New: Easily track document downloads with Conversion Bridge

Discover the new way to track document downloads on your WordPress site and view them in an analytics platform such as Google Analytics.

If you use our Document Library Pro plugin to create a searchable document library, then you might like to view analytics data about your document downloads. Document Library Pro provides basic data about how many people have downloaded each document, but it's not possible to view more advanced analytics such as filtering by date, or users' exact journey before downloading the document.

As a result, we are pleased to announce a new integration between Document Library Pro and Conversion Bridge. This lets you track much more advanced data about how people are interacting with your document libraries. You can use it alongside your favorite analytics platform (e.g. Google Analytics), and it's much easier than adding custom code snippets to your site 🔥

Why track document downloads?

When you first create a WordPress document library or PDF library, your main focus is probably on making the documents easy to navigate and download. However, it's equally important to gather data on how people interact with it. That way, you can keep improving it over time.

If your documents are public then it is important to understand how many downloads are happening but also where they are coming from. Alternatively, if it's a private document library (e.g. for your company intranet) then you also need to know which resources your employees access most often.

By adding conversion tracking to your downloads, you can see this helpful information in your favorite analytics platform. This might be Google Analytics. Alternatively, it could be one of the many privacy-focused platforms like Plausible, Fathom etc. Either way, you can use the data to better understand your users and keep improving your document library.

People who download documents from your site are more engaged users. Understanding which specific files are being downloaded gives you better insights into what is important to them. You can then create more content and resources around your already most popular files.

Also, tracking downloads in your analytics platform lets you better determine if your marketing efforts or specific referring sources are driving those more engaged users. The more data and understanding you have on your users, the easier it becomes to meet your goals.

Setting up conversion tracking for Document Library Pro with Conversion Bridge

We love the new integration with Conversion Bridge because it's so easy to set up, and works with a large number of analytics platforms. Here's a quick guide on how to set it up:

1. With both plugins active, go to Settings → Conversion Bridge in your WordPress admin.
2. You will find the option for Document Library Pro with a toggle switch.
3. Enable the integration and you’re done - that’s all there is to it!
4. (Optionally you can customize the event label you see it in your analytics platform)

Viewing document download conversions

Whenever someone clicks a download link from within Document Library Pro, it is recorded in your selected analytics platform. Each platform will show this a bit differently, but generally you can see the unique download event with their count.

Conversion Bridge alsos send unique data about the download event such as the file title and URL. You can use this to further identify which documents are being downloaded in your analytics platform.

Viewing the entire journey of a user who downloads documents

Another great feature of Conversion Bridge is its Conversion Journeys. This lets you see the entire page-by-page history of a user who performed a download conversion on your site. This can inform you of where these users came from and what else they did on your site on their way to downloading.

In this example, a user visited the home page and some content pages. After that, they performed a download action from the Document Library Pro page:

But Google Analytics 4 will automatically detect file downloads?

Yes, GA4 does have a feature that allows you to automatically track file downloads. However, many users report that it does not work well and is missing a lot of download tracking data 😔

The Conversion Bridge integration helps to track every download interaction properly.

Can I see how many downloads each document has?

Document Library Pro already tracks the number of downloads each file. Conversion Bridge extends this by sending the download tracking to your analytics platform where you can use this information for additional analysis.

Start tracking downloads with Conversion Bridge

We know download tracking is important for document libraries because customers ask us about it so often. We are always working to meet the needs of our customers, both directly and through integrations with other useful tools. This integration with Conversion Bridge will help you to better downloads and learn from your user interactions.

To take advantage of the new integration, you need the following plugins:

• Document Library Pro (ideally the 2-plugin bundle with Password Protected Categories so that you can restrict access to your document libraries)
• Conversion Bridge

Set it up today, and let us know how you get on in the comments below 📈