Event tracking without the cookies

Event tracking counts what visitors do beyond viewing a page: signups, clicks, downloads and purchases. With Fathom, those conversions (and what they’re worth) sit right alongside the rest of your analytics, on one simple dashboard.

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Animation: a visitor signs up for a newsletter, downloads a PDF and buys a sticker pack on an example site. Each action is added to a copy of the Fathom Events box, with its completions, conversion rate and value. Example data.

What can you measure with events?

Pretty much anything someone does on your site. These are the ones we see most, and each has a step-by-step guide.

And that’s just the start. Logins, plan upgrades, video plays, demo requests: if you can run a line of JavaScript when it happens, you can measure it as an event.

Set up event tracking with one line of code

Add a line of JavaScript wherever something happens on your site, and give the event a name you’ll recognise. You don’t need to create anything in your dashboard first. The first time a visitor completes the action (say, the first newsletter signup), the event appears on your dashboard.

fathom.trackEvent('newsletter signup');

Conversion tracking, with values and currencies

Every event gets a conversion rate, worked out against your pageviews. If you’d rather measure it against site visitors, you can change that in your site settings.

Want to see what your conversions are worth? Send a value with an event, in cents, and we’ll add it up for you. Set a default currency for your site, give individual events their own, or use a wildcard like Purchase: * to cover a whole group of products at once.

fathom.trackEvent('Purchase', {
  _value: 1999, // $19.99, in cents
});

Currencies control how values are displayed. They don’t convert between currencies.

See which pages, referrers and campaigns drive conversions

Filter your dashboard by an event to see its completions, unique completions, conversion rate and value, along with the pages people were on and the referrers that sent them. Or start from the other side: filter by a UTM campaign and see which events its visitors completed.

Animation: a copy of the Fathom dashboard is filtered by the Newsletter signup event, then by Purchase. The totals switch to unique completions, completions, conversion rate and value, and the Pages and Referrers boxes re-sort by completions. Example data.

Measure conversions without cookies or a consent banner

Like your pageviews, events are counted without cookies, so there’s no consent banner needed for your analytics. That means more complete numbers, too: with cookie-based tools, visitors who decline or ignore the banner often aren’t counted, so their signups and purchases go missing. With Fathom, they still show up.

Curious how it works? See how we process data, or read our compliance guides.

Keep your events tidy

  • Keep junk out

    Use the Firewall’s Events list to block test or unwanted event names, or collect only the names you choose. Block your local environments so testing doesn’t count.

  • Take your events with you

    Completions, conversion rates and values are included when you export your data, and you can report on any event by name through our API.

Questions you might have

What is event tracking?
It’s how you measure the things visitors do on your site, beyond simply loading a page. Each action you care about, like a signup or a purchase, gets a name. Every time it happens, that’s one completion on your dashboard.
Do events count towards my plan?
Yes. Each event completion counts towards your monthly pageview allowance, the same as a pageview. Here’s how limits work.
Do I need Google Tag Manager?
Nope. One line of JavaScript on your site is all it takes. If you already use GTM, you can send events from there instead.
Can I rename an event?
Not on the dashboard, but you can change the name you send from your site. The new name shows up as a new event, and your existing completions stay under the old one.
I’m still using trackGoal. Do I need to change anything?
It keeps working, and your old goal codes are recorded under their event names. Use trackEvent for anything new. Our goal codes changelog explains the switch.

Want to see what else Fathom can do? Explore all our features.