How to Track File Downloads with Google Analytics 4 (including PDF)

If you’re running a website where people can click and open/download files (like PDF or Excel Spreadsheets), you would probably want to know which links are clicked the most and whether your visitors/users care about those resources at all.

Maybe that document you spent countless hours on last year was clicked just 10 times in total? By measuring file downloads, you will be able to understand which content is more engaging and where you should focus more effort.

In this tutorial, I will show you how to track file downloads with Google Analytics 4.

You have two options:

• use the built-in tracking of GA4 (but there are some caveats)
• configure file tracking with Google Tag Manager and GA4

And I will explain both of them.

 

Table of Contents

– Hide table of contents –

• Tracking file downloads with GA4 (built-in feature)
• file_download event
• Caveats of a built-in file download tracking in Google Analytics 4
• How to track file downloads with Google Tag Manager
  • #1. Create a variable: File Name
  • #2. Create a variable: File Name
  • #3. Create a Link Click trigger
  • #4. Create a GA4 event tag
  • #5. Test the setup
  • #6. Publish GTM and disable file download tracking in GA4
• Where to find file download data in Google Analytics 4 standard reports?
  • #1. Standard GA4 reports
  • #2. Free form exploration
• Can I track file opens if a visitor directly opens a PDF?
• Final Words

 

Tracking file downloads with GA4 (built-in feature)

Google Analytics 4 has a suite of automatic event-tracking features called Enhanced Measurement.

We had only pageviews in the previous version of GA (Universal Analytics). If you wanted to track some events, you had to customize your setup.

With Enhanced Measurement, you can have more events without configuring Google Tag Manager or editing your website’s code.

When you create a web data stream in Google Analytics 4, you can use Enhanced Measurement. It is designed to help marketers get as many events in the reports as possible without cooperating with developers or configuring them in Google Tag Manager.

If you go to Admin > Data Streams > Select the web data stream, the following window will open, where you will see a section called Enhanced Measurement.

By default, this feature is enabled and will automatically track events such as:

• Page view (event name: page_view)
• Scroll (event name: scroll)
• File Download (event name: file_download)
• Outbound link click (event name: click with the parameter outbound: true)
• Site search (event name: view_search_results)
• Video Engagement (events: video_start, video_progress, video_complete)
• and so on.

If you want, you can disable/enable events individually, and you can do that by clicking the gear icon in the Enhanced Measurement section and then clicking the toggle buttons.

One of the options there will be File Downloads.

Let’s focus on it.

 

file_download event

Every time Google Analytics 4 tracks a file download event (file_download) is sent to GA4 when a link is clicked and that link contains one of the following file extensions: .pdf, .xls, .xlsx, .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .csv, .exe, .key, .pps, .ppt, .pptx, .7z, .pkg, .rar, .gz, .zip, .avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpe, .mpeg, .wmv, .mid, .midi, .mp3, .wav, .wma. In other words, if the link opens/downloads a file. It is currently impossible to update the list with other extensions in the GA4 interface.

So if you want to extend the list, you must implement it via Google Tag Manager (I will explain that later in this article).

Once you install Google Analytics 4, you can test whether this feature works. First, install this Chrome Extension and then click its icon in Chrome (to enable). Then (in GA4) go to Admin > Debugview.

Finally, open your website (or refresh the browser tab with it) and the link that opens/downloads a file (e.g. a PDF).

Come back to the Debugview and wait until you see file_download event there. If Debugview is not working for you, take a look here.

Click the file_download event, and you will see parameters that were also tracked. In addition to all page-related parameters (like page_location), it will also track the following:

• file_extension. The extension of the file, e.g. “pdf”, “docx”, etc.
• file_name. The name of the file. If the clicked URL is example.com/filename.pdf, the parameter’s value will be “filename”).
• link_text. The link’s text (that was clicked) to open/download the file.
• link_url. The URL of the file link that was clicked, e.g. https://www.example.com/filename.pdf

Note: If the file URL is longer than 100 characters, the value of link_url will be trimmed (meaning that the end of the URL will not be visible in reports).

