Some years ago I wrote a post about how to Track html5 videos which has been widely used and copied around the web. 2 years ago I wrote a total new tracking code , which I never publicly released.

Today I'm releasing a total new refactored code, for tracking HTML Media Elements. This means tracking <video> and <audio> elements.

This is my first library that I've build thinking on it about being a full library to be used along any project, instead of being a snippet to be used on a Google Tag Manager Tag. Because of this I'm providing the library in the following formats AMD, UMD, IIFE and ESM . So it can be used anywhere. At the same i'm providing a CDN access via jDelivr.

The library will take care of initializing the tracking and pushing the data back to Google Tag Manager ( using a dataLayer.push ), to Tealium ( using a utag.link ), or just to the console . Along with the event a full data model will be sent, with some details about the current event and the video ( the video title, duration, visibliity status, etc ).

The current data model is based on Google Tag Manager's Youtube Tracking Trigger / Model, making available the use of the current in-built video variables on GTM.

The library will take or tracking the current videos on the page, but will also be able to "detect" newly added elements on the page ( like videos added on modals , or loaded programmatically ), that will also be tracked with no hassles. Just setting observe switch to true will enable the use of the Mutation Observer API ( where available ), to do this work for you,

This is not all, along with this new library I'm releasing a Google Tag Manager Custom Template, will makes event easier the setup, just adding the template along with a DomReady Trigger and you'll be done.

Using a custom Video Title

When using HTML Media Element, we don't have a way to pass any video details, this library will allow you to customize the current video Title being reported.

< video src="" data-html-media-element-title="Demo Video version 1">
                                

This will make the VideoTitle to be reported as "Demo Video version 1", is there's not data-attribute the library will use the current video file name

Passing back video details

Not only you can pass the video Title library is totally eases the work of passing back to the events using data-elements.

You can pass all the custom data you need about the video to have it passed back to the tracking events. To achieve this we can all the data we want to the videos using data-attributes.

This can be done using data-attributes with the following format:

data-html-media-element-param-{{PARAM NAME}}="{{PARA VALUE}}"
                                

All the data added to the <video> elements will be passed back to events so you can used them.

For example:

< video width="400" 
controls 
data-html-media-element-param-band="Neil Zaza"
data-html-media-element-param-song-name="I'm Alright"
data-html-media-element-param-category="Music"
data-html-media-element-title="video test">
    <source src="mov_bbb.mp4" type="video/mp4">
    <source src="mov_bbb.ogg" type="video/ogg">
    Your browser does not support HTML video.
</video>
                                

This will turn on have a videoData (or audioData) object passing the data this way:

{
     element:  video
     elementClasses:  ""
     elementId:  "vbst4f9ed29"
     elementTarget:  video
     elementUrl:  "https://local.dev/demo/mp3.html"
     event:  "video"
     videoCurrentTime:  2
     videoData:
    	 band:  "Neil Zaza"
    	 category:  "Music"
    	 songname:  "I'm Alright"
     videoDuration:  361
     videoElapsedTime:  2
     videoIsMuted:  false
     videoLoop:  false
     videoNetworkState:  1
     videoPercent:  0
     videoPlaybackRate:  1
     videoProvider:  "html5"
     videoStatus:  "pause"
     videoTitle:  "video test"
     videoUrl:  "mov_bbb.mp4"
     videoVisible:  true
     videoVolume:  1
 }
                                

Library Usage

Web Page

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@analytics-debugger/html-media-elements@latest/dist/htmlMediaElementsTracker.min.js">

<script>
    window._htmlMediaElementsTracker.init({
        tms: 'debug',
        datalayerVariableNames: ['auto'],
        debug: true,
        observe: true,
        data_elements: true,        
        start: true,
        play: true,
        pause: true,
        mute: true,
        unmute: true,
        complete: true,
        seek: true,
        progress: true,
        error: true,
        progress_tracking_method: 'percentages',
        progress_percentages: [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10],
        progress_thresholds: [],        
    });   
</script>
                                

NPM

npm i @analytics-debugger/html-media-elements

Configuration Settings

We will be able to track the current HTML Media Elements Events ( Start, Play, Pause, Mute, Unmute, Complete, Seek, Progress ). We'll just need to set to true the events we want to track within the init config variable.

Along with the events the library pushes some details about the video.

Data Model

Configuring The

JSDelivr CDN: https://www.jsdelivr.com/package/npm/@analytics-debugger/html-media-elements

Template URL: https://tagmanager.google.com/gallery/#/owners/analytics-debugger/templates/gtm-html-media-elements-tracker

GitHub: https://github.com/analytics-debugger/html-media-elements-tracking-library

Demo Page: https://www.analytics-debugger.com/demos/gtm-html-media-elements/