Send media events with InstantSearch

Collect user interactions as events on your media website.

Capturing real-time user interactions as events gives you actionable insights with click and conversion metrics, and they help you increase your customer engagement and conversions. Events are used to activate Algolia features and products like:

• NeuralSearch
• Algolia Recommend
• Personalization
• Dynamic Re-Ranking
• Query Categorization
• Search analytics
• Revenue analytics
• A/B testing.

Before you begin

To follow this guide, you need to build both search results and category pages with one of these UI libraries:

• InstantSearch.js version 4.59 or later
• React InstantSearch version 7.2.1 or later
• Vue InstantSearch version 4.12.0 or later

For other methods of collecting events, see Get started with events.

Manage the Insights library

InstantSearch loads the search-insights library for you from jsDelivr. You don’t need to install it or set it up yourself.

If you’re using a Content Security Policy to protect your site and you want to let InstantSearch load search-insights for you, make sure to add https://cdn.jsdelivr.net in your list of trusted sources for JavaScript.

script-src https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/

If you prefer hosting your own version of search-insights, you can add it to your project:

1. Install the Insights client
2. Initialize the Insights client (optional)

InstantSearch doesn’t load search-insights when it detects it on the page.

Enable events collection

You can enable the automatic collection of events from your InstantSearch apps in the Algolia dashboard (without coding), or when setting up your InstantSearch app (with coding).

Enabling automatic events collection takes care of the following:

• Add the search-insights library to your project and make it globally available as window.aa
• Set an anonymous userToken for sending events to the Insights API and for search requests
• Include the queryID parameter in the search response
• Send default click and view events for your InstantSearch widgets

Go to the Events hub in the Algolia dashboard to check the default events arriving from your website or app. For more information, see Validate your events.

No code

1. Go to the Algolia dashboard and select your Algolia application.
2. On the left sidebar, select Data sources > Events > Settings.
3. Click Enable automatic events collection.

Code

Enable the insights option:

InstantSearch.js

    const search = instantsearch({
    searchClient,
    indexName: "YourIndexName",
+   insights: true,
    });
    // Add your InstantSearch widgets here
    search.start();

You may want to send events that aren’t automatically captured by InstantSearch widgets.

Understand which events to track

To understand which events you should send, think about the different steps a user takes through your website to reach the final goal: the product purchase.

Search results page

Starting with a search on any of your pages, a user might take the following actions:

1. Select a product from the search results to open the content details page.
2. Consume content, such as watching a video, reading an article, or listening to an audio track.
3. Interact with content, such as liking, subscribing, or following.

Starting with a search on any of your pages, a user might take the following actions:

1. Select a product from the search results to open the content details page.
2. Consume content, such as watching a video, reading an article, or listening to an audio track.
3. Interact with content, such as liking, subscribing, or following.

Starting with a visit to your homepage or to a category page, a user might take the following actions:

1. Select a content category to open a category page.
2. Select content displayed on the page to open the content details page.
3. Consume content, such as watching a video, reading an article, or listening to an audio track.
4. Interact with content, such as liking, subscribing, or following.

Starting with a search on an internet search engine, with a click on a recommendation, or any other external referral, a user might take the following actions:

1. Click on an (internet) search result, recommendation, or other link to your website.
2. Depending on where the user lands on your website, they continue the same path as if they started with your homepage or with a category page.

Search and search results pages

User action	Method name	Automatically collected?
User clicks search result	clickedObjectIDsAfterSearch	Yes
User clicks categories/filters	clickedFilters	Yes
User views search results	viewedObjectIDs	Yes

Browse/category page

User action	Method name	Automatically collected?
User clicks content	clickedObjectIDsAfterSearch	Yes
User views content	viewedObjectIDs	Yes

Content details page

User action	Method name	Automatically collected?
User views content	viewedObjectIDs	No

Keep track of query IDs

Conversion events are often triggered on pages that aren’t covered by InstantSearch, such as your content details pages.

To relate the conversion events back to the search request made on your search results or category pages, you need to keep track of the query IDs across your pages.

Track conversion events

Using InstantSearch widgets

You can use the sendEvent function to send conversion events from your InstantSearch app.

InstantSearch.js

hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: "name", hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
          onClick="${() =>
            sendEvent("conversion", hit, "Product Added To Wishlist")
          }"
        >
          Add to wishlist
        </button>
      `;
    },
  },
});

Unlike click events, setting custom conversion events doesn’t prevent the custom click event from being sent.

