Today I am going to show you,……..how to use the new Scroll depth trigger in Google Tag Manager,……to track,…how far website visitors scroll contents on your website.

Introduction to Scroll Depth

The term which denotes,…..how far website visitors scroll contents on your website is called the ‘Scroll Depth’.

This Scroll depth can be vertical or horizontal,… depending upon the type of scrolling available on your website.

So we can have two types of Scroll Depths:

Vertical Scroll Depths and Horizontal Scroll Depths

Vertical Scroll depth measures…..how far website visitors scroll contents on your website from top to bottom of a web page.

Horizontal Scroll depth measures…..how far website visitors scroll contents on your website from left to right of a web page.

How Scroll Depth is measured?

The Scroll depth (whether it is vertical or horizontal) is measured in either percentage or pixels.

So if value of the vertical scroll depth is 10% then it means 10% of the page was scrolled from top to bottom…. by a user.

If value of the vertical scroll depth is 50% then it means 50% of the page was scrolled from top to bottom…. by a user.

Similarly, if value of the vertical scroll depth is 90% then it means 90% of the page was scrolled from top to bottom…. by a user.

90% Scroll depth can be considered equivalent to….. reaching the bottom of a web page…..as website visitors usually do not scroll 100% of a web page (unless the entire page fits in a default viewport)

// A viewport is the visible part of a web page.

Introduction to Scroll Depth Tracking

The tracking method which is used to measure ‘Scroll Depth’ is called ‘Scroll Depth Tracking’ or ‘Scroll Tracking’.

You can track scroll depth both vertically and horizontally…depending upon the type of scrolling available on your website.

So we can have two types of Scroll Trackings:

Vertical Scroll Tracking and Horizontal Scroll Tracking

If vertical or horizontal scrollbars appears on most of your web pages…and/or you run a content rich website…then you are a good candidate for implementing Scroll Tracking.

Through Scroll Tracking you can get an idea of……..how website visitors are consuming contents on your website.

For example,

If you write very long articles…….but majority of users exit your website…… after scrolling only 25% of your article pages then something is wrong,.. with your website traffic or content.

You are either getting wrong type of traffic on your website or your contents are not relevant to your target audience.

This is the kind of insight you can get through Scroll Tracking.

Get the E-Book (62 Pages)

Setting up Scroll Depth Tracking via Scroll Depth Trigger in GTM

Follow the steps below:

Step-1: Login to your Google Tag Manager (GTM) account and then click on the ‘Folders’ tab:

Step-2: Click on the ‘New Folder’ button.

Step-3: Name your new folder ‘Scroll Tracking’ and then click on the ‘create’ button.

We are going to use this folder to store all tags and triggers related to scroll tracking.

Step-4: Click on the ‘Variables’ tab:

Step-5: Click on the ‘Configure’ button:

Step-6: Scroll down and then select the following three built-in variables related to Scroll tracking:

1. Scroll Depth Threshold
2. Scroll Depth Units
3. Scroll Direction

Step-7: Click on the ‘Triggers’ tab:

Step-8: Click on the ‘New’ button to create a new trigger.

Step-9: Name your new trigger as ‘Scroll Depth Trigger’ and move the trigger to the folder named ‘Scroll Tracking’ (by clicking on the folder icon next to the trigger name):

Step-10: Choose ‘Scroll Depth’ as trigger type:

Your screen should now look like the one below:

Step-11: At this point you need to decide you scroll tracking setup:

• Whether you want to measure vertical scroll depth or horizontal scroll depth or both.
• Whether you want to measure scroll depth in percentage or in pixels.
• When the scroll depth event should fire.
• What pages the scroll depth trigger should fire.

You can either decide your own scroll tracking setup or you can use the one I use:

Here,

I am measuring the vertical scroll depth in percentages.

The scroll depth event (gtm.scrollDepth) will fire whenever the vertical scroll depth of a web page crosses:

1. 10%
2. 25%
3. 50%
4. 75%
5. 90%

The Scroll depth trigger will fire on all pages of a website.

Step-12: Click on the ‘Save’ button to complete the creation of the new trigger.

Step-13: Click on the ‘Tags’ tab:

Step-14: Click on the ‘New’ button to create a new tag.

Step-15: Name the new tag ‘Send Scroll Tracking data to GA’ and then move it to the ‘Scroll Tracking’ folder.

Step-16: Set up the new tag with following configuration:

We are going to use this tag to send the scroll tracking data to Google Analytics.

Step-17: Set the firing trigger of the ‘Send Scroll Tracking data to GA’ tag to ‘Scroll Depth Trigger’, we created earlier:

Step-18: Click on the ‘Save’ button to complete the tag set up.

Step-19: Click on the ‘Preview’ button (on the top right hand side) to preview and test your new scroll tracking setup:

Step-20: Navigate to a web page on your website where you want to test your new scroll tracking setup.

