Easily Track file downloads In Google Analytics With MonsterInsights

We can easily track file downloads In Google Analytics With MonsterInsights no matter whether you want to track PDF download, doc, pdf, ppt, zip, Xls, Docx, pptx, xlsx, or any other digital downloads.

If you have a website that offers content that needs to be downloaded then it’s important to keep a track of what the audience really wants and if your content is actually being appreciated. Therefore, to increase your audience and no. of downloads, you can keep track of your file downloads by google analytics.

How to Track File Downloads in Google Analytics (the Easy Way)

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1. Why Should File Downloads Be Tracked?

2. How To Track File Downloads?

3. Track File Downloads In Google Analytics.

4. File Downloads Tracking With MonsterInsights.

5. Conclusion.

Why Should File Downloads Be Tracked?

It is important to know whether the content or the resource available on the website is engaging enough or not? If your resources are appealing to the audience, it will automatically increase the number of downloads on your website.

So, tracking file downloads is important to keep in check which content is preferred by the audience and which content will be a waste of time and money.

Before moving on to how one can track file downloads, it’s important to know that tracking file downloads from Google Analytics is not an automatic process because Google Analytics file does not have tracking pixel but there are ways by which you can track that.

You may also be interested in FOMO Plugins, Email marketing service, Live Chat Plugins

How To Track File Downloads?

You should have a Google Analytics account and uninstall any other analytics plugins. Make sure that there should not have any other tracking code previously installed.

Basically, you have to connect your Google Analytics with your WordPress site which you can do with the help of MonsterInsights. Monsterinsights is the best Google Analytics WordPress plugin that shows what audiences do on your website. Let’s see how tracking works:

Step 1: Install And Activate MonsterInsight Plugin

Note – We need MonsterInsight Pro License

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1. Download the MonsterInsight plugin.

2. Go to the WordPress account dashboard, click on Plugins on the left bar, and then click on add new.

3. Click on the upload plugin option on the top of the page and another screen will pop up which will ask you to choose and upload the file.

4. Log in to your MonsterInsights account and download the plugin zip file and install it on the previous screen by clicking on the “Install Now” button.

5. After uploading and installing the plugin, activate the plugin by clicking on the “Activate Plugin” button.

6. After activating the plugin, go through the setup process and after finishing the setup, your google analytics will connect with WordPress.

Step 2: Sign Up for Google Analytics & Connect it to MonsterInsights

To connect your Google Analytics to your WordPress account, firstly sign up to your Google Analytics account. Using MonsterInsights, you can easily add the tracking code to your website without touching a single line of code.

After the setup, file download tracking will be automatically enabled on your website. MonsteInsight also takes care of all the configuration, so you don’t have to worry about that as well.

Step 3: Adding File Extensions To Track As Downloads

MonsterInsight by default tracks the downloads of the following file extensions; doc, pdf, ppt, zip, xls, Docx, pptx, and xlsx. In this step, you can choose all the file extensions that you want to track using MonsterInsights.

Go to Insights and click on settings. Then select Engagement from the top menu. Now, you have to scroll down to the File Downloads section. Here, you can add more extensions that you want to track on your Website other than the default extensions.

Step 4: Viewing Downloaded File In WordPress

After setting up the file download tracking, you can view the File Download reports inside your WordPress dashboard. To do this, go to Insights, click on Reports and select Publishers Report. Now, scroll down to the Top Download Links. Here, you can see the top download links on your site. Now, you just have to see the file that is downloaded the most to create similar content and gain more reach.

Track File Downloads in Google Analytics.

Login to your Google Analytics account and select the required size which you want to track. If pageviews are enabled, you will have a download report on All pages.

These reports can be viewed by:

1.) Click on behavior, then go to Site Content.

2.) Now, click on All Pages.

You will see your report in event reports. Go to behavior and on the left side, click on the Event. There will be 4 different options

Overview- It gives you a summary of the top events of your site
Top Events- It shows you the list of top events on your site that keeps your visitors engaged.
Pages- It shows you the list of pages where all the events occur on your site.
Event Flow– It shows you the events that keep your visitors engaged with your site.

Detailed reports will be available in the Top Events Section.

To retain the record, download the report by clicking on download.

File Downloads Tracking With MonsterInsights

You can find all your file downloads categorized as downloads in your event report. We are listing down a few important components of the event report.

Event Label- It is the label of the href attribute.
Event Action- It consists of the full URL of the file you’d want to track.

Here’s an example of event action <a href=”https://www.gomahamaya.com/my-ebook.pdf”>Download My Ebook</a>.

Event Category- You’ll find every file download categorized as Download in your events report.

Conclusion

That’s it. We hope you understand how you can View Your customer file downloads in Google Analytics. If you have any feedback or queries, do let us know in the comments down below. We would love to hear from you.

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