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Amplitude support for browsers extensions

  • 25 January 2024
  • 4 replies
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Hi there!

We need some assistance in understanding how to track Amplitude metrics such as Active Users, Start Session, etc. from a browser extension. We would like to know how to send events from our extension that will be taken into account in metrics such as "Active Users", "New Users", "Average Session", etc., which are standard Amplitude Metrics.

We have looked through the community and did not find anything specific on how to achieve this. We only found a suggestion to send custom events using the SDK, but we are not sure how to send events that have an impact on the Amplitude metrics we mentioned above.

Can someone help us understand how to accomplish this? are there documentation that covers this topic?

 

Thanks in advance!

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Best answer by Saish Redkar 26 January 2024, 19:16

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Certainly not the amplitude expert here, but ‘new, active, and average’ are calculated based on the other events you send, session length is configured in the settings for your organization/project (default is 30 minutes of no events for a specific uuid i think). Effectively, as long as you’re sending events and identify calls with a device/user ID via the SDK, amplitude will automatically classify that as a ‘new user’ when it’s the first time it’s seen it, an ‘active user’ if they logged at least one event in the reporting interval when you’re building a report etc. 

 

 

Hi Raúl, Rege’s response is correct - any event you send (unless it’s manually marked “inactive”) will be counted toward New Users, Active Users, and Session Length.

 

The metrics shown on the homepage are actually just normal charts - you can click on the titles and view how they’re built.

 

New Users

When clicking in, you can see the event that’s selected is “[Amplitude] New User”. This is a shortcut event that we create in the UI to make it easier for you to target new users. You can read more about this in the “What does New User mean?” section of this page: https://help.amplitude.com/hc/en-us/articles/360052734691#h_01EQFSJ5YFEGM5TKTY4XS5J2DY

 

Active Users

This chart has “[Amplitude] Any Active Event” selected, which is another shortcut event that represents any event that is not marked as “inactive” in the Data Governance UI (all events are “active” by default).

You can read more about this in the “Inactive event” section here: https://help.amplitude.com/hc/en-us/articles/204620508-Helpful-Definitions

 

Average Session

This is a different type of chart to the others (others are Segmentation) - it’s a User Sessions chart. You can read more about how this chart works here, and how sessions are calculated here.

 

I hope this is helpful Raúl.

Best,

Joe (Ampliteer)

Hello there!

Firstly, I wanted to express my appreciation for your assistance. Thank you very much.

If I am understanding correctly, We can send custom events from the Chrome extensions indicating other kinds of user actions, and Amplitude is capable of using these custom events to calculate metrics such as active users, user retention, and engagement, without requiring the sending of default events like session start or page viewed. Am I on the right track with my understanding?

Or do we need to adjust the metrics and charts you mentioned to account those custom events sent from the Chrome extension as well?

thank you so much for your support again!

All the best

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Hi @Raúl González

Adding on to the responses by Joe and Rege ,

  • Yes, once you instrument your custom events using the applicable Amplitude SDK, you will be able to generate your metrics using the relevant Amplitude Charts.
  • You can still configure the SDK to capture Session Start events or default page view events if you want. These events will help in understanding your session metrics and page view metrics when charted in the relevant charts. For Session metrics, you will need to have a session ID captured on every event , else all events will be considered out of session events.

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