How to Track “Open New Tab” traffic in Google Analytics

Question

I have a referral website that use an url to go to my website that have google analytics implemented. The referral sites open my website in a new tab on the same window when the user click the link.

I want to create a profile for each referral website so each profile have their own report about their user activity and transaction conversion.

I'm a newbie in google analytic, please give me advise how to track traffic for "open new tab" method.

Answer 1

You can track as far as a click using JavaScript. This means a standard click, a middle-click (which many people use to open in new tabs), and a right-click (which could imply using the contextual menu to open the new tab).

While we can't use the middle and right-clicks as solid conversion data (well, you could, but you wouldn't be absolutely correct), we can use these context clues to imply a user intent. Google Analytics custom dimensions really help this situation because we can assign those events as "Intents". Now, when you view your analytics reports, you can associate the intents with probable new tabs.

Here is a jQuery snippet that reflects this:

jQuery('a.some-link').on('mousedown tap touch', function(e){
    eventIntent = ( e.which >= 2 )? 'Intent' : 'Explicit'; //If the mouse button is greater or equal to 2, then set the intent (otherwise, it is an explicit click).
    ga('set', 'dimension3', eventIntent); //Change the dimension index to match yours!
    ga('send', 'event', 'Category', 'Action', 'Label', 'Value'); //Send an event so the dimension is tracked!
});

From there you could use your standard reports, or create a custom report along with custom segments to improve your insights.

For more information, I wrote a post about this subject and other events that you can associate with intents: here.