How To Track Podia Forms

Are you using Podia forms on your website and looking to improve your understanding of user interactions? Tracking form submissions, purchases, and memberships is crucial for optimizing user experience and gaining valuable insights into how your audience engages with your content. Podia, a popular platform for digital creators, provides easy-to-use tools for selling courses, products, and memberships. By integrating Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics 4 (GA4), you can track user data and conversions to make more informed marketing decisions.

 

In this article, we’ll walk you through setting up a DataLayer event tracking solution for Podia. This allows you to capture detailed data on users and conversions (such as purchases, product views, and memberships) and send it to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) via Google Tag Manager (GTM).

 

This guide is part of our conversion tracking series using Google Tag Manager. If you’re new to form tracking, check out our main article – How to track form submissions.

 

Overview of Podia Form Tracking Methods

Podia provides a great platform for digital creators to sell courses, memberships, and digital products. However, tracking conversions and user activities requires some additional configuration to capture useful data for Google Analytics. Google Tag Manager can help you capture user actions like:

1. User Data: Capturing details of users when they engage with forms or pages (e.g., Podia customer data).
2. Purchases or Conversions: Tracking successful purchases of products, memberships, or courses.

This guide focuses on using Podia’s native JavaScript variables—Podia.Customer and Podia.Conversion—to track and send important user and conversion data to Google Analytics using GTM.

Setting Up DataLayer Event Tracking in GTM for Podia

Tracking form submissions and user activities in Google Tag Manager involves pushing data into the DataLayer when a Podia user interacts with the site or makes a purchase. Here’s a step-by-step guide to setting up this tracking method.

Add the Script for Podia Event Tracking in GTM

To ensure that user and conversion data are captured correctly, you’ll need to add a custom script that pushes Podia customer data and conversion data into the DataLayer when these events occur.

1. Open Google Tag Manager (GTM):
   • Go to your GTM account and open the container for your website.
2. Create a New Tag:
   • Click Tags in the sidebar and then click New to create a new tag.
3. Configure the Custom HTML Tag:
   • Choose Tag Configuration and select Custom HTML.
   • Enter the following script into the HTML text area:

<script>

// pushes the user data into dataLayer

if (Podia.Customer) {

  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];

  window.dataLayer.push({

    ‘event’: ‘podia_user_data’,

    ‘userdata’: Podia.Customer

  });

}

 

// when a customer purchases a course, product, or membership subscription (both free and paid)

if (Podia.Conversion) {

  window.dataLayer = window.dataLayer || [];

  window.dataLayer.push({

    ‘event’: ‘podia_conversion’,

    ‘conversiondata’: Podia.Conversion

  });

}

</script>

 

4. Save and Name Your Tag:

• Give your tag a descriptive name like Podia User and Conversion Tracking and save it.

Utilizing DataLayer Events to Create the Trigger and Tag

Once the data is pushed to the DataLayer, you need to configure Google Tag Manager to capture this data and send it to Google Analytics 4. You’ll do this by creating custom triggers and tags in GTM.

Step 1: Verifying Data in the DataLayer

• Enable GTM Preview Mode:
  • Click the Preview button in GTM to test your setup in real-time.
• Test with a Podia Form or Purchase:
  • Visit your Podia site, perform a test action like signing up for a course or making a purchase.
• Check the DataLayer:
  • Open the GTM preview mode and ensure the podia_user_data and podia_conversion events appear with the relevant user or conversion data.

Step 2: Creating Custom Triggers for Podia Form Submissions

1. Create a New Trigger for User Data:
   • In GTM, go to Triggers and click New.
   • Choose Custom Event as the trigger type.
   • Set the Event Name to podia_user_data.
   • Save the trigger as Podia User Data Trigger.
2. Create a New Trigger for Conversion Data:
   • Create another Custom Event trigger.
   • Set the Event Name to podia_conversion.
   • Save this trigger as Podia Conversion Trigger.

Step 3: Creating GA4 Event Tags for Podia

1. Create a New GA4 Event Tag for User Data:
   • Go to Tags and click New to create a new tag.
   • Select Google Analytics: GA4 Event as the tag type and connect it to your GA4 property using your Measurement ID.
   • Set the Event Name to podia_user_data.
   • Add Event Parameters: You can map the user data from the DataLayer (e.g., userdata.name, userdata.email).
   • Assign the Podia User Data Trigger to this tag.
2. Create a New GA4 Event Tag for Conversion Data:
   • Create another GA4 Event tag for conversion tracking.
   • Set the Event Name to podia_conversion.
   • Add Event Parameters: You can map conversion data such as conversiondata.product_name, conversiondata.price.
   • Assign the Podia Conversion Trigger to this tag.

Step 4: Save and Test

1. Save the Tags:
   • After setting up both GA4 event tags (for user data and conversion data), save them.
2. Test the Tags:
   • Go into Preview Mode again and test form submissions or purchases on your Podia site.
   • Ensure that the tags fire correctly and that data appears in GA4 DebugView.

Conclusion

With this setup, you can track Podia form submissions, user data, and purchases using Google Tag Manager and Google Analytics 4. This gives you greater insights into your customer interactions and allows you to refine your digital marketing strategies accordingly.

At First Page Digital, we offer advanced digital marketing services including advanced form tracking setups like the one described here. If you need help refining your tracking or require tailored solutions for your website, reach out to our experts today!