As a WordPress site owner, have you ever wondered:
- "Are people actually watching my videos?"
- "What‘s my most popular video?"
- "How long are viewers engaged?"
Getting answers requires properly tracking video analytics in WordPress.
However, only 12% of small business websites bother to measure video metrics.
This comprehensive guide will walk you through how to setup video tracking in WordPress using MonsterInsights.
You‘ll discover insights like:
✅ Total video views
✅ Audience engagement
✅ Content performance
Why You Must Track Video Performance in WordPress
Videos can supercharge your website engagement when used correctly.
In fact, 90% of the best performing websites incorporate video content directly on the page.
But you‘re likely wasting money if you can‘t measure video metrics like:
Total Video Views
This tells you how many times a video loaded and began playing. However, it doesn‘t reveal anything about engagement.
You need to combine it with other metrics like play rate and completion rate (which we‘ll cover soon).
Audience Engagement
Metrics like average view duration reveal whether people are watching your videos.
Short watch times signal your content isn‘t resonating or you have technical issues.
As a benchmark, Facebook considers videos with under 3 minutes watch time as low quality.
Content Performance
Watch which specific videos excel and where they come from – useful for doubling down on what works.
You can further slice data by traffic source, device type, location and more.
This table shows sample key indicators to track:
| Metric | Benchmark |
|---|---|
| Play rate | > 50% is good |
| Avg watch time | > 50% of video length |
| Completion rate | > 35% is above average |
Without video analytics, you‘re guessing about performance.
Lacking data makes it impossible to grow and optimize.
That‘s why properly tracking video KPIs is crucial, which brings us to…
How to Track Videos in WordPress
Enabling video analytics in WordPress is a straightforward 3 step process:
Step 1) Install Google Analytics plugin
Step 2) Activate the video and media tracking
Step 3) View video analytics reports
Next let‘s walk through how to setup tracking using MonsterInsights – the most popular Google Analytics solution made for WordPress.
Install Google Analytics Plugin
We recommend MonsterInsights which is used on over 3 million WordPress sites.
It makes connecting your Analytics account easy with no coding required.
From your dashboard, search for MonsterInsights and click install:
Next activate the plugin. You‘ll then see their setup wizard popup to link Google Analytics.
Tip: If you don‘t yet have a GA account, sign up for free.
Enter your GA tracking code when prompted. Per MonsterInsights support docs, this will:
✅ Enable Google Analytics tracking
✅ Create new Universal Analytics + GA4 properties
✅ Anonymize visitor IP addresses
For detailed steps on the wizard, visit their knowledge base.
With that, your core analytics tracking will all work through MonsterInsights. Nice!
Activate Media + Video Tracking
Our next goal is specifically enabling video analytics which isn‘t on yet.
Inside WordPress, navigate to Insights > Addons. Scroll down and click Install + Activate on the Media addon:
That immediately activates video metrics tracking for:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- Facebook Videos
- HTML5 video files
With 10 video events per video tracked! We‘ll see those in just a bit when viewing analytics reports.
View Video Analytics Reports
Now the exciting part – actually seeing your WordPress video stats!
Head to Insights > Reports, and select Media tab from the left sidebar.
You‘ll immediately see graphs on overall video plays and engagement levels:
Hover over lines and you can see exact figures per day. Awesome!
Scroll further down that page to see metrics for each video:
We can quickly spot our top videos by plays, watch time, completion rates and more.
Pro Tip: Click the small filter icon to add other dimensions like traffic source, location, device type etc.
This shows which blog posts drive the most viewers to your videos for example.
Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics Reports
The MonsterInsights reports provide a centralized dashboard for video analytics.
You‘ll also find the same metrics in both:
- Google Analytics 4 – navigate to Engagement > Events
- Universal Analytics – visit Behavior > Events > Top Events
Filter to the appropriate video category like video-youtube or video-vimeo to examine the data.
Having metrics across GA4 and Universal Analytics ensures you don‘t miss anything even as Google plans sunsetting UA reports.
Troubleshooting Video Tracking Issues
Like any WordPress feature, problems can happen that break analytics tracking.
If you aren‘t seeing video data as expected, validate:
✅ The WordPress and MonsterInsights plugins are updated
✅ You have an active paid MonsterInsights license
✅ You enabled the Media addon
✅ You aren‘t using caching or security plugins blocking scripts
Check out MonsterInsights‘ step-by-step debugging docs.
Summing Up Video Analytics
You made it! 🎉
We walked through:
✅ Exactly why measuring video engagement is crucial
✅ Step-by-step how to setup video tracking in WordPress with MonsterInsights
✅ Where to access video analytics reports
Start making data-driven decisions about your video strategy!
I‘m curious – What key questions do you hope video analytics helps uncover for your website? Ask them below!
