How do I correctly Implement an event on successful form Submission using Google Tag Manager and Sitecore's Web Forms for Marketers? - forms

Question

I am attempting to track successful form Submissions using an event in Google Analytics via Google Tag Manager. My current setup successfully tracks when users submit the form. However, the event still fires even when the form submission is invalid and does not submit (ie a user hasn't filled out all of the required fields, clicks the submit button, the form attempts to validate, but comes back to the user with errors instead of submitting). I have the Check Validation feature on my listener checked which theoretically should keep the tag from firing if the form submission is prevented, so it's not the obvious error.
The form in question is created with Sitecore's Web Forms for Marketers. Colleagues of mine have had similar unsolved issues with their WFFM forms.
This particular form is used to gate content so that only users who fill out the form will have access to the content resource. So for example if I go to www.mydomain.com/resource I will be redirected to www.mydomain.com/form where if I fill out all of my information correctly and submit it I will then be redirected to the resource that I was originally attempting to view at www.mydomain.com/resource.
Here's my setup:
Tag 1
Name: Form Submission Listener
Type: Form Submit Listener
Wait For Tags: Checked
Max Wait Time: 2000 milliseconds
Check Validation: Checked
No advanced Settings
Firing Rule: On form pages by URL
Tag 2
Name: Event Form Submission
Type: Universal Analytics
Tracking ID: UA-.....
Enable Display Advertising Features: Checked
Track Type: Event
Category: Form
Action: Submission
Label: {{Form resource URL}}
Non-Interaction Hit: False
No More Settings
No Advanced Settings
Firing Rules: {{event}} equals gtm.formSubmit
Theoretically the Check Validation check box should prevent the tag from firing if the form does not successfully submit, but in the case of this form it does not. The tag fires regardless of whether the form submits or not.
Apologies that I cannot link to the form as it is for a client and behind security.

Answer 1

We were able to find an answer to our question via the Sitecore forums, but I wanted to pass it along for your benefit.
From Sitecore:
The Web Forms module provides the double level validation, 1-client validation, 2-server validation.
By default, the client validation is disable for the Required Field validator. So, when you press Submit, the form posts to the server, and returns with the validation error. It's a possible reason why Google Analytics considers that as a form submit.
Find the following item in the Master database:
/sitecore/system/Modules/Web Forms for Marketers/Settings/System/System Validation/NotEmpty
Find the "Enable Client Script" checkbox and enable it.
Save and publish the item.
Check whether the issue was fixed.
This fixed the issue for all of our text based fields. It did not fix the issue for the one checkbox on the form. I've followed up with sitecore on this, but I figured that I'd update here in the meantime.
With only the checkbox remaining I was also able to use a a macro and add to my original firing rule in google tag manager so that the event would not fire if the checkbox was not checked.
I created a Custom Javascript Macro called Radio Button Checked (not sure it's the best, but it worked), and added a new condition to my original Form Submission Rule: {{Radio Button Checked}} equals true
The macro:
function() {
var radioName = "radioButtonName";
try {
var buttons = document.getElementsByName(radioName);
for (var i = 0;i < buttons.length;i++){
if(buttons[i].checked) {
return true;
}
}
} catch(e) {}
return false;
}
EDIT: Sitecore got back to me about the checkbox issue.
From Sitecore:
Currently the CheckBox field type doesn't have the client-side validation. I registered it as a bug for the WFFM module. I'll let you know as soon as it's fixed.
They let me know also that this isn't something that will be fixed near-term so I need to continue using my GTM workaround for the check box field.

Answer 2

The Google Chrome plugin "Tag Assistant" is super helpful in debugging these sorts of issues. It will show you what (if any) structural or implementation issues exist on a given page that might be preventing your intended tracking behavior (https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/tag-assistant-by-google/kejbdjndbnbjgmefkgdddjlbokphdefk?hl=en)
My gut feel is that this issue is not specifically related to WFFM, but may be due to the implementation of the Tag Manager code on the page. I seem to recall having an issue like this when the Tag Manager include code gets dumped inside the auto-generated .NET tag when using WebForms in general. Google's docs (https://developers.google.com/tag-manager/quickstart) say to put it immediately after the opening tag, and I recall that being my issue with tracking form submits.
This is all from memory, so I could be wrong, but it's something else to check.
Good luck!