So if you see the event in the debugview and real-time reports, file download tracking in Google Analytics 4 works. Now, where can you find that data in regular GA4 reports? If you don’t care about the alternative setup with Google Tag manager, jump to this chapter to learn more.

 

Caveats of a built-in file download tracking in Google Analytics 4

Even though built-in file download tracking in Google Analytics 4 is a welcome addition, you need to be aware of some drawbacks.

If they are dealbreakers for you, you should implement this with Google Tag Manager instead (I will soon explain that too).

 

#1. Max length of link_url is 100 characters

When GA4 tracks the links of file downloads, it captures the full URL. So if it looks like this https://www.examples.com/download/very_long_value[….], GA4 will cut of the end of the value. And usually, the end of the URL contains the actual file name and file extension (pdf, xls, etc.)

Instead, I would prefer tracking either just the file name (e.g. some-ebook.pdf) or the path or click URL (e.g. /download/something/some-ebook.pdf). This would reduce the impact of the character limit.

Luckily, this can be solved if you implement file download tracking with Google Tag Manager.

 

#2. Cannot customize the list of supported file extensions

Google Analytics 4 file download tracking supports the following file extensions: .pdf, .xls, .xlsx, .doc, .docx, .txt, .rtf, .csv, .exe, .key, .pps, .ppt, .pptx, .7z, .pkg, .rar, .gz, .zip, .avi, .mov, .mp4, .mpe, .mpeg, .wmv, .mid, .midi, .mp3, .wav, .wma.

Even though these are the most popular ones, there is a slight chance that a particular extension that your business uses is not here. When I write this blog post, you cannot customize the list of extensions. Solution? Again, Google Tag Manager and a custom setup (read the next chapter).

 

How to track file downloads with Google Tag Manager

This is an alternative to a built-in file download tracking of GA4. It’s more flexible but requires more knowledge and configuration.

In this chapter, I presume that you already know at least the basics of Google Tag Manager and have already installed it on your website. If not, read this tutorial.

The process of configuration will look like this:

• We will create a variable that returns the file name (e.g. if the Click URL is htttps://example.com/file.pdf, it will return file.pdf)
• We’ll create a variable that returns the file extension (e.g. pdf). This is optional.
• Then we will create a link click trigger that will be looking for specific file extensions
• Finally, we will create a GA4 event tag and will test this

Note: this solution will work only if file links contain file extensions (e.g., .pdf, .xlsx, etc.).

 

#1. Create a variable: File Name

Go to your Google Tag Manager container > Variables and make sure that the Click URL variable is enabled. If you cannot see it in the list, click Customize and enable Click URL.

Then click New (in the same Variables section) > Variable Configuration > Custom JavaScript Variable. Paste the following code:

function() {
 var filepath = {{Click URL}}.split("/");
 var filename = filepath.pop();
 var decodedFilename = decodeURI(filename);
 return decodedFilename.indexOf(".") > -1?decodedFilename:'n/a';
}

Name this variable cjs – filename and hit save.

 

#2. Create a variable: File extension

While you are in the Variables section, click New > Variable configuration > Auto-event variable. Then enter the following settings:

This variable will return the file extension of a click link. Give it a name File extension and hit save.

 

#3. Create a Link Click trigger

In Google Tag Manager, go to Triggers > New > Trigger Configuration > Just links. Enter the following configuration:

The condition in the trigger is cjs – filename matches RegEx (ignore case) \.(pdf|xlsx?|docx?|txt|rtf|csv|exe|key|pps|pptx?|7z|pkg|rar|gz|zip|avi|mov|mp4|mpeg?|wmv|midi?|mp3|wav|wma)

This is the list of file extensions that GA4 enhanced measurement supports. If you want to add additional file extensions, edit the regular expression by adding | (this means OR) and then add the actual file extension (e.g., dll).

Name this trigger Link click – file download and hit save.

 

#4. Create a GA4 event tag

Go to Tags > New > Tag Configuration > Google Analytics: GA4 event and enter the following settings:

Ensure that event parameter names are exactly as I show in the screenshot: file_extension, file_name, link_text, link_url.

