If you’ve created an amazing interactive map, embedded it on your website, and shared it on social media, you probably want to understand how users are interacting with it.
That’s where the Map Analytic Reports come in. These reports provide detailed insights into all user interactions with your maps.
This feature is available with the Mapme Enterprise plan.
How to set up your map analytic reports?
Mapme Editor setup
Mapme collects usage data from all interactions that happen on the map. Analytic reports are available in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) or Looker Studio.
To get started, click on the top-right menu in the Mapme editor and select “Account Info.” In the Reports section, enter your GA4 Measurement ID.
Google Analytics setup
Back in Google Analytics, go to admin the admin and in the “Data Display” section, open “Custom Definitions”. Add the following dimensions:
You can modify the name and description for each dimension, but we recommend using explicit names and descriptions, as shown in the example below.
This is how it should look like in the GA4 admin:
Enabling Tracking of Search Keywords in GA4
To see which keywords your users are entering in the search field on the map, follow these steps:
- Open the property in the GA4 Admin
- Navigate to Data Streams:
- In the GA4 Admin panel, find the “Data collection and modification” section.
- Click on “Data Streams”.
- Expand the Data Stream:
- Locate your data stream and click the arrow on the right to expand it.
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Enable Enhanced Measurement:
- Click the gear icon next to your data stream.
- Toggle on Enhanced measurement.
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Configure Site Search:
- Click the gear icon again to access Enhanced measurement settings.
- Scroll down and enable the Site Search toggle.
- There is no need to modify the Advanced Settings
Test your map analytic reports in real-time
You can verify that your map user interactions are being tracked in your Google Analytics account by following these steps:
- Open one of your maps in a browser and interact with it. For example, open a category, click on a marker, and open an action button.
- In Google Analytics, open the Real-Time reports.
- Under “Event count by Event name,” you should now see “map-user-action.” The value will increase each time you interact with the map.
Reports time range
By default, your custom reports in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) are set to a maximum date range of two months. However, did you know you can easily extend this to 14 months? We strongly advise adjusting your Google Analytics account to retain data for 14 months. This longer period provides more comprehensive insights and helps in better trend analysis.
To modify the data retention setting, simply navigate to your GA4 account and follow these steps: Admin > Property > Data Settings > Data Retention, then select ’14 months’.
It’s important to remember that this change isn’t retroactive, so the sooner you set this extended retention period, the better.
Which data is collected?
Mapme captures data from the interactions on the map as events. Data collected includes for example:
- Map loads: number of maps loaded
- Location views: number of views per location
- Action button: number of clicks for each action button
- Social shares: number of social shares by social network (Facebook, Twitter…)
- Media gallery views: number of media gallery views per location
- Search keyword: keywords entered in the search field
Using the data provided, you can create key performance indicators (KPI) such as:
- Views/users: average number of location views per user
- Sharing rate: % of shares per user
- CTR: % of Action Button clicks per user
We have created a step-by-step guide on how to generate analytical reports for all user interactions on your map.
List of map interaction events
All the map interaction events are placed in a category called “map-user-action”.
Here is the list of the event actions and corresponding labels when available
Note:
- “click” corresponds to “tap” on touch devices.
- GA4 automatically generates an event called page _view. This event count is typically higher than the total number of events collected by Mapme. The page_view event fires every time there is a URL change. For example, when typing a search keyword, each character generates a page view.