Variables (button play) – you closed without answer

Hi there,

Thanks for your continued use of the plugin.

I did not close that ticket. Perhaps it has been closed automatically since there were no replies for many months.

In any case, I have added the basic statistics feature in the pro plugin where it collects number of times an episode is played and show daily, weekly or monthly charts.

However, I am not exactly aware how you are implementing the google tag manager with the plugin. I am also not sure about the triggers you mentioned. Can you inform how you are trying to integrate the two? We might be able to identify the issue and try to resolve this.

Thanks,

The thread may have been closed because it waited too long for your answer. However, when I try to configure events (to have information about them in Google Analytics 4 and Looker Studio – that’s why statistics from the PRO version are not satisfactory for me), I encountered a different data delivery in Google Tag Manager Assistant. I mean that one time the icon-pp-pause designation is under Click Classes, and another time under Click URL. Once there is the icon-pp-play designation, so that the next click will show “played” or “playing”. It is analogous for playbacks. To collect an event about playing or pausing, you need to create several Triggers, which are not ultimately reliable anyway.

I am really sorry to missed our communication earlier.

The events fired as of now are native audio element events. I have not worked much to integrate GTM, however, will it help if podcast player fire custom events like podcast_play and podcast_paused? It will fire them consistently regardless of which button or link is used to play or paused them? What’s your suggestion on this to make it more reliable?

Thanks,

I would like to help you, but I do not have such knowledge.

I think that if individual buttons were programmed, the task for people like me (working in GTM) would be easier. All you need to do is mark each event under Click URL. Separately for pause, play, and also when selecting an episode (play, pause). If you were able to add them also for the buttons: prev, next and fast forward and rewind, you would have the best plugin for collecting data for podcasters.

Collecting these events correctly allows me to verify to what extent data from a website, e.g. in Spotify for Podcasters, is correct. The options in the Statistics section in your PRO plugin are fine, but apart from them I also need to collect data in Google Tag Manager.

Thank you in advance for solving this problem.

Ok. Can you inform which plugin and setup you are using? I will set it up on my local server to test its feasibility.

Thanks,

Plugin: https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/duracelltomi-google-tag-manager/

(disable: Form fill events (gtm4wp.formElementEnter & gtm4wp.formElementLeave))

Fire this trigger when an Event occurs and all of these conditions are true

Click Classes > contains > icon-pp-pause

• This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by Patryk.

Hi there,

Thanks for providing these details.

I have installed the plugin and could see Form fill events (gtm4wp.formElementEnter & gtm4wp.formElementLeave. However, I cannot see “Fire this trigger when an Event occurs and all of these conditions are true”. where exactly is this located? Also, how do you get exact data about which episodes is being played or paused after the click?

Thanks,

Hi, turn off gtm4wp.formElementEnter an gtm4wp.formElementLeave.

Type trigger = Click All Elements

Fire this trigger when an Event occurs and all of these conditions are true

Click Classes -> equals -> icon_pp_play

I hope this is helpful.

Hi there,

Thanks for your reply.

I tried to find what you suggested above, however, I simply cannot find it.

Even if the above event capturing is available, this is not the best method to capture play/pause. As this will surely create problems. There are many reasons for this,

1. You are capturing .pp-icon-play and .pp-icon-pause in the play/pause button. However, this is not reliable, as these icons are just a small part of the entire play/pause button. It is very much possible to click outside of the icon and still play/pause the episode.
2. There are many other buttons and links that also controls the play/pause event. For example, if any user click on any episode link from the list, it will play or pause that episode. There could be many classes in the list item which can be the event target, Like episode title, thumbnail image or any other area. Capturing all classes is also not reliable.
3. One link can fire both play and pause events. If you click on any episode item from the episodes list, it will not only play the current episode but will also pause the previously running episode (if playing).
4. and most importantly, how will this event capture know which exact episode is being played or paused?

I really want to help you get exact data, however, I can only work on this if it will be viable and useful for most of my users. GTM plugin does support many plugins out of the box. You can ask the GTM developer to provide clear way to integrate the podcast player with their plugin. I am ready to do all necessary changes to fire events that can be captured by the plugin directly without you doing anything.

Inform me for any more information or clarification on this.

Thanks,

Then there is error, because for some reason not always one trigger fires, but different ones.

Yes. They can fire different events, as the same button will be used to play or pause the episode. Also, the same button can fire two events, pausing the previously playing episode and playing the current episode. Therefore, tracking button clicks are not efficient and reliable way to achieve that. Again, I am not sure how you also get the episode details that is being played or paused.

Therefore, I suggest you to please contact the GTM plugin author to automatically support the plugin out of the box (by catching the events and recording them). I can make required changes in my plugin.

Thanks,

You don’t understand. Choosing “play” gives a different trigger every time. Same with “pause”, each time it triggers completely different events. If it were as you say, then “play” would trigger the same event for playback, and “pause” for pause. Currently it is random, so no matter how many triggers you set, Google Tag Manager does not receive information whether the user selected play or pause.

Hi there,

I understand your concern, and I’d like to explain why the behavior you’re experiencing is happening and how we can resolve it effectively.

First, I’d like to clarify that the classes .pp-play-icon and .pp-pause-icon are not directly linked to specific play or pause buttons. These classes are used for visual elements within the player, but they are not reliable indicators of the actual play or pause actions. This is likely why you’re seeing inconsistent behavior when trying to track these events using Google Tag Manager (GTM).

The reason you’re seeing different triggers when trying to capture play and pause events is due to how the player handles interactions. Currently, the play and pause actions aren’t tied to a specific button or class; instead, they are dynamic. For example:

1. Dynamic Controls: The play/pause actions can be triggered not only by the play/pause button but also by other elements, like clicking on episode titles or thumbnails. This makes it difficult to reliably capture these actions using class-based click triggers.
2. Multiple Events: Clicking on an episode can result in both a play event (for the selected episode) and a pause event (for the previously playing one), which could cause confusion if you’re trying to capture this based purely on class or button clicks.
3. Inconsistent Triggers: Since various elements can trigger the play and pause actions, relying on click classes like .pp-play-icon or .pp-pause-icon will result in inconsistent triggers.

To provide a more robust solution, I suggest integrating the plugin with GTM through data events. By emitting custom events to the GTM dataLayer whenever the player state changes (e.g., play, pause, seek), you would be able to capture accurate information about what’s happening with the player without relying on button clicks. This would make it easier to track specific actions like play, pause, or episode change consistently.

I’ve also recommended that you contact the GTM plugin author about creating a proper integration. I’m happy to make the necessary changes to support this, ensuring seamless compatibility between our plugins.

Please let me know if you need further clarification, or if you can arrange a discussion with the GTM developer to facilitate this integration. I’m committed to making this work for you and other users.

Thank you for your patience, and I look forward to finding a solution together!

Wouldn’t it be easier if you could create a ready-made Google Tag Manager import container for download from your site? That would solve the problem regardless of what integration plugin or code the WordPress site owner uses. You would be a great help to your plugin users if you implemented such a solution.

Hi there,

Do you mean podcast player should work without GTM like plugins for capturing events?

Thanks,