Ensure that two built-in variables in GTM are enabled: Click Text and Click URL. If you don’t see them, go to Variables > Customize and enable them.

Then click the Triggering and add the Link click trigger we created in the previous chapter. Save the tag.

 

#5. Test the setup

Final step. Let’s check if everything is working as expected. Click the Preview button in the top-right corner of the GTM interface.

This will open a new browser tab/window. Enter the URL of the page where you want to test this.

Click Connect.

Now go to your website and click the file link. Then go back to the GTM preview mode and see if the Link click event is displayed. If yes, click it and check if your GA4 event tag has fired. If you see multiple Link click events, read this article.

Did the tag fire? If yes, go to Google Analytics > Admin > Debugview and see if file_download event is visible there (if you haven’t disabled file download tracking in GA4 enhanced measurement, you will see two events. Don’t worry, we’ll fix that soon).

Also, click the event and check if event parameters and their values are tracked correctly.

 

#6. Publish GTM and disable file download tracking in GA4

Once everything is tested, you need to do two things:

• Publish a GTM container (so that these changes would go live for your website visitors). You can do that by click the Submit button in the top-right corner of the GTM interface.
  
• Go to Google Analytics > Admin > Data Streams > Select your web data stream. Click the gear icon, disable File download tracking, and click Save. This way, you will avoid duplicate data (when GTM and GA4 Enhanced Measurement track the same thing).
  

 

Where to find file download data in Google Analytics 4 standard reports?

After you start collecting file download data, wait for at least 24-48 hours. Google Analytics 4 is pretty slow in processing data, so it needs more time.

The steps of finding the data differ based on what kind of reports do you want to use.

 

#1. Find file download data in standard GA4 reports

In standard reports, it’s easy to find events. They are called file_download; you can find them by going to Reports > Engagement > Events.

But the problem with this is the granularity of the data. If you click the file_download event, it will open a report where you won’t see what kind of links were clicked.

There are two options here:

• You can customize the report to use Link URL as a primary dimension
• Add a custom dimension (like explain here)
• Or you can build a Free Form exploration report. Let me show you how that can be done.

 

#2. Find file download data in GA4 Free form exploration

Another place where you can find the file download data are custom reports. On the left sidebar of your GA4 interface, click Explore. Then select Blank.

We’ll need to import two dimensions into that report. Click the Plus icon.

Then select Event name and Link URL dimensions (or if you want to see shorter values, select File name)and click Import.

In the metrics section, click the Plus icon and add the metrics that you want to use, for example, Event count and Total Users.

Double-click the Link URL dimension and all metrics you have imported to the exploration. Or just drag and drop them.

Now you see the list of all file links that were clicked. But it’s very likely, that the first row in the table will be empty. Why?

That’s because your current report shows the data of ALL events in your property, not just outbound link clicks. Thus you need to narrow it down. In the Filters section, click Drop or select dimension or metric and then choose Event name. Enter the following condition:

• Event name exactly matches file_download

Save the filter.

Now you will see the report only of file_download events and the first column of the table will show the list of file links that were clicked.

 

Can I track file opens if a visitor directly opens a PDF?

This is another reasonably popular question I get. “Directly opens” means that someone has a direct link to a PDF file and opens it in a browser (without clicking any link on your website).

The answer is “conveniently track? no”. You cannot put JavaScript in PDF files, meaning that Google Analytics 4 or Google Tag Manager cannot be installed.

Sure, your developers could try to send file-opened data to GA4 via measurement protocol, but it is problematic and might not provide a lot of value. However, you could still cooperate with a developer and ask him/her to check the server logs and tell you how many times a particular PDF file was opened. He/she should have that data. But GA4 is not part of this process.

 

Track File Downloads with Google Analytics 4: Final Words

Even though Google Analytics 4 can track file downloads automatically, there are situations when this is not enough, and you might want to have a more customized setup. That’s where Google Tag Manager becomes useful (once again).

Nevertheless, in this blog post, I explained both options, and you are the one who should pick the right choice.

When it comes to finding the data and using the reports, GA4 is still lacking, and it takes a bunch of clicks to find out which files were downloaded the most.