Do you want to track file downloads in Google Analytics?
I am going to share the exact steps that you need to follow to set up the file downloads tracking in Google Analytics.
By setting up file downloads tracking, you can track how many visitors have downloaded your ebook or any other type of file you offer on your website.
But Google Analytics doesn’t offer file downloads tracking option itself, because files can’t request a tracking pixel which is a short code snippet that needs to track users’ behaviour.
Here MonsterInsights makes it easy to track file downloads without the need to touch a single line of code. It is the easiest method you can use to track the file downloads on your WordPress website.
I will show you how you can do that using the MonsterInsights plugin but before that, you need to understand why you need to track the file downloads and why it is important for you.
Why Should You Track File Downloads?
If you’re offering downloadable files like eBooks, PDF guides, templates, images etc. to your visitors then it becomes compulsory to know whether they are being downloaded or not.
Here are some of the benefits of tracking file downloads in Google Analytics:
- Find out how many people are downloading your downloadable resources on your website.
- Find out which content type your visitors are interested in and offer them more to engage them with your site.
- Save time and money by not producing unwanted content, only produce content that your visitors actually want.
How To Set Up File Downloads Tracking In Google Analytics Using MonsterInsights?
Now let’s see how you can setup file downloads tracking in Google Analytics using the MonsterInsights plugin:
If you prefer watching video more than reading text then watch this complete tutorial:
For setting up file downloads tracking, you only need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin in your WordPress website. For installing MonsterInsights, navigate to Plugins>Add New then search for the MonsterInsights.
Click on the Install button and then Activate to make it live on your website.
Make sure your follow this guide to setup MonsterInsights on your website.
There is nothing else you need to do to enable the file downloads tracking on your site, It is activated automatically.
You don’t have to do anything for further configuration, MonsterInsights will do it itself. File downloads will be tracked as Event in Google Analytics.
In Google Analytics, events tracking are used to measured user interactions with content like downloadable resources, mobile ad clicks, video plays etc.
How To Add More File Extensions to Track as Downloads?
MonsterInsights only tracks downloads of doc, xls, pdf, ppt, zip, docx, pptx, and xlsx file extensions by default. But if you need to track more type of files then you can easily add them.
Let me show you how you can add more file extensions:
To add more file extensions in MonsterInsights, navigate to Insights> Settings and then select Engagement from the top and scroll down to File Downloads.
In the File downloads, you can see all the file extensions that MonsterInsights accept by default. You can add more file extensions you want to track on your website(separated with the commas).
How To View File Downloads In WordPress?
Now the file download tracking set up successfully, let see how you can see the file downloads report.
You can access the report from your WordPress dashboard as well as from Google Analytics.
In WordPress Dashboard
To view the file downloads report, navigate to Insights>Report>Publishers Report and then scroll down to see your downloads.
You can see all the file downloads stats on your website. This report will help you in creating such kind of content that your visitors are interested in.
In Google Analytics
To see the file downloads report in Google Analytics, first, you need to log into your Google Analytics account and select the website where you’d like to track the file downloads.
To find out the file downloads, navigate to Behaviour>Site Content>All Pages. You can see four different options:
- Overview: It shows you a summary of top events data.
- Top Events: A list of events that keeps your visitors engaged.
- Pages: You can see the list of pages where your downloadable resources are hosted.
- Events Flow: Events flow helps in discovering which events keep your visitors engaged. It also shows the path users take from one popular event to another.
To get a deep insights, click on the Top Events:
Now click on the downloads to get a detailed report:
This is how you can view the file downloads report in Google Analytics.
Conclusion
So, this is how you can enable file downloads tracking in your WordPress website using the MonsterInsights.
There is no direct way to set up file downloads tracking with Google Analytics, you must need the MonsterInsights plugin.
With file downloads tracking, you can find which type of content your visitors are interested in and you can invest your time and money in creating the same type of content.
Here are a few other hand-picked articles related to MonsterInsights which you may like:
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- How to Add Easy, Powerful Google Analytics in WooCommerce?
I hope you found this tutorial helpful, if you did then make sure you share it with the others.