On pages without InstantSearch widgets

An example of a conversion event that may be relevant to your media site:

JavaScript

// A user reached the bottom of an article page
window.aa("convertedObjectIDsAfterSearch", {
eventName: "Article Read",
index: "YourIndexName",
queryID: "query-1",
objectIDs: ["objectID-1"],
});

The window.aa object is the API client for the Insights API and is globally available if you enabled automatic events collection.

In convertedObjectIDsAfterSearch:

• queryID is used by Algolia to relate the event to a prior search.
• objectIDs indicates which items were part of the conversion.The objectID parameter is included in the search response for each hit.

If the event isn’t directly related to a search, for example, it’s triggered on the homepage, use the convertedObjectIDs method instead.

JavaScript

// A user watched a video
window.aa("convertedObjectIDs", {
eventName: "Video Watched",
index: "YourIndexName",
objectIDs: ["objectID-1"],
});

Some other examples of conversion events are:

• Article Bookmarked: a user bookmarked an article.
• Article Liked: a user liked an article.
• Article Recommended: a user recommended an article.
• Playlist Followed: a user followed a playlist.
• Author Followed: a user followed an author.
• Brand Followed: a user followed a brand.

Track click events

Override default click events

The hits and infiniteHits widgets expose a sendEvent function. Use it to send click events when users interact with your search results.

InstantSearch.js

hits({
    templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
        return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent("click", hit, "Article Clicked")}">
            <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: "name", hit })}</h2>
            <p>${hit.description}</p>
        </div>
        `;
    },
    },
});

You can set more events on specific parts of your template. In the following example, when clicking on the View more info button, two events are sent to the Insights API:

• A click event with the eventName “Article More Info”
• A click event with the eventName “Article Clicked” (through event propagation)

InstantSearch.js

hits({
    templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
        return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent("click", hit, "Article Clicked")}">
            <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: "name", hit })}</h2>
            <p>${hit.description}</p>
            <button
            onClick="${() =>
                sendEvent("click", hit, "Article More Info Clicked")
            }"
            >
            Add to favorites
            </button>
        </div>
        `;
    },
    },
});

To only send the most specific event per clicked element, you can use Event.stopPropagation in your event handler.

InstantSearch.js

hits({
    templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
        return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent("click", hit, "Article Clicked")}">
            <!-- ... -->
            <button
            onClick="${(event) => {
+             event.stopPropagation();

                sendEvent("click", hit, "Article More Info Clicked");
            }}"
            >
            Add to favorites
            </button>
        </div>
        `;
    },
    },
});

When InstantSearch captures a custom click event that you defined, it doesn’t send the default click event. In the following example, when clicking the View mores button, only the “Article More Info Clicked” event is sent.

InstantSearch.js

hits({
    templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
        return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: "name", hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
            onClick="${() =>
            sendEvent("click", hit, "Article More Info Clicked")
            }"
        >
            Add to favorites
        </button>
        `;
    },
    },
});

Track additional click events

For Algolia Recommend and Personalization, capture additional click events when users select individual products:

• On your home page
• From product recommendations.

To send click events with the Insights client, add the following code whenever a user clicks on an article---for example, on your home page.

JavaScript

window.aa("clickedObjectIDs", {
  index: "YourIndexName",
  eventName: "Article Clicked",
  objectIDs: ["objectID-1"],
});

(Optional) Set up Personalization

For effective personalization, you need to identify users across sessions. It’s best to use an identifier from your authentication system after users signed in. For more information, see User token.

After getting the identifier from your system, set it as the authenticatedUserToken parameter.

JavaScript

// Get a unique, pseudonymous identifier for signed-in users
const authenticatedUserToken = getUserTokenAfterSignIn();
window.aa("setAuthenticatedUserToken", authenticatedUserToken);

If you can’t get persistent user identifiers from your system, you can store the anonymous user token in a cookie after obtaining user consent.

JavaScript

// If user consented
aa("init", {
  partial: true,
  useCookies: true,
});

If you don’t use persistent user identifiers, a new anonymous user token is generated on every page refresh.

Personalization benefits from the same click and conversion events, plus it can use view events to enrich user profiles.

Your InstantSearch components for the search results and category pages automatically collect view events.

To capture additional view events, such as on your homepage, add this code:

JavaScript

window.aa("viewedObjectIDs", {
  index: "YourIndexName",
  eventName: "Items Viewed",
  objectIDs: ["objectID-1"],
});

Working examples

• InstantSearch.js (Source Code)
• React InstantSearch (Source Code)
• Vue InstantSearch (Source Code)

Adding events to a React InstantSearch app