How to track the number of document downloads?
Document Library pro comes with an in-build downloads counter that you can use to keep track of individual document download count.
There are three ways you can track the number of document downloads:
- From the documents listed in the admin dashboard.
- By adding a download count column to your table/grid of documents.
- By enabling the ‘Download count’ option on the Single Document Page settings.
- By setting up Google Analytics event tracking for downloads.
Method 1 - Admin dashboard
In your WordPress admin dashboard, go to Documents → All Documents. Here you can see the download count for your documents in the ‘Downloads’ column. If you can’t find the ‘Downloads’ column, you might need to enable it from the screen options at the top right corner.
Note: This downloads count will not be displayed to your website visitors.
Method 2 - Adding a download count column to your table
To display the download count to your website visitors, you can add a download_count column that will display the total number of downloads. For this, simply add the download_count field in the shortcode and the number of downloads will start showing up in the table/grid.
Learn more about using Document Library columns.
Example: [doc_library content="image,title,content,date,download_count,author"]
Method 3 - Display the download count on the single document page
To display the number of downloads on the single document page, go to Document → Settings → Single Document, click on the 'Download count' checkbox and click on the Save Changes button.
Use the Download Monitor plugin
The Download Monitor plugin integrates with Document Library Pro so that you can use it to track and report on the number of people who download your documents. It also offers added security for your documents.
When you install Download Monitor, you can enable or disable reports in your WordPress admin. Here's an example of a report on the downloads of members only documents:
The reporting feature gives you an overview of downloads, filterable by date. Another helpful feature is user reporting which les you see which users downloaded each document:
In addition, Download Manager has an extension called Enhanced Metrics which gives even more insight into reports. This provides extra information, such as failed/completed downloads, active users and downloads, and more.
Set up Google Analytics event tracking for downloads
Alternatively, if you want more advanced tracking, you can also set up Google Analytics. This is an excellent approach because the tracking happens outside of your website (therefore easy to maintain), and you probably already use Google Analytics to monitor your website traffic.
For setup instructions, we recommend following this tutorial from MonsterInsights or watching the video below: