HTML Media Elements Tracking Library

Hi! This a JavaScript library to help tracking HTML Media Elements ( video/audio elements ) . I started this new version back in 2019 but it was never publicly announced, now I've rewrote it, and build it as a NPM module and Standalone Library.

The library is provided in the AMD, UMD, IIFE and ESM formats, all of them available in the dist folder

The current data model is based on the one used by Google Tag Manager for YouTube videos, meaning that you'll be able to use the current in-built events.

Features

GTM DataLayer Support
Tealium Support
Automatic new videos/audio detection
Data elements support to pass back data for the current video
Progress tracking
Start, Pause, Mute, Unmute, Seek, Complete and Error events

Build

$ npm install $ npm run build

How to use

The library will expose a public global variable at "window._htmlMediaElementsTracker" and an "init" method that will accept all the parameters / settings.

 <script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/@thyngster/html-media-elements@latest/dist/htmlMediaElementsTracker.min.js">

<script>
    window._htmlMediaElementsTracker.init({
        tms: 'debug',
        datalayerVariableNames: ['auto'],
        debug: true,
        observe: true,
        data_elements: true,        
        start: true,
        play: true,
        pause: true,
        mute: true,
        unmute: true,
        complete: true,
        seek: true,
        progress: true,
        error: true,
        progress_tracking_method: 'percentages',
        progress_percentages: [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10],
        progress_thresholds: [],        
    });   
</script>

Configuration Settings

key name	value type	description
tms	string	Tag Management System we are using
datalayerVariableNames	array	If the TMS is Google Tag Manager, we can push the data to an specific dataLayer , by default the library will search for the current dataLayer variable name
debug	boolean	Enable debug output to console
observe	boolean	Automatically track newly added video/audio elements
data_elements	boolean	data-html-media-element-title attribute will be used for elementTitle if provided
start	boolean	Track Audio/Video Start Event
play	boolean	Track Audio/Video Play Event
pause	boolean	Track Audio/Video Pause Event
mute	boolean	Track Audio/Video Mute Event
unmute	boolean	Track Audio/Video Unmute Event
complete	boolean	Track Audio/Video End Event
seek	boolean	Track Audio/Video Seek Event
progress	boolean	Track Audio/Video Progress Events
progress_tracking_method	boolean	'percentages' or 'thresholds' // thresholds not available yet
progress_percentages	array	Array of % where we should fire an event
progress_thresholds	array	TBD

Supported Events

Data Model

Key	Value Example	Description
event	gtm.audio/gtm.video	Current Media Element Type
Provider	html5	Fixed value, describes the current media element provider
Status	start,pause,mute,unmute,progress, seek, completed, error	current media element event name
Url	http://www.dom.com	Current Video Holding URL ( iframe url reported if it's the case)
Title	Video Demo	Current video element data-media-element-title value, defaults to current video file name
Duration	230	Media element duration in seconds
CurrentTime	230	Media element current time in seconds
ElapsedTime	230	Elapsed time since last pause/play event
Percent	15	Media element current played %
Visible	true\|false	Reports if the video is visible within the current browser viewport
isMuted	true\|false	Is the current media element muted?
PlaybackRate	1	Media Element PlaybackRate, default: 1
Loop	true\|false	Is the video set to loop?
Volume	0.8	Current Video Volume
NetworkState		Network State
Data	Object	List of custom video data coming from data-attributes tagging
elementClasses	""	Element Classes List
elementId	""	Element Id
elementTarget	""	Element Target
elementUrl	""	Element URL

Using a custom Video Title

When using HTML Media Element, we don't have a way to pass any video details, this library will allow you to customize the current video Title being reported.

<video src="" data-html-media-element-title="Demo Video version 1">

This will make the VideoTitle to be reported as "Demo Video version 1", is there's not data-attribute the library will use the current video file name

Passing back video details

You can pass all the custom data you need about the video to have it passed back to the tracking events. To achieve this we can all the data we want to the videos using data-attributes.

This can be done using data-attributes with the following format:

data-html-media-element-param-{{PARAM NAME}}="{{PARA VALUE}}"

All the data added to the <video> elements will be passed back to events so you can used them.

For example:

<video width="400" 
controls 
data-html-media-element-param-band="Neil Zaza"
data-html-media-element-param-song-name="I'm Alright"
data-html-media-element-param-category="Music"
data-html-media-element-title="video test">
    <source src="mov_bbb.mp4" type="video/mp4">
    <source src="mov_bbb.ogg" type="video/ogg">
    Your browser does not support HTML video.
</video>

This will turn on have a videoData (or audioData) object passing the data this way:

 {
     element:  video
     elementClasses:  ""
     elementId:  "vbst4f9ed29"
     elementTarget:  video
     elementUrl:  "https://local.dev/demo/mp3.html"
     event:  "video"
     videoCurrentTime:  2
     videoData:
    	 band:  "Neil Zaza"
    	 category:  "Music"
    	 songname:  "I'm Alright"
     videoDuration:  361
     videoElapsedTime:  2
     videoIsMuted:  false
     videoLoop:  false
     videoNetworkState:  1
     videoPercent:  0
     videoPlaybackRate:  1
     videoProvider:  "html5"
     videoStatus:  "pause"
     videoTitle:  "video test"
     videoUrl:  "mov_bbb.mp4"
     videoVisible:  true
     videoVolume:  1
 }

Dynamically added Media Elements / Modals

The library is able to attach the needed tracking listeners when a video is added dynamically to the site, like when a video is added into a modal using the Mutation Observer API ( where available )

Set config.objserve to true to enable this functionality

This will allow the tracking of dynamically added videos and videos shown on modals.

Tag Manager Systems Support

Despite this library was initially made for GTM it can output the data for some other TMS. It currently supports Google Tag Manager ( dataLayer.push() ) and Tealium ( utag.link() )

analytics-debugger/html-media-elements-tracking-library