufficient?
Cheers,
J.B.
Hi Jonathan -
You can add it to an existing account. See the section titled "Adding your Help Center to an existing Google Analytics account" above.
Hi,
I am using this feature for the first time. I have created the tracking ID in our existing Google Analytics account and added it to the help centre. I dont seem to be getting any analytics back from the help centre. Do i need to do anything else? Thanks in advance!
Nick
Hi Nick!
How long has it been since you added the tracking ID? I believe it takes some time for the data to be aggregated and synced.
Hi,
Like other people, I want to add the GA tracking, but I don't have the Integrations section on the admin.
Any idea why?
Thanks
Hi David,
Just to confirm with you, that you're looking at the Admin settings within your Guide platform and not in the Zendesk agent interface?
The Integrations settings section here is located in the Admin settings on the Guide platform.
- Guide > Guide Admin > Guide Settings > Integrations.
If you are looking in the right place, can you the confirm that you have the correct permissions to manage the Guide settings?
Let us know how you go from there. :)
Installed and working - but - I have Helpcenter/Guide setup in 3 different languages - and the URL is different.
I have setup GA so that I only see the danish statistics ( I thought) - but I see from all three countries.
I have tried with this URL:
https://support.maxmanus.com/hc/da
But it seems to be ignoring the /da part.
if I embed or iFrame in an HTML course into Guide that I have created within our course authoring tool (Articulate 360) will google analytics track user engagement and click-through rates for that embedded content?
Hey Taylor,
I did some quick searching and it looks like Google Analytics can track iFrames but requires some additional steps on your end when setting up. I've provided a link to Googles documentation for you here: Framed sites
Hope the above helps!
Thank you, Brett. This is the best information I have seen yet. I will give it a shot Monday and let everyone know the results.
Having the ability to embed/upload elearning content would be such a big value add to customers who do not want to have to manage an LMS on top of everything else. Is this something ZenDesk is thinking about or road mapping?
Happy to help Taylor :)
As of right now there's nothing on the roadmap, however, I do think this is a fantastic idea and would encourage you to create a post in our Guide Product Feedback Forum for our Product Managers to view. This will also help provide visibility to other users in need of the same feature.
Appreciate you taking the time to share this with us!
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