How to track the number of document downloads?
Document Library pro comes with a built-in downloads counter that you can use to keep track of individual document download counts. It is also possible to add more advanced tracking to the document library.
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 using the Download Monitor plugin to track the document downloads.
- By using the Conversion Bridge plugin to view document downloads and access advanced data in a third party analytics platform (e.g. Google Analytics).
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.
Method 4 - 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.
Method 5 - Use your analytics platform (e.g. Google Analytics) to track document downloads
Alternatively, if you want more advanced tracking then you can also use your chosen analytics platform such as Google Analytics. This is an excellent approach because the tracking happens outside of your website (therefore easy to maintain), and you probably already use an analytics plugin to monitor your website traffic.
The easiest way to set this up is using the Conversion Bridge plugin, which works with a wide range of analytics platforms. This is easier than adding custom code snippets to your site, although you can do that instead if you're comfortable with that method.
As we saw above, Document Library Pro already tracks the number of downloads of each file. Conversion Bridge extends this by sending the download tracking to your analytics platform where you can use this information for additional analysis.
- Install both Document Library Pro and Conversion Bridge on your WordPress site.
- Go to Settings → Conversion Bridge.
- Find the option for Document Library Pro and toggle it to active. (Optionally, you can also customize the event label that will appear 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 also sends 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
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, some content pages, and then performed a download action from the Document Library Pro page:
