Concepts / Getting insights and analytics / Send Personalization Events React InstantSearch
Jun. 28, 2019

Send Personalization Events React InstantSearch

InstantSearch allows developers to collect personalization events.

Click and conversion events sent can be used for personalization purposes as well. Some events however can only be used for personalization purposes.

Using Algolia Insights with React InstantSearch

Install the Search-Insights Library

To make use of analytics, the search-insights library has to be added to your application.

The Insights library can either be loaded via jsDelivr CDN or from your own static fileserver. If you choose the latter, you have to update the ALGOLIA_INSIGHTS_SRC variable to point to the URL of the file on your own fileserver. We recommend loading the library by adding this snippet in the <head> of your HTML file.

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<script>
  var ALGOLIA_INSIGHTS_SRC = "https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/search-insights@1.1.1";

  !function(e,a,t,n,s,i,c){e.AlgoliaAnalyticsObject=s,e.aa=e.aa||function(){
  (e.aa.queue=e.aa.queue||[]).push(arguments)},i=a.createElement(t),c=a.getElementsByTagName(t)[0],
  i.async=1,i.src=ALGOLIA_INSIGHTS_SRC,c.parentNode.insertBefore(i,c)
  }(window,document,"script",0,"aa");


  // Initialize library
  aa('init', {
    appId: 'YourApplicationID',
    apiKey: 'YourSearchOnlyAPIKey'
  });
</script>

jsDelivr is a third-party CDN. We are not able to provide support regarding third party services.

Sending Events

userToken

By default, InstantSearch sends a default userToken when sending personalization events. This default is based on the users’ IP address and will work for most cases.

However, if you have to identify a user across different devices, you can send a custom userToken along with the eventName, index and objectIDs parameters when sending personalization events.

To get the default userToken provided by InstantSearch, you can call the getUserToken method on the Insights library.

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let userToken = '';
window.aa('getUserToken', null, (err, algoliaUserToken) => {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }

  userToken = algoliaUserToken;
});

objectID

This following examples cover how to obtain the objectID value for reporting. This feature is not available with the built-in widgets, but you can compose the connectors to create a new component that will have access to this value. You’ll have to use the Hits connector to access the hits, and the StateResults connector to access the value.

Insights events (click, conversion, view) used for analytics and/or personalization do not take immediate effect. The delay can range from 10 to 60 minutes depending on how long after the search they are sent. For precise times, see our page on when Insights events take effect.

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const Hits = connectHits(
  connectStateResults(({ hits, searchResults }) => (
    // render the hits
  ))
);

const App = () => (
  <InstantSearch
    indexName="INDEX_NAME"
    searchClient={searchClient}
  >
    <Hits />
  </InstantSearch>
);

Sending Click Events

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const Hits = connectHits(
  connectStateResults(({ hits, searchResults }) => (
    <div>
      {hits.map((hit, index) => (
        <div key={hit.objectID}>
          <button
            onClick={() => {
              window.aa('clickedObjectIDs', {
                index: "INDEX_NAME",
                eventName: "Add to Cart",
                objectIDs: [hit.objectID]
              });
            }}
          >
            Click event
          </button>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  ))
);

Sending Conversion Events

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const Hits = connectHits(
  connectStateResults(({ hits, searchResults }) => (
    <div>
      {hits.map((hit, index) => (
        <div key={hit.objectID}>
          <button
            onClick={() => {
              window.aa('convertedObjectIDs', {
                index: "INDEX_NAME",
                eventName: "Add to Favorite",
                objectIDs: [hit.objectID]
              });
            }}
          >
            Conversion event
          </button>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  ))
);

Sending View Events

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const Hits = connectHits(
  connectStateResults(({ hits, searchResults }) => (
    <div>
      {hits.map((hit, index) => (
        <div key={hit.objectID}>
          <button
            onClick={() => {
              window.aa('viewedObjectIDs', {
                index: "INDEX_NAME",
                eventName: "View Detail Page",
                objectIDs: [hit.objectID]
              });
            }}
          >
            Conversion event
          </button>
        </div>
      ))}
    </div>
  ))
);

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