News

Why you need to be using MonsterInsights for analytics

Are you using Google Analytics to check your content marketing efforts?

I hope so. It’s an amazing and powerful free tool. The trouble is it can be overwhelming. Google even has a dedicated Analytics Academy to help you understand it.

Previously on Razor Social, we’ve covered the most important terms and reporting in Google Analytics. But today, we’re going to show you how to dive deeper into Google Analytics using the MonsterInsights plugin.

What Is MonsterInsights?

MonsterInsights is a WordPress plugin that makes managing and tracking Google Analytics data a whole lot easier.

The plugin was originally called Google Analytics for WordPress. It was developed by Yoast, famous for their WordPress SEO plugin.

But in 2016, it changed hands.

Syed Balkhi – creator of OptinMonster, WPForms, Envira Gallery, and SoliloquyWP – bought the plugin and renamed it to MonsterInsights.

Since then his team has developed and enhanced the product further, and it remains one of the most popular plugins for Google Analytics.

Lite and Premium Versions

There are two versions of the MonsterInsights plugin – Lite and Premium.

The Lite version lets you track all the essential data you need from a WordPress site. The Premium version includes additional functionality and enhanced tracking that’s suitable for larger sites including those with Ecommerce.

Let’s take a look at what MonsterInsights has to offer.

Standard Features

Quick Easy Setup

Creating a Google Analytics account is straightforward. But linking Google Analytics to your website is not so easy.

MonsterInsights removes the technical headache and connects Google Analytics to your site in a few minutes.

Once you’ve installed the MonsterInsights plugin, you can head to the Settings menu and choose to Authenticate with your Google account:

After that, it’s a case of following the onscreen prompts to link the two accounts, and in a couple of clicks you’re done:

Google Analytics in your WordPress Dashboard

Once you’ve completed the setup, you can see how your site is performing without having to leave WordPress.

If you’re not familiar with Google Analytics, it can become quite daunting trying to find your way around as it contains so much data. But MonsterInsights does the hard work for you and displays the essential data for your blog.

For example, you can see:

Page views over time

Top posts and pages + Top traffic sources

Top countries

Real-time Stats – MonsterInsights are working on a new feature that will bring in real-time stats from Google Analytics to the WP Dashboard. Stay tuned!

MonsterInsights saves you time as it displays the relevant data from Google Analytics right inside your WordPress Admin Dashboard.

Additional Tracking

As well as making life easier with the dashboard stats, MonsterInsights also gives you additional tracking features that work in the background to help you get more accurate data from Google Analytics.

Engagement

You can choose to ignore particular user roles like Administrator and Editor so that Google Analytics only tracks ‘true’ visitors to your site and excludes your visits.

The second engagement option lets you track outbound clicks and download links as Events in your Google Analytics account. From there you can see what and how many times links on your site were clicked, including any downloads accessed via a link.

Demographics

If you want a better understanding of your audience, you may want to tap into the Demographics and Interest Report.

First, you’ll need to enable the option in Google Analytics:

Then you’ll need to check the demographics box in MonsterInsights:

The second option here lets you anonymize IP addresses. Some countries have privacy restrictions on data tracking, so checking this box removes the country information from the IP address and allows Google Analytics to track that data too.

Enhanced Link Attribution

Imagine this scenario…

You have two buttons or calls-to-action on your landing page or blog post. Both link to the same destination page. But which one is getting the most clicks?

Enhanced Link Attribution will show you which link is getting the most clicks or which button is generating the most leads. Armed with this data, you can see how people behave on your website and optimize your pages accordingly.

File Download Tracking

One thing Google Analytics doesn’t track is file downloads. But with MonsterInsights you can see which of your file downloads is the most popular.

You can track downloads of the following standard file extensions: doc, exe, js, pdf, ppt, tgz, zip, xls.

If you have a download with a different file extension, then you just need to add it to the Extensions of files to track as downloads field, separated by a comma.

Universal Tracking

MonsterInsights uses Universal Tracking so that you can track your visitors across devices and platforms.

For instance, if a visitor finds your site on their mobile device and then switches to their desktop to continue browsing your site, MonsterInsights counts this as one session.

Older analytics plugins are not so smart, and they count it as two sessions. Over time this can skew your data by inflating the number of sessions. Plus, without universal tracking, you lose track of the path that a user takes through your site.

