How To Properly Set Up eCommerce Tracking In WordPress

Are you looking to set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress?

Setting up eCommerce tracking for your online store will help you find your top-selling products, see which campaigns perform the best, understand how people find and use your website, and more. Then you can use those insights to get more traffic and boost sales.

In this article, we’ll show you how to properly set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress so you can grow your business and make more money.

How to properly set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress

Why Set Up WordPress eCommerce Tracking?

When starting a new online store, most store owners begin by making decisions based on gut feeling or best guesses.

That’s good for getting started, but to take your business to the next level of growth, you need to start making data-driven decisions.

However, what data should you base your decisions on?

That’s where WordPress eCommerce tracking comes in. It helps you make decisions based on data from your actual visitors and customers. You’ll get tailored insights to boost your sales to make more money.

For instance, you can find out which products your customers like to buy the most on your WooCommerce store. This way, you can offer similar products to get more sales.

Plus, eCommerce tracking in WordPress can help you better understand your audience, where they’re from, and how they use your website, so you can invest more in the channels and strategies that are proven to work.

For example, if you find out that 80% of course sales on your membership site come from Facebook, then you may decide to invest in ads on Facebook and stop spending time on other social media platforms like Twitter that may not convert well.

With that said, let’s take a look at how to track your eCommerce store’s performance in WordPress.

Setting Up eCommerce Tracking in WordPress

The easiest way to track the performance of your online store is by using MonsterInsights. It’s the best Analytics WordPress plugin and is used by over 3 million professionals.

MonsterInsights helps you set up eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics. The plugin works with some of the most popular eCommerce plugins, including WooCommerce, Easy Digital Downloads, LifterLMS, MemberPress, LifterLMS, GiveWP, and more.

The best part about using MonsterInsights is that you don’t need to edit code or hire a developer to track eCommerce conversions in WordPress.

That’s because the manual method for setting up eCommerce tracking in Google Analytics requires editing the tracking code or using Google Tag Manager.

Both of these methods are tricky and can be overwhelming for beginners. If any mistake takes place during the setup process, then it can mess up your analytics and data.

This is where MonsterInsights comes in handy. It offers an eCommerce addon that automatically configures eCommerce tracking on your WordPress website.

MonsterInsights

It also shows important stats inside your WordPress admin area, so you can quickly view how your website is performing and get insights to grow your business.

Note: You’ll need the MonsterInsights Pro version because it includes the eCommerce addon, dashboard reports, and other advanced tracking features. There is also a MonsterInsights Lite version you can use to get started.

First, you can install and activate the MonsterInsights Pro plugin on your website. If you need help, then please refer to our guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll be taken to the MonsterInsights welcome screen in your WordPress dashboard. Go ahead and click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button.

Set up MonsterInsights

Next, follow the steps in the wizard to set up the plugin and connect your website with Google Analytics. For more details, you can go through our guide on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress.

After that, you’ll need to navigate to Insights » Addons from your WordPress dashboard. Then scroll down to the eCommerce addon and click the ‘Install’ button.

Install the eCommerce addon

The addon will automatically activate, and you’ll see the status change to Active.

After that, simply navigate to Insights » Settings and click the ‘eCommerce’ tab.

Next, you’ll need to ensure that the ‘Use Enhanced eCommerce’ option is enabled under the eCommerce Tracking section.

Use enhanced ecommerce option

MonsterInsights will now automatically detect your WordPress eCommerce plugin and start recording analytics.

Next, let’s look at how you can use MonsterInsights’ reports to see your online store’s performance.

View eCommerce Reports in WordPress

When it comes to using Google Analytics and finding the data that you need, it can be overwhelming for beginners.

MonsterInsights makes it super easy to get the data that matters, as it brings all your important stats inside the WordPress dashboard. This way, you see how your eCommerce store is performing and then make decisions to grow your business.

To see eCommerce reports in WordPress, you can head to Insights » Reports. From here, you can select the ‘eCommerce’ tab and click on Overview.

View eCommerce report in MonsterInsights

In the report, you can quickly see how your online store is doing by looking at the conversion rate, transactions, revenue, and average order value.

Besides that, MonsterInsights also shows your Top Products. It helps you spot your top-selling items along with their quantity, percentage of sales, and total revenue.

Ecommerce overview report in MonsterInsights

You can use this data to find out which products your customers like and then offer similar products to boost sales.

Next, you can scroll down and view the Top Conversion Sources.

Top conversion sources

These are the websites that are sending the most sales to your store. You could invest in ads on those sites, create special discount offers or free shipping offers for people that arrive from these sources, or reach out to them to work out a cross-promotion or other partnership.

Other reports you can view in the eCommerce section in MonsterInsights include the Total Add to Carts, Total Removed from Cart, New Customers, and Abandoned Checkouts.

Additional ecommerce reports in MonsterInsights

You can use these reports to better understand your customer’s behavior while shopping and during checkout. Plus, it helps to use the data to optimize your sales funnel and reduce shopping cart abandonment.

Besides that, you can head to eCommerce » Coupons report in MonsterInsights. If you’re using coupon codes on your online store, then this report will show how people interact with them.

You can see which coupons drive the most transactions and revenue on your website, what’s the average order value, and more.

Coupons report in MonsterInsights

View eCommerce Reports in Google Analytics

MonsterInsights makes it very easy to find the data you need to make decisions. However, you can also view eCommerce tracking in your Google Analytics account.

Let’s see how to view eCommerce reports in Google Analytics 4 (GA4) and Universal Analytics.

eCommerce Reports in Google Analytics 4

Google Analytics 4 is the latest version of Google’s popular analytics platform. It uses a new reporting interface, so you’ll find your online store’s data in different reports.

First, you’ll need to log in to your Google Analytics account. After that, simply head to Reports » Monetization » Overview from the menu on the left.

Monetization report in ga4

Here, you can see your store’s performance at a quick glance. Google Analytics will show metrics like total revenue, purchase revenue, total purchasers, average purchase revenue per user, and more.

Besides that, you can go to Monetization » Ecommerce purchases and see product performance. GA4 will show data about which items people viewed the most, which products got the most purchases, and a breakdown of revenue for each product.

Ecommerce purchases report

There are more reports in Google Analytics that you can also view to see eCommerce tracking data.

For instance, if you have an app, then you can view the ‘In-app purchases’ report to see which products your customers bought using the app. Similarly, you can also view the ‘Publisher ads’ report to measure your paid ads campaign performance.

If you want to see the purchase journey of your customers, then Google Analytics shows a ‘User purchase journey’ report. Here, you’ll see how many visitors started a session and went to buy your product.

User purchase journey report

The report also shows the abandon rate for each step, so you can use this insight and try to boost conversions by making the buying process easier.

To make the most of Google Analytics reports, you can combine them with other reports like Traffic acquisition and see which channel generates the most revenue.

Ecommerce revenue by channel

eCommerce Reports in Universal Analytics

Note: Universal Analytics is an old Google Analytics version and has now sunset. It will no longer process your website data and record it. However, you can still access your past eCommerce data in Universal Analytics.

To view eCommerce reports, you can go to Conversions Ecommerce Overview from the menu on the left.

Ecommerce report universal analytics

Universal Analytics will show an overview of different metrics in this report.

However, you can switch to different reports to view data on shopping behavior, product performance, sales performance, and more.

Product performance report in Universal Analytics

Bonus: Enable Customer Tracking in Google Analytics

Now that you’ve set up eCommerce tracking, you can take it a step further and enable customer tracking.

This will allow you to better understand each customer on your store. You can offer a personalized shopping experience for logged-in users, promote products that customers prefer, and boost sales.

With MonsterInsights, you can easily set up customer tracking using its User Journey addon. It will show all the steps a customer took before making a purchase, like which pages they visited, what they searched for on your site, where they clicked, and more.

User journey in MonsterInsights

You can learn more by following our guide on how to enable customer tracking in WooCommmerce with Google Analytics.

We hope this article helped you learn how to properly set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress. You may also want to see our expert pick of the best business phone services and the best WordPress plugins for business sites.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How To Properly Set Up eCommerce Tracking In WordPress first appeared on WPBeginner.

How to Track Link Clicks and Button Clicks in WordPress (Easy Way)

Do you want to track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress?

