How To Set Up Calendly Tracking In Google Analytics using GTM

calendly tracking in Google Analytics using GTM

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Calendly is a wonderful tool to help make scheduling appointments or meetings easier for your clients. At some point, you’ll probably want to find out how your customers are finding you, and for that, we’ll use Google Analytics. Calendly tracking in Google Analytics is actually possible using Calendly’s native integration, which works with Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4, but that requires a paid Calendly Professional subscription (see image below). 

Calendly’s Google Analytics integration requires admin access and a paid subscription. We’ll show you how to track it for free!

There are also some instances where you might not have access to a Calendly account, but you still want to set up Calendly tracking in Google Analytics. We run into this situation a lot when setting up Calendly tracking for our clients. 

Luckily, we’ve figured out how to track Calendly events in Google Analytics using Google Tag Manager and you can too.

If Calendly is already embedded on your website, skip down to the GTM Recipe.

Setup Calendly Event On Website

If you haven’t already, sign up for a free Calendly.com account. After integrating with your calendar, you’ll need to set up your first event, such as a 30-minute meeting. Since you’re already on this page, I’ll assume this has already been done, but if you haven’t, Calendly has a good instruction article on their website. 

Once that event is created, click Share, then choose “Add to website.”

Click the “Share” button.

You will then be given multiple options to add Calendly to your website in different formats. We’ll show you how to set up Google Analytics tracking for the embedded Calendly widget so choose “Embed inline” and click Continue.

Choose “Embed inline” from the list of options on the “Add to website” tab.

You’ll then be presented with a final configuration screen that looks like the one below. Feel free to configure any other settings (such as increasing the height) on this screen.

Click the blue “Copy Code” button.

Click “Copy Code” and add the copied code to your website’s HTML. The copied code will then add the Calendly widget to your website in an iframe.

For WordPress websites, you can add the copied code to the Custom HTML block.

calendly in shopify
Here is what that looks like to add the Calendly widget to a Shopify page’s source code. We’ve increased the height of the widget from 630px to 1000px so that the fill widget always shows without a scrollbar on this Shopify site.

And this is what it’ll look like on your live website:

Here is what the copied Calendly code will add to your website. You can see a live example here.

Now that you’ve added the Calendly widget to your website, it’s time to move on to Google Tag Manager.

Track Calendly Using GTM

Instead of explaining the complexities of tracking Calendly (which is embedded in an iframe), we’ve made it easy for you to set up Calendly tracking in Google Analytics (both UA & GA4) by developing an easy-to-use Google Tag Manager Recipe.

Preparation:

Make sure Google Tag Manager (GTM) is properly installed on your website and Google Analytics is added to GTM. Since Universal Analytics will stop working in July 2023, we recommend using Google Analytics 4 so all of the screenshots will be from GA4. 

We also recommend becoming familiar with how to import GTM recipes by reviewing our guide.

What You’ll Get:

In Universal Analytics, when someone schedules a meeting, you’ll see the following event:

  • Event Category: Lead
  • Event Action: Calendly
  • Event Label: Meeting Scheduled

In Google Analytics 4, you’ll receive a “calendly” event with a “calendar_interaction” event parameter that returns 3 different values depending on the action taken. Those values are:

  • event_type_viewed
  • date_and_time_selected
  • event_scheduled

This allows you greater visibility and flexibility in GA4, but you’ll also need to take a few more steps to get it just right. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Download Calendly Tracking GTM Recipe

The first thing you need to do is download our premade GTM recipe. To get the recipe, sign up for free to our newsletter.

After downloading our Calendly GTM Recipe, import it into your GTM container, making sure not to erase anything you currently have in your container already by selecting Merge. You should see:

  • 3 tags
  • 2 triggers
  • 1 variable
Selecting the Merge option will ensure you don’t delete anything that’s currently in your GTM container.
All “ingredients” of our Calendly GTM Recipe.

Next, you’ll need to make sure the Google Analytics tags are using the correct UA Tracking ID and GA4 Measurement ID. Once you’ve don’t that, you can preview, test & publish your container.

After publishing, your Calendly tracking tags will start firing. Your Universal Analytics tracking will be complete (unless you want to set up a Goal), but in order to get the most out of tracking Calendly signups in GA4, you’ll need to continue reading.

GA4 Calendly Event Setup

As mentioned previously, Google Analytics 4 requires some additional setup for the cleanest, most usable data. Without further configuration, you’ll only see a generic “calendly” event and won’t be able to determine which specific action was taken. This means that marking it as a conversion will count every action (including widget views) as a conversion which is probably overkill.

There are two ways you can enhance the GA4 Calendly event setup to track meetings scheduled successfully based on your preference.

  1. Create a custom event via the GA4 user interface (recommended)
  2. Edit the trigger of the GA4 tag in GTM

Meetings Schedule Custom Event in GA4

By default, the “calendar_interaction” parameter returns 3 values (event_type_viewed, data_and_time_selected, & event_scheduled) so we’ll create a new event from within Google Analytics 4 that only fires when a meeting is scheduled successfully.

Register a Custom Dimension

When testing our tags in GA4’s DebugView, we can see that the calendly event fires with a calendar_interaction event parameter whose value is event_scheduled, but that won’t show up in our other GA4 reports until we register a custom dimension.

In your GA4 property, navigate to Configure > Custom definitions. Then, make sure that “Custom dimensions” is selected (it’s the default so it should be) and click the blue “Create custom dimensions” button.

There are two types of custom definitions in GA4: dimensions & metrics

In the new sidebar that pops out,

  • Give your dimension a descriptive name (we recommend using the parameter name)
  • Ensure Event scope is selected (default)
  • Optionally, give a description of the parameter
  • Enter “calendar_interaction” as the event parameter
Creating a custom dimension for calendar_interaction parameter

Click Save.

Create Custom Event

While still in GA4, navigate to Configure > Events then click the blue “Create event” button.

This will bring you to a screen with any custom events you’ve created. Click the blue “Create” button.

On the new popout, configure your new event:

  • Give your custom event a name (we suggest “calendly_meeting_scheduled” without quotes)
  • Under Matching conditions, enter:
    • event_name equals calendly
    • calendar_interaction equals event_scheduled
  • Click the blue Create button in the upper right corner.
Creating a custom event in GA4 to track Calendly scheduled meetings only
This is what your custom event should look like once set up.

Mark Custom Event as a Conversion

As an optional last step, we can mark our new custom calendly_meeting_scheduled event as a conversion so it can be imported into our Google Ads campaigns.

Navigate to Configure > Conversions, then click the blue “New conversion event” button.

Type in “calendly_meeting_scheduled” then click Save.

Edit GA4 Tags Trigger in GTM

The second option requires that you edit the trigger of the GA4 tag in Google Tag Manager.

The downside with this method is you won’t be able to see the number of other Calendly widget interactions like event_type_viewed and date_and_time_selected in GA4. If you don’t care about either of those, then this is a perfectly fine method of tracking successful Calendly meetings scheduled in Google Analytics 4.

After importing our GTM recipe:

  1. Click Tags in GTM
  2. Click into the “GA4 Event – calendly” tag
  3. Under Triggering, remove the current “cEvent – calendly” trigger
  4. Add “cEvent – calendly – event_schedule” trigger (Note: this trigger is already created for you and used in the Unviersal Analytics tag)
  5. Click the blue Save button

That’s it. You’ll now be able to track Calendly meetings in Google Analytics 4.

Setup Universal Analytics Goal – Optional

For the sake of completeness, below are instructions to track Calendly meetings as a Goal in Universal Analytics. Using our GTM Recipe, navigate to your UA property’s Admin > Goals settings then click the red “+New Goal” button.

To set up the Goal,

  1. In “Goal setup”, choose Custom, then click Continue
  2. In “Goal description”, enter a name (we suggest Calendly Meeting Scheduled) and choose Event as the type, then click Continue.
  3. In “Goal details”, enter the following:
    • Category Equals to Lead
    • Action Equals to Calendly
    • Label Equals to Meeting Scheduled
  4. Click Save

Book it.

Over time, you’ll be able to track how many meetings were scheduled by your embedded Calendly meetings widget with our Calendly tracking GTM recipe. Armed with this information, you’ll be able to have a better understanding of the users that book meetings so find more of them and grow your business or improve the quality of the meetings scheduled.

If you need help setting up Calendly tracking or would like to use Google Ads, Facebook/Instagram Ads, or SEO to get more prospective customers scheduling meetings from your website, contact our digital marketing experts today.

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