Send click and conversion events with InstantSearch.js

What are events?

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.

How to send events

InstantSearch widgets can automatically send certain events if you enable the insights option when setting up your app.

For a full guide to implementing events, see Send events with InstantSearch.

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.

Numeric refinement widgets don’t send clicked events as the clickedFilters event does not apply to numeric filters. This is relevant for connectNumericMenu- and connectRange-based widgets.

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.

Default click events for results widgets

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

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 { items, sendEvent, widgetParams } = renderOptions;

  widgetParams.container.innerHTML = `
    <ul>
      ${items
        .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);