Tracking links and button clicks help uncover how users interact with your website. You can use the insights to improve your website and plan your marketing and content strategies accordingly.

In this guide, we’ll show you how to easily track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress.

How to track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress

Why Should You Track Link and Button Clicks in WordPress?

Links and buttons are two of the most common ways users interact with any website on the internet. These elements also lead website visitors to make purchases, sign up, and convert into customers.

Tracking how your users interact with different elements on your WordPress website helps you learn what’s working on your website. More importantly, it helps you understand what’s not working and needs improvement.

For instance, if users are not clicking on the ‘add to cart’ button in your online store, then you can investigate what’s stopping them from doing so. Another great example is your affiliate links. You can track which links your users click more often than others.

These insights can help you make data-driven decisions for the success of your business. Having said that, let’s look at how you can easily track links and button clicks in WordPress.

We have broken down this guide into the following sections, so you can easily follow along.

Tracking Link and Button Clicks in WordPress Using MonsterInsights

The best tool to collect marketing data on your website is Google Analytics. However, despite Google’s best efforts, many beginners and even experienced marketers find it a bit intimidating.

This is where MonsterInsights comes in. It is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress that allows you to properly set up Google Analytics and make the most out of it.

MonsterInsights goes beyond just adding a tracking script in the footer. It automatically adds proper event tracking to all links, buttons, cart areas, and more. Most importantly, it also shows you human-readable reports inside your WordPress dashboard.

MonsterInsights has a free version, but you’ll need at least the Pro plan to take full advantage of all the powerful tracking features it offers.

Setting up MonsterInsights is super easy.

First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step-by-step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, you’ll see the welcome screen and the setup wizard. Simply click the ‘Launch the Wizard’ button and follow the onscreen instructions to connect your website to Google Analytics.

Launch setup wizard

If you need detailed instructions, then see our tutorial on how to install Google Analytics in WordPress, which will walk you through the entire setup.

The MonsterInsights setup wizard automatically configures all the right settings based on the type of your website and also lets you set up a Google Analytics 4 property. It truly is effortless.

For more information, please see our guide on how to switch to Google Analytics 4 in WordPress.

Once you have set up MonsterInsights, you can resume this tutorial. Now that everything is running, let’s start setting up click tracking.

A lot of web publishers use affiliate marketing to make money online.

As an affiliate marketer, you’ll need to learn how your affiliate links are doing. Obviously, you can track your affiliate earnings from third-party resources, but that does not give you an accurate picture of how users interact with your affiliate links.

Most affiliate marketers use a link-cloaking plugin like ThirstyAffiliates. This allows you to create shorter affiliate links and manage all your links inside WordPress. For example, https://www.example.com/refer/awesomeproduct/.

MonsterInsights makes it easy to set up affiliate link tracking in WordPress.

Simply go to Insights » Settings and switch to the ‘Publisher’ tab. From here, you can add your affiliate link’s unique path to start tracking.

Change affiliate link settings

Don’t forget to click the ‘Save Changes’ button to store your settings.

Within a few hours, you will be able to see your affiliate link performance in your Publisher reports located under the Insights » Reports menu in WordPress.

Outbound and affiliate links report

Outbound links are links pointing to external websites. These could also be uncloaked affiliate links, links to your partner websites, or other websites you own.

MonsterInsights automatically tracks all clicks on those outgoing links. You can view them by visiting the Insights » Reports page under Publishers report.

Outbound links report

Pro tip: If you see that you’re sending a lot of clicks to an external website, then you should contact them to work out a strategic partnership. This can be a sponsorship, cross-promotion, affiliate partnership, etc.

For more details, please see our guide on how to track outbound links in WordPress.

Ecommerce Tracking in WordPress

If you run an eCommerce business using WooCommerce or Easy Digital Downloads, then you should track which products get the most clicks.

MonsterInsights comes with powerful eCommerce tracking features. Now it’s time to turn on eCommerce tracking on your website.

First, you need to visit your Google Analytics dashboard. From there, you need to switch to the Admin view.

Go to admin settings

Next, you need to click on the eCommerce settings option.

It will be located under the ‘View’ column.

Ecommerce settings

After that, you will see the options to turn on eCommerce tracking and reporting in Google Analytics.

