How do I determine how many users click 'next' given 'next' exists?

Question

I run a site that has a paging list showing a fixed number of items per page. I want to find out how how likely users are to navigate to the next page, given there is a next page. In other words, if my event tracking shows that on, say, page 3, users are very unlikely to click next, I want to be sure that this is not because most of the list are only 3 pages long.

My idea has been to send one event for each page view that tells GA whether this particular page is the last or not, and then to send another event if the user clicks on 'next'. I would then assume I could somehow extract information in Google Analytics telling me how often a user clicks 'next', given the last event was one saying the current page was not the last.

However, this does not appear to be something Google Analytics can easily do. My question therefore is: Is there another way to solve the same problem, or is there indeed away to get the information from Google Analytics with the approach I've been using?

Update: I want to clarify that on my site there are many of these lists, and they are of varying lengths. Which means that sometimes when the user is on page 2 of a list, sometimes there is a page 3 and sometimes there isn't. Obviously the user can't go to page 3 if there are only two pages. If I don't correct the data for these cases, I have no way of knowing if a sharp decline in users clicking 'next' is caused by a unusually many list that are only one page long, or something else.

Answer 1

Your question suggests that there already is Google Analytics implemented, therefore I recommend exploring the Enhanced Ecommerce module. It offers position tracking for list items, which can also be tweaked to include the list length in list's name. There are plenty other, very interesting metrics in this module as well.

Another way to track this is by using custom metrics and dimensions. This would require a little bit more tweaking and planning though. For example, you can store "next" clicks amount as one custom metric and amount of pages as custom dimension, then, after gathering some data, configure a custom report to see percentages (with calculated metrics for example). Please keep in mind that custom/calculated metrics in GA have certain properties and scopes, therefore you really should read docs and think it over before implementing. I'd try with Enhanced Ecommerce first.