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Guides / Building Search UI

Send click and conversion events with InstantSearch.js

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Events are actions that users take on your app or website. They unlock powerful features, such as recommendations, personalization, smarter search results, and analytics that help you optimize your user experience. For more information, see Get started with click and conversion events.

Live Demo Source Code

To send events from your InstantSearch app, follow these steps:

  1. Set the insights option to true. This loads the search-insights for you and sends default events when viewing and clicking search results, or when selecting filters.
  2. Add additional click events when users click search results.
  3. Track conversions that start in your InstantSearch app.

After each step, you should verify that Algolia receives all events without errors.

This guide works with InstantSearch.js version v4.55.0 or later.

Set the insights option to true

The insights option enables sending events to Algolia.

In your InstantSearch options, set insights to true.

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const search = instantsearch({
  searchClient,
  indexName: 'YourIndexName',
  insights: true,
});

Turning on the insights option achieves the following:

To change the event properties, send events from custom widgets, or send events to third-party tools, see the insights API reference.

Manage the Insights library

InstantSearch loads the search-insights library for you from jsDelivr. You don’t need to install it or set it up yourself.

If you’re using a Content Security Policy to protect your site and you want to let InstantSearch load search-insights for you, make sure to add https://cdn.jsdelivr.net in your list of trusted sources for JavaScript.

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script-src https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/

If you prefer hosting your own version of search-insights, you can add it to your project:

  1. Install the Insights client
  2. Initialize the Insights client (optional)

InstantSearch doesn’t load search-insights when it detects it on the page.

Set the userToken

InstantSearch automatically sets an anonymous user token for you and stores it in memory. To identify users across sessions, explicitly set the userToken yourself:

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window.aa('setUserToken', 'user-id');

For example, you can use the account ID after the user signed in on your website.

Don’t use personally identifiable information as a user ID.

Persist an anonymous userToken across sessions

The search-insights library can generate an anonymous user token and store it in the first-party _ALGOLIA cookie. To enable this, you can set the useCookie option to true.

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const search = instantsearch({
  insights: {
    // …
    insightsInitParams: {
      useCookie: true,
    },
  },
});

If you must abide by legal requirements like GDPR that prohibit usage of non-essential cookies without consent, leave useCookie as false and only update its value dynamically once the end user grants or withdraws consent.

For example, your code could look like this:

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document.getElementById('cookie-accept').addEventListener('click', () => {
  window.aa('init', {
    useCookie: true,
    partial: true,
  });
});

[
  document.getElementById('cookie-reject'),
  document.getElementById('cookie-withdraw'),
].forEach((button) => {
  button.addEventListener('click', (event) => {
    window.aa('init', {
      useCookie: false,
      partial: true,
    });
  });
});

If you’re using a cookie consent service like OneTrust or TrustArc, refer to their documentation to properly react to cookie consent updates.

Default events

With the insights middleware, your InstantSearch widgets send default events. To check the default events, go to the Events Debugger. For more information, see Validate your events.

Default click events for refinement widgets

The following widgets send click events (“Filter Applied”) when users select a refinement. Custom widgets using the connectors send the same events.

Widget Connector
hierarchicalMenu connectHierarchicalMenu
menu connectMenu
menuSelect connectMenu
numericMenu connectNumericMenu
rangeInput connectRange
rangeSlider connectRange
ratingMenu connectRatingMenu
refinementList connectRefinementList
toggleRefinement connectToggleRefinement

Default view events for results widgets

The following widgets send view events (“Hits Viewed”) for the visible items in the search results. Custom widgets using the connectors send the same events.

Widget Connector
autocomplete connectAutocomplete
geoSearch connectGeoSearch
hits connectHits
infiniteHits connectInfiniteHits

Default click events for results widgets

The following widgets send click events (“Hit Clicked”) when users click a search result.

Widget Connector
hits connectHits
infiniteHits connectInfiniteHits

Because of technical limitations, the default click events aren’t sent when using connectHits or connectInfiniteHits. If you’re using connectors, make sure to set up click events on them.

