Skip to content

Parse.ly Integration

Whether you’ve already made your purchase or you want a summary of the process before starting, these are the steps for Parse.ly integration.

  1. Receive one “sandbox” Site ID and one, or more, production Site IDs from Support.
  2. If using the sandbox Site ID, inform Support of the domain you’re installing Parse.ly.
  3. Install the tracking code.
  4. Test pageview events.
  5. Send metadata.
  6. Validate metadata.
  7. Admins, adjust your preferences.
  8. Admins, invite your teammates.
  9. Read our Getting Started Guide and contact your Relationship Manager for training.
  10. If your contract contains premium features, install them.
  • We will send you your Site ID
  • You’ll choose a tracking script injection method, like GTM, and insert your Site ID
  • Our tracking script, with Site ID, will appear in your HTML
  • Visitors will trigger pageview events when visiting your site
  • Parse.ly will receive and display your pageviews and then assign them to your Site ID
  • Parse.ly will then scan your HTML to find the metadata you’ve placed there
  • The metadata we receive should match what you’ve mapped to your CMS
  • Once we’ve crawled your site for metadata we’ll associate it with your pageviews.
  • As time goes on and your traffic increases, you’ll see historical comparisons in your dashboard.
  • As you become familiar with your Dashboard, you can find ways to customize everything to meet your needs.

Step 1: Receive Site IDs

An Account Executive will work with your team to determine your needs and how Parse.ly can solve them. This person will also coordinate set up of your Parse.ly dashboards. They will contact the Parse.ly Support team and provide contract details.

The Support team will then create Parse.ly Site IDs and enable the features that you’ve purchased. Your team will need these Site IDs when it is time to install tracking (Step 3).

You’ll receive emails from:

  • Parse.ly (support@parsely.com) — this is where we’ll provide your Site IDs and personalized instructions.
  • Parse.ly (app@parsely.com) — Parse.ly Support will invite the first batch of Parse.ly Admins

Step 2: Use the Sandbox

This is an optional step. However, we encourage using the sandbox for testing. Read our sandbox instructions here. You’ll be performing all the same steps identified below.

Step 3: Install tracking

In most cases, we recommend using Google Tag Manager to install our JavaScript Tag on your site. Click here to see a full list of options. You will be using the Site ID provide in Step 1.

GTM is one convenient way to add our code
Our code will appear on your site like this

Some sites may require special configuration to account for Single-Page Applications or dynamic tracking. Click here to see if any of these special cases apply to your site.

Step 4: Test

Shortly after installing our tracking code on your pages, your site will start generating pageview events. Read our testing instructions to validate those pageviews in your browser.

Minutes after your site begins sending pageviews, you should see them in your Parse.ly Dashboard.

Parse.ly dashboard displaying pageviews
Adding tracking code will trigger pageviews and enable all other Parse.ly features

Step 5: Send metadata

If your CMS is WordPress, we recommend using the WordPress Parse.ly Plugin. By following these instructions, you may use the plugin with GTM tracking (from Step 3).

If you are not using WordPress, review our metadata requirements.

Regardless of your CMS, the objective is the same. We want to take information, like the author of a post, and gain meaningful insights from there. For example:

The WordPress Post editor has an Author field. In the screenshot below, I’ve selected my name.

Now the wp-parsely plugin will extract this information out of WordPress and will display it in the form of a meta tag within the HTML of the post.

Once Parse.ly receives that first pageview event (depicted in Step 4), we will crawl the url to get the metadata. We then associate the pageview information with the metadata for a complete picture in the Dashboard.

Step 6: Validate metadata

Review the listings in your Dashboard to ensure the metadata matches your expectations. We have a validator tool that you may download at the Chrome Web Store.

Step 7: Adjust Preferences

Admins should review the Preferences menu and make suitable adjustments for their team. You may access the menu in your dashboard and follow these instructions.

To see more information about Account settings, review our documentation.

Step 8: Invite teammates

Admins should invite their teammates using these instructions.

Step 9: Training

When your satisfied with the integration of your Parse.ly Dashboard, contact your Relationship Manager to discuss training. In the meantime, download our Getting Started Guide, read through our Dashboard Features documentation, and explore these tools that come bundled with your Dashboard:

Step 10: Add-on features

After your Parse.ly Dashboard integration and testing, you may continue installing add-on features in any order.

Add-on features include

Last updated: February 07, 2024