Go ahead and click the toggles for the ‘Enable Ecommerce’ and ‘Enable Enhanced Ecommerce Reporting’ options.

Enable ecommerce and enhanced ecommerce reporting

Now that you have enabled eCommerce in Google Analytics, let’s enable the MonsterInsights eCommerce addon.

First, you need to go to the Insights » Addons page. From here, you need to install the ‘eCommerce’ addon for MonsterInsights.

Install the eCommerce addon

After that, you need to head over to the Insights » Settings page and switch to the eCommerce tab.

From here, you can turn on enhanced eCommerce tracking. MonsterInsights will automatically detect your eCommerce plugin and turn it on for you.

Use enhanced ecommerce option

That’s all you have successfully enabled eCommerce tracking on your website.

The best part is that MonsterInsights shows the performance of your online store in your WordPress dashboard. Simply go to Insights » Reports and switch to the ‘eCommerce’ tab.

Ecommerce report in MonsterInsights

On top, you’ll see an overview of your eCommerce conversions. Below, you will find your top referral sources, as well as the exact conversions and revenue for each source.

This information helps you learn which referral sources to maximize and which are not doing well.

You may want to see our step-by-step guide on how to properly set up eCommerce tracking in WordPress.

Tracking File Downloads in WordPress

If you have a membership site that sells digital downloads or offers downloadable content on your website, then tracking file download buttons will help you find how users interact with those files.

MonsterInsights automatically tracks file downloads for common file types like documents, spreadsheets, presentations, PDFs, and zip files.

You can also add other file types that you may want to track. Simply go to the Insights » Settings page and then switch to the ‘Engagement’ tab.

Engagement tab settings

From here, you’ll need to scroll down to the File Downloads section.

Here, you can add the file type extension you want to track.

Add file download extensions

You can view file download stats by visiting Insights » Reports and switching to the ‘Publisher’ tab.

After that, scroll down to the ‘Top Download Links’ report to see which files get the most downloads.

Top file download links report

Tracking Form Conversions in WordPress

Forms play an important role in the success of any website. You use forms for an email newsletter, shopping cart, purchase and order forms, and all your contact forms.

It is crucial to understand how users interact with your forms, which forms get more conversions, and which forms are not getting enough attention.

Let’s start tracking forms in WordPress using MonsterInsights.

First, you need to head over to the Settings » Addons page. From here, install the ‘Forms’ addon.

Install forms addon

Once enabled, MonsterInsights will automatically detect the forms on your website and start gathering interaction data. It works seamlessly with all popular WordPress form plugins like WPForms, Formidable Forms, Gravity Forms, and more.

To view your form reports, you need to go to the Insights » Reports page and switch to the ‘Forms’ tab.

Forms report

For more details, please see our guide on how to set up WordPress form tracking in WordPress.

So far, we have discussed how to track links and button clicks across your website automatically. What if you wanted to track a specific link on your WordPress site and create custom reports?

Luckily, MonsterInsights makes this easy as well. It’s called a custom link attribution feature, and here is how you can add that to any link on your website. Simply add your link in the following format:

<a href="https://www.example.com" data-vars-ga-category="Call to action clicks" data-vars-ga-action="CTA link click" data-vars-ga-label="Homepage CTA clicks">My custom link</a> 

This link contains three new link attributes:

  • data-vars-ga-category: Sets a category for your link
  • data-vars-ga-action: Describes the action this link performs
  • data-vars-ga-label: A label for your link which helps you identify it

To insert the link in your content, first head to the content editor by editing a post or a page. Next, you’ll need to click the 3 dots to view more options and then select the ‘Edit as HTML’ option.

Switch to the HTML view

This will change your text from the visual view to the HTML view.

Now go ahead and add your custom link. Once that is done, simply update or publish your page or post.

Add your custom link in content

MonsterInsights will now start to track your custom links in Google Analytics.

You can find your custom link tracking report in Google Analytics by going to the Behavior » Events » Top Events section.

View custom link category in GA

We hope this article helped you learn how to track link clicks and button clicks in WordPress. You may also want to see our complete guide on WordPress SEO and our comprehensive guide on how to increase your blog traffic.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

The post How to Track Link Clicks and Button Clicks in WordPress (Easy Way) first appeared on WPBeginner.