RSForm! Pro Conversion Goal Tracking with Google Analytics

 

RSForm! PRO is a robust form platform for Joomla that can handle most of the tough challenges of todays digital marketers. Tracking AJAX or responsive forms can sometimes be tricky, Specially conversion tracking and conversion goal setting in Google Analytics.

 

How RSForm Pro and Conversion Tracking Issue

RSForm! Pro loads the “thank you” message on the same page as the form itself which makes it hard to set conversion goals in Google Analytics due to the lack of a unique page as Thank-You page. Without a unique page, you can’t submit a unique URL as destination to your conversion goal settings in Google Analytics.

The workaround

There are 4 conversion tracking ways to do this. I’ll share the one that works all the time and is pretty robust. The other two is for you to experiment and try based on your website structure and limitations.

1. Event Tracking – You can read this helpful article I wrote earlier on Conversion tracking through Events. It gives you insight how to set it up.
2. Virtual Page views based on Google Analytics’ virtual pageview syntax and OnSubmit JavaScript Event_gaq.push([‘_trackPageview’, ‘/some-page’]);Then a specific thank you page can be created with Google Analytics code on it to track RSForm! Pro submissions by assigning that URL as the destination URL to Google Analytics Conversion goal
3. Redirect to a Thank-You Page – A redirect can be used in the PHP script property to send traffic to a pre-designed ThankYou page. Here is the code; $mainframe->redirect(“http://example.com/thank-you.html”);
   For conditional tracking based on form input please visit RSJoomla here

 

 

Create a custom URL after the form is submitted by appending something to the end of URL. If the URL modification happens only after submission, the URL would be unique and having Google Analytics code on the page will record the submission.
Here I’d like to emphasize on the fact that tracking conversions through event tracking will alter the bounce rate stats. Just make sure what you are doing if you want to go the Event Tracking way.

Here I’ll explain the 3ed option. I’ve tried and verified that it works on a few client websites using Joomla 2.5+. The workaround would be to place a code like

$u .= ‘&Conversion=ServicePage1’;

in the $thankYouMessage. This is inside the Form -> Form properties -> Scripts -> PHP Scripts
You need to scroll to the bottom where you see $thankYouMessage and a box associated to it. This script is called after the form is submitted. You can do a lot of fun stuff with it and may be more customized script can be called to redirect to your Thank-you page of choice based on the form or page. Combinations are endless.

 

 

If you are using SEF components and have activated .htaccess to handle URLs then you might end up with a 404 error. You need to modify the code to;

$u .= ‘?Conversion=ServicePage1’;

In order to work. After completing this configuration all you need to do is to go to Google Analytics, setup your goal and insert the following destination URL ; http://www.example.com/servicepage.html?Conversion=ServicePage1 if you are utilizing .htacess to optimize URLs. Make sure Google Analytics code apears on all pages of your Joomla website.