You should see a ‘preview’ window at the bottom of your browser window:

Step-21: Now gradually scroll down your web page.

As you start scrolling down, you should see new ‘gtm.ScrollDepth’ event(s) being listed….one after the other….under the ‘Summary’ column:

Step-22: Click on one of the ‘gtm.scrollDepth’ events and then click on the ‘Data Layer’ tab:

Step-23: Now look at the values of following data layer variables:

• gtm.scrollThreshold
• gtm.scrollUnits
• gtm.scrollDirection

Here,

‘gtm.scrollDepth‘ is the name of the event that activates the Scroll Depth trigger.

‘gtm.scrollThreshold‘ is the datalayer variable which store the value of the scroll threshold that was crossed.

So if you scrolled to 50% of the page then the value of this data layer would be ’50’.

Similarly, if you scrolled to 90% of the page then the value of this data layer would be ’90’.

‘gtm.scrollUnits‘ datalayer variable measure scroll depth in ‘percent’ or ‘pixel’. So value of this data layer variable could be either ‘percent’ or ‘pixels’

‘gtm.scrollDirection‘ denotes the type of scrolling action which caused the scrolling threshold to be passed. Its value can be either ‘vertical’ or ‘horizontal’

If you see the values of the data layer variables then it means, scroll tracking is working correctly.

Step-24: Navigate back to your GTM account and then click on the ‘Leave Preview mode’ button:

Step-25: Click on the ‘submit’ button (on the top right hand side):

Step-26: Enter your version name and then click on the ‘Publish’ button.

Step-27: Navigate back to your website and scroll down couple of web pages.

Step-29: Wait for 10-15 minutes and then navigate to ‘Behavior’ > ‘Events’ > ‘Top Events’ report in your Google Analytics view:

Step-30: Find and click on ‘Scroll Tracking’ event category:

In this event category you can find all of your scroll tracking data:

There are three more methods which you can use to install scroll tracking via Google Tag Manager.

You can read about these methods from this article: Implementing Scroll Tracking via Google Tag Manager

Other Articles on Specialised Tracking in Google Analytics

1. Google Analytics Recurring Revenue and Subscriptions Tracking Guide
2. How to track the impact of cookie consent on website traffic in Google Analytics
3. Phone Call Tracking in Google Analytics and Beyond
4. Scroll Tracking via Scroll Depth Trigger in Google Tag Manager
5. Video Tracking via YouTube Video Trigger In Google Tag Manager
6. Calculated Metrics in Google Analytics – Complete Guide
7. The one thing that you don’t know about PayPal.com and the referral exclusion list
8. Introduction to Postbacks in Google Analytics
9. Creating Content Group in Google Analytics via tracking code using gtag.js
10. Tracking Site Search without Query Parameter in Google Tag Manager
11. Setting Up Site Search Tracking for POST based search engines in Google Analytics
12. Tracking Site Search for GET-Based Search Engines in Google Analytics
13. Understanding site search tracking in Google Analytics
14. Tracking Virtual Pageviews in Google Tag Manager – Complete Guide
15. Creating and using Site Search Funnel in Google Analytics
16. Learn to Setup Facebook Pixel Tracking via Google Tag Manager
17. How to use Keyword Hero to reveal Not Provided keywords in Google Analytics
18. Guide to Event Tracking via Google Tag Manager
19. Learn to track Qualified and Won leads in Google Analytics
20. Creating your own Google Analytics Tag Auditing System
21. Using multiple Google Analytics tracking codes on web pages
22. Guide to Offline Conversion Tracking in Google Analytics
23. Google Analytics and YouTube Integration Guide
24. Complete Guide to Google Analytics for Facebook
25. Tracking true referrals in Google Analytics when using PayPal and other payment gateways
26. Virtual pageviews in Google Analytics – Complete Guide
27. YouTube Video tracking via Google Tag Manager
28. Implementing E-Commerce Tracking via Google Tag Manager
29. Event Tracking in Google Analytics – Complete Guide
30. E-Commerce Tracking in Google Analytics – Complete Guide
31. Google Analytics Cross Domain Tracking Explained Like Never Before
32. Google Analytics Social Tracking – Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and LinkedIn
33. Setting up & Tracking AMP Pages in Google Analytics
34. Setting up Sales Funnel across websites in Google Analytics
35. Using Data Visualization to analyze the SEO Performance
36. Tracking offline conversions in Google Adwords
37. How to Correctly Measure Conversion Date & Time in Google Analytics
38. Tracking Twitter and Linkedin Social Interactions in Google Analytics
39. Implementing Scroll Tracking via Google Tag Manager
40. Phone Call Tracking and ROI calculations – Champion’s Guide
41. Google Analytics Cross Domain Tracking (ga.js)
42. Open Graph Protocol for Facebook Explained with Examples
43. How to Exclude URL Query Parameters in Google Analytics?
44. Understanding Google Analytics Default Page Setting
45. Implementing rollup reporting in Google Analytics