You have been using Google Analytics to track visitors (or page views) on your website but did you know that the same analytics service can also be used for tracking views inside Google Spreadsheets. You insert a little snippet of tracking code inside your spreadsheet and when someone opens the sheet, that visit will be recorded permanently in your Google Analytics account.

Google Analytics provides a JavaScript snippet that can be inserted into web templates for tracking visits. You cannot insert JavaScript inside the cells of a Google Spreadsheet but we can use the IMAGE function combined with someApps Script to enable tracking inside spreadsheet. The visit is recorded as an “event” and not a “page view” and thus your spreadsheet opens will not artificially inflate your Google Analytics reports.

To get started, go to your Google Analytics dashboard and make a note of the Google Analytics tracking ID which is a string like UA-12345-67. This web tutorial explains how you can locate the ID inside your Analytics dashboard.

Now open any Google Spreadsheet that you wish to track and go to Tools, Script Editor and copy-paste the following code. This is a custom Google Spreadsheet function that will embed the 1×1 tracking GIF image in our spreadsheets.