With MonsterInsights Universal Tracking you get the whole picture on your site.

Premium Features

When you upgrade to the premium version of MonsterInsights, you get access to more tools that delve deeper into your analytics data. They provide a better understanding of what people are doing on your site, so you can keep doing more of what’s working.

Addons

The premium version of MonsterInsights includes extra features called Addons, which you install and activate like a plugin.

There are four Addons in the Plus plan and four more in the Pro plan.

Let’s take a look…

Ads Tracking

Are you running Google Adsense on your site? Do you know how much money each Ad is making?

With the MonsterInsights Ads Tracking Addon, you can optimize your Ads for maximum revenue. For example, you can:

Track how many clicks each banner is receiving
Discover which ads your audience are ignoring
Identify the most effective ad placements

Facebook Instant Articles

Google Analytics doesn’t track Facebook Instant Articles data separately. By default, it puts all mobile data together.

But with the MonsterInsights Addon, you can now accurately track your Facebook Instant Articles in Google Analytics.

With Facebook Instant Articles Tracking enabled, you’ll see:

Which of your posts and pages are most popular on Facebook
What topics and formats work best with your Facebook audience
Which content your audience ignores

Google AMP

Like Facebook Instant Articles, Google Analytics doesn’t track AMP-enabled pages accurately. For instance, when a user visits an AMP page and then a regular page (or vice versa), Google AMP Analytics counts it as two different sessions.

The MonsterInsights Google AMP Addon fixes this issue and tracks it as a single session, so you’ll get a more complete and accurate representation of your site traffic.

Performance

If your site has a high volume of traffic, there’s a chance you may hit the Google Analytics processing limit. (The free version of Google Analytics allows you to track up to 10 million hits per month, per property.)

To help you stay within that limit, the MonsterInsights Performance Addon lets you adjust the sample rate and site speed sample rate.

The sample rate allows you specify what percentage of users you want to track.

And the Site Speed Sample rate lets you configure how often you want to send the site speed tracking beacons.

Ecommerce

The MonsterInsights Ecommerce Addon helps you add Google Analytics Ecommerce tracking to your WordPress WooCommerce and Easy Digital Downloads store.

You can track all kinds of sales activity including:

Popular product
Average order value
Ecommerce conversion rate

Here are a few powerful reports you get by enabling Enhanced Ecommerce tracking on your store:

Shopping Behavior
Checkout Behavior
Sales Performance
Product List Performance

The MonsterInsights Ecommerce Addon helps you understand your customers and optimize your store for more sales.

Custom Dimensions

MonsterInsights Custom Dimensions Addon allows you to track performance for authors, categories, tags, searches, users, and more.

With Custom Dimensions, you’re not limited to the default reports from Google Analytics. You can choose to track your own custom data and display it in your MonsterInsights dashboard and reports.

For example, you can add

Author tracking to see which author’s posts generate the most traffic.
Post Type tracking to see which one of your WordPress post types perform better.
Category tracking to see which sections of your sites are the most popular.
Focus Keyword tracking to see which of your content is doing well in search engines.

Here’s an example of a Pageviews by Author custom dimension:

Forms Tracking

Google Analytics has plenty to offer, but it doesn’t track your form views and conversions.

But with the new MonsterInsights Forms Addon, you can easily track your form views, submissions, and conversions without having to mess around with code.

Just check the box, and you’re ready to go:

The Forms addon works with any WordPress Contact Form plugin, like WPForms and Gravity Forms.

Google Optimize

Google Optimize is a free A/B testing and personalization tool from Google that lets you see what works best on your site.

But implementing it on your site can be tricky.

Once you’ve created your Google Optimize account, head over to your MonsterInsights settings where you can implement it in just a few clicks:

Start using your Analytics data to conduct A/B tests and improve the user experience and conversions on your site right away.

Pricing

The Lite version of MonsterInsights is available for FREE. It’s good enough to get you started and takes the strain out of linking Google Analytics to your WordPress site.

More Details

The Premium version comes with three price plans:

Basic – $39 – An entry tool for those just starting out.
Plus – $99– Great for growing businesses who want to do more.
Pro – $199 – Everything you need to get huge results fast.