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function render(renderOptions, isFirstRender) {
  const { hits, sendEvent, widgetParams } = renderOptions;

  widgetParams.container.innerHTML = `
    <ul>
      ${hits
        .map(
          (item) =>
            `<li>
              ${instantsearch.highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit: item })}
            </li>`
        )
        .join('')}
    </ul>
  `;

  [...widgetParams.container.querySelectorAll('li')]
    .forEach((element, index) => {
      element.addEventListener('click', (event) => {
        sendEvent('click', hits[index], 'Hit Clicked');
      });
    });
}

const customHits = connectHits(render);
// or
const customInfiniteHits = connectInfiniteHits(render);

Send click events

The hits and infiniteHits widgets expose a sendEvent function. Use it to send click events when users interact with your search results.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Clicked')}">
          <h2>
            ${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}
          </h2>
          <p>${hit.description}</p>
        </div>
      `;
    },
  },
});

You can set more events on specific parts of your template. In the following example, when clicking on the Add to favorites button, two events are sent to the Insights API:

  • A click event with the eventName “Product Added to Favorites”
  • A click event with the eventName “Product Clicked” (via event propagation)
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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Clicked')}">
          <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}</h2>
          <p>${hit.description}</p>
          <button
            onClick="${() =>
              sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Added to Favorites')}"
          >
            Add to favorites
          </button>
        </div>
      `;
    },
  },
});

To only send the most specific event per clicked element, you can use Event.stopPropagation in your event handler.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <div onClick="${() => sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Clicked')}">
          <!-- … -->
          <button onClick="${(event) => {
+           event.stopPropagation();
            
            sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Added to Favorites')
          }}">
            Add to favorites
          </button>
        </div>
      `;
    },
  },
});

When InstantSearch captures a custom click event that you defined, it doesn’t send the default click event. In the following example, when clicking the Add to favorites button, only the “Product Added to Favorites” event is sent.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
          onClick="${() =>
            sendEvent('click', hit, 'Product Added to Favorites')}"
        >
          Add to favorites
        </button>
      `;
    },
  },
});

Check your click events in the Events Debugger. For more information, see Validate your events.

Send conversion events

You can use the sendEvent function to send conversion events from your InstantSearch app.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
          onClick="${() =>
            sendEvent('conversion', hit, 'Purchase With One-Click')}"
        >
          One-Click Purchase
        </button>
      `;
    },
  },
});

Unlike click events, setting custom conversion events don’t prevent the custom click event from being sent.

Conversions often happen outside your search results page. For example, an “Order Completed” event for a successful purchase happens in the shopping cart. To capture these conversions, keep track of the query ID across your site.

Then, send the conversion event with convertedObjectIDsAfterSearch from the search-insights library using window.aa.

Check your conversion events in the Events Debugger. For more information, see Validate your events.

Add-to-cart events

When your users add an item to their cart, send a special conversion event with the addToCart subtype.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
          onClick=${() =>
            sendEvent('conversion', hit, 'Added To Cart', {
              // Special subtype
              eventSubtype: 'addToCart',
              // An array of objects representing each item added to the cart
              objectData: [
                {
                  // The discount value for this item, if applicable
                  discount: hit.discount || 0,
                  // The price value for this item (minus the discount)
                  price: hit.price,
                  // How many of this item were added
                  quantity: 2,
                },
              ],
              // The total value of all items
              value: hit.price * 2,
              // The currency code
              currency: 'USD',
            })}
        >
          Add to cart
        </button>
      `;
    },
  },
});

Fields representing monetary values accept both numbers and strings, in major currency units (for example, 5.45 or '5.45'). To prevent floating-point math issues, use strings, especially if you’re performing calculations.

Purchase events

When your users purchase an item, send a special conversion event with the purchase subtype.

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hits({
  templates: {
    item(hit, { html, components, sendEvent }) {
      return html`
        <h2>${components.Highlight({ attribute: 'name', hit })}</h2>
        <p>${hit.description}</p>
        <button
          onClick=${() =>
            sendEvent('conversion', hit, 'Purchased', {
              // Special subtype
              eventSubtype: 'purchase',
              // An array of objects representing each purchased item
              objectData: [
                {
                  // The discount value for this item, if applicable
                  discount: hit.discount || 0,
                  // The price value for this item (minus the discount)
                  price: hit.price,
                  // How many of this item were added
                  quantity: 2,
                  // The per-item `queryID` for the query preceding this event
                  queryID: hit.__queryID,
                },
              ],
              // The total value of all items
              value: hit.price * 2,
              // The currency code
              currency: 'USD',
            })}
        >
          Purchase
        </button>
      `;
    },
  },
});

Fields representing monetary values accept both numbers and strings, in major currency units (for example, 5.45 or '5.45'). To prevent floating-point math issues, use strings, especially if you’re performing calculations.

A complete example

See Insights for InstantSearch.js for a complete example.

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