Wondering how to track file downloads on your website?
Do you know how many times your subscribers download your ebook or file?
In this post, you will learn how you can easily track file downloads on your WordPress website.
Why Should You Track File Downloads?
If you are offering PDFs, eBooks, cheat sheets, videos, or any other downloadable resources on your website, then you should know if people are downloading those files.
It provides important data to help you understand your website audience.
By using this data, you can produce content that they love.
Tracking file downloads help you save money by producing the content that your audience wants.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it.
Google Analytics does not have the feature to automatically track file downloads.
That’s where MonsterInsights comes to your rescue.
Let us see how to enable file download tracking on your WordPress site using MonsterInsights easily.
Why You Should Use MonsterInsights to Track Your File Downloads
Setting up file download tracking in Google Analytics requires technical skills.
With Monster Insights, you can easily set up and track file downloads without any coding knowledge.
Note: MonsterInsights is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. It is one of the must-have plugins for the new WordPress site.
How To Track File Downloads on Your Website
Let us see how to track file downloads on your website easily with Monster Insights.
Install and Activate MonsterInsights Plugin
Installing the MonsterInsights plugin is the first step to tracking file downloads on your site.
Follow the steps given below:
- From the dashboard of your site, click on “Plugins”.
- Click on “New” and search for “MonsterInsights”.
- Install and activate the plugin.
Connect Google Analytics with MonsterInsights
After activating the MonsterInsights Plugin, you need to connect your Analytics account to it.
- Click Insights > Settings from the dashboard of your site.
- Under the General tab, click “Authenticate with your Google account”.
- Login to your Google Analytics account and permit MonsterInsights to access your Google Analytics account.
- Select your website profile and click on “Complete authentication”.
The feature to track file downloads will be enabled once the setup is completed.
Add File Extensions to Track as Downloads
All file downloads will be tracked as events.
In Google Analytics, event tracking will help your interactions such as file downloads, clicks, video plays, form submissions, etc.
Click Insights > Settings > Tracking.
Click “File Downloads” from the sidebar. You can see that file tracking is already selected for you.
MonsterInsights helps you track the following file extensions: doc, exe, js, pdf, ppt, tgz, zip, and xls.
To track downloads of more file extensions, you just need to add it to the Extensions of files to track as a downloads field, separated by a comma.
Once you have updated the file formats, click on Save.
How To View File Downloads in WordPress and Google Analytics
Once you have set up the file download tracking on your website, Google Analytics will start tracking your file downloads.
Wait for a day or two to check your metrics.
Let us see how to view your file downloads.
How To View File Downloads in WordPress
To view your file downloads, you do not need to log in to your Analytics account.
You can view it from the dashboard of your WordPress site.
Note: You’ll need to have a Plus license plan to be able to access this feature. Get a 50% Discount Now.
Follow the steps below:
Go to Insights » Report » Publishers Report on your WordPress dashboard.
Scroll down to see your downloads.
How To View File Downloads in Google Analytics
To view file downloads from your Google Analytics, log in to your Analytics account and select the website you wish to track the file downloads.
You can view the download reports together by clicking Behavior > Site Content > All Pages.
If you have enabled download tracking as events, then you can view file downloads in event reports.
Go to Behavior » Events
Click Top Events > Download to see the detailed report of your downloads.
Final words
By now, you must have learned how to track file downloads on your website easily.
When it comes to tracking file downloads, MonsterInsights is a great tool that every WordPress site owner should use.
Use MonsterInsights to connect your Google Analytics with WordPress and automate the process of tracking file downloads.
What do you think?
How do you track visitors who download files on your website?
If you have any questions about setting up file download tracking on your website, please leave your comments.
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