Did you ask yourself how your share buttons work for your website? If so this guide is just for you. Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress come packed with tools to track and analyze the share buttons work as a social media expert. And they are super easy to use.
All tools mentioned in the article are located in the Sharing -> Analytics menu.
Share Button Analytics
The share button analytics is made to collect information when users click over the share buttons. All collected analytics data is privacy safe. The plugin will not store any personal information, browser information, IP address, or anything else. The device is recorded only as a generic mobile or desktop and no other information (including the brand is kept). It is fully privacy safe and GDPR compliant.
Upon button click the plugin will record:
- The network that is clicked
- The position where the share button is used
- The device type (desktop or mobile)
- The post/page/custom content where share buttons were located
- The date
Using this collected information you can easily see:
- Which of the positions you are using on your website works
- Do you need all the social networks that are activated – you can remove those that are not used
- You can see the posts that have fewer or most shares and do further optimizations
Conversion Tracking
Conversion tracking is a handy tool to measure the real performance of the share buttons on your website. The collection of data is the same as the one that we use in Share Button Analytics. The difference here is that we do not only log the click on a button but also the plugin will track the displayed on-site locations too.
All collected analytics data is privacy safe. The plugin will not store any personal information, browser information, IP address, or anything else. The device is recorded only as a generic mobile or desktop and no other information (including the brand is kept). It is fully privacy safe and GDPR compliant.
How does conversion tracking work? Simple. Upon page load, it will record the used share buttons on your website, along with their positions. On a button click, it will record the click too. And you get the conversions calculated as a percent. So for example, if you have 100 visits on your website and 10 of your visitors click on the share buttons – the conversion percent will show 10%.
The conversion reports show:
- Conversion results for all the time the function runs, today, last 7 days, last 30 days
- Conversion data for positions
- Conversion data for social networks
- Conversion data for device type
- Conversion data for a network in a position
- Conversion data for posts
Using this collected information you can easily see:
- Find the positions that really work for your website
- Keep only the networks with conversions
Google Analytics Tracking UTM Tracking
The UTM tracking is another method of measuring the performance of share buttons. You can use this method only if your website has Google Analytics already installed.
Unlike the above methods where you measure the click of the share buttons, with the UTM tracking, you will measure the incoming traffic from the social shares. And you will see all that data directly in the Google Analytics dashboard.
If used the UTM tracking comes with default values populated and you don’t need to do any further adjustments. The UTM tracking in Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress is fully compatible with the short URL usage. Easy Social Share Buttons for WordPress will store a separate short URL for each network when needed if you are using UTM tracking.
A note for the users that shows share counters on their website. Usage of UTM variables for tracking may affect the current share value. This is because the share networks use the URL as a unique key to generate the share value. In case you see a share value decrease (or even loss) you should disable the UTM tracking.
