Non‑Interaction Events In Google Analytics

You already know about event tracking in Google Analytics and using it for everything from downloads to video plays. Maybe you’re using jQuery or Google Tag Manager to capture events.

One thing to note about events is that, by default, events affect the bounce rate. That is, if a user lands on a page and an event is triggered, they are not a bounce (even if they don’t view any subsequent pages). In many cases, that’s what you want: after all, if someone engages with the page in some way, you probably don’t want to count them as a bounce any more.

However, you have control over whether those events affect bounce rate. There’s a parameter you can send with the event data to decide this called the “non-interaction” parameter. In a case where a video auto-plays when someone lands on the page, for example, we might want to set the non-interaction parameter so that the bounce rate of that page isn’t zero.

Flagging Non-Interaction Events

The code for a non-interaction event is just a single parameter you set along with the event data.

For Classic GA:

_gaq.push(['category', 'action', 'label', value, true]);

For Universal Analytics:

ga('send', 'event',
   'category', 'action', 'label', 'value',
   {'nonInteraction': 1})

Using Google Tag Manager:

Effect on Metrics

Non-interaction events are mostly referenced in regard to bounce rate, but they actually affect several metrics. Setting the non-interaction parameter has the following effects:

• Bounce rate and time metrics (session duration and time on page) are no longer affected by the event.
• The number of total events, unique events, sessions, users, etc. are counted normally.