WPBeginner

Beginner's Guide for WordPress

  • Blog
    • Beginners Guide
    • News
    • Opinion
    • Showcase
    • Themes
    • Tutorials
    • WordPress Plugins
  • Start Here
    • How to Start a Blog
    • Create a Website
    • Start an Online Store
    • Best Website Builder
    • Email Marketing
    • WordPress Hosting
    • Business Name Ideas
  • Deals
    • Bluehost Coupon
    • SiteGround Coupon
    • WP Engine Coupon
    • HostGator Coupon
    • Domain.com Coupon
    • Constant Contact
    • View All Deals »
  • Glossary
  • Videos
  • Products
X
☰
Beginner's Guide for WordPress / Start your WordPress Blog in minutes
Choosing the Best
WordPress Hosting
How to Easily
Install WordPress
Recommended
WordPress Plugins
View all Guides

WPBeginner» Blog» Tutorials» How to Add Scroll Depth Tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics

How to Add Scroll Depth Tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics

Last updated on June 10th, 2019 by Editorial Staff
245 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Free WordPress Video Tutorials on YouTube by WPBeginner
How to Add Scroll Depth Tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics

Do you want to add scroll depth tracking on your WordPress website?

Scroll depth tracking allows you to see how far a user scrolls on any page. This data helps you see if your visitors are actually reading your long posts and when they lose interest, so you can modify the content to keep them engaged.

In this article, we will show you how to easily track user scrolling in WordPress using Google Analytics.

How to Track User Scrolling in WordPress Using Google Analytics

Why Track User Scrolling in WordPress?

Generally, scrolling occurs when a user wants to see your content below the preview screen. It is a primary activity that all users perform to look at your content.

This makes scroll depth tracking an important measure to track user engagement. In addition to that, it gives you plenty of insights about user interaction on your site and helps you improve pages for optimal length.

For example, you can find out how much an average user scrolls when viewing your site, which long reads they liked the most, what makes them lose interest, etc.

With these insights, you can then optimize your pages for better user engagement and higher conversions.

Tracking Scroll Depth in WordPress with Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool offered by Google to help you better understand your website visitors.

It allows you track who your website visitors are (age, gender, interests), where they are from, which pages they visit, how long they stay on those pages, how far down they scroll on the pages, and more.

Google Analytics tracks the basic metrics like total page views, total number of visitors, top pages, etc. by default.

For more advanced metrics like scroll depth, eCommerce tracking, form submissions, file downloads, event tracking, and others, Google analytics require you to setup custom tracking.

Manually setting up advanced Google analytics tracking requires a lot of technical skills. As a beginner, this is nearly impossible. Even some developers can’t do it properly.

Thankfully, there are easy to use WordPress plugins that can help you track advanced metrics like scroll depth with Google Analytics.

Let’s take a look at two plugins that you can use to setup scroll depth tracking in WordPress.

Video Tutorial

Subscribe to WPBeginner

If you don’t like the video or want text instructions, then continue reading.

1. Scroll Depth Tracking in WordPress with MonsterInsights

MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress with over 2,000,000+ active installs. It helps you easily install and use Google Analytics on your WordPress website without using any code.

MonsterInsights Best Google Analytics WordPress Plugin

With MonsterInsights, you can enable advanced tracking like eCommerce tracking, file downloads, affiliate links, forms tracking, scroll depth, and more with just a single click (no coding needed).

MonsterInsights comes with scroll-depth tracking enabled by default. This means you don’t even need to configure any settings. All you need to do is setup the MonsterInsights plugin.

First, you need to install and activate the MonsterInsights plugin. For more details, see our step by step guide on how to install a WordPress plugin.

Upon activation, go to Insights » Settings page and then click on the Engagement tab. As shown in the screenshot below, you will see the scroll tracking option enabled by default.

MonsterInsights Scroll Depth Tracking Option

MonsterInsights trigger events in Google Analytics as your website visitors scroll down the page. It will then be tracked with Google Analytics as 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% scroll.

You can see your scroll tracking stats and other helpful stats right inside your WordPress admin area by going to the MonsterInsights Publishers Report (Insights » Reports » Publishers). The scroll depth data appears next to the Interests section.

Scroll Tracking Reports in WordPress

You can use the scroll depth data to optimize your pages for more conversions. It gives you a better picture of how your visitors are interacting with your content and helps you decide the best place for your important calls to action, ads, and more.

View User Scrolling Data in Google Analytics

Now that you have set up scroll tracking with MonsterInsights, you can view reports also in your Google Analytics account.

Log into your Analytics account and then visit Real-Time » Events to see your real-time or recent scrolling data within the last 30 minutes.

Google Analytics Scroll Tracking in Real-time

For the complete data, you can go to Behavior » Events » Overview from your Analytics dashboard.

Scroll Depth Data in Google Analytics

You can click on the Scroll Depth link to get more details.

If you want more granular details, then you can use Google Analytics’ secondary dimension feature alongside the Scroll Depth event to see the scroll data for each individual landing page.

2. Track User Scrolling With WP Scroll Depth Plugin

If you don’t want a comprehensive Google Analytics solution and would rather use a single plugin, then you can use WP Scroll Depth.

The first thing you need to do is install and activate the WP Scroll Depth plugin on your site. For detailed instructions, here’s our step by step guide on how to install a plugin in WordPress.

Upon activation, you need to go to Settings » Scroll Depth to configure the plugin settings.

WP Scroll Depth Plugin Settings

The default options will track scroll depth for all pages on your WordPress site. All you need to do is click on the Save Changes button to store plugin settings.

WP Scroll Depth plugin uses jQuery to track scrolling on your WordPress site. It monitors four scroll points 25%, 50%, 75%, and 100% of the page height. When a user reaches a scroll point, the plugin sends an event to Google Analytics using jQuery.

After that, you can view Scroll Depth event data under Real-Time » Events on your Google Analytics dashboard.

WP Scroll Depth Real-time data

We use MonsterInsights on all our websites because it’s the most complete Google Analytics plugin for WordPress, and we recommend all our users to do the same. They have a free MonsterInsights plugin, and you can also upgrade to the premium version to unlock more powerful tracking.

We hope this article helped you learn how to track scroll depth on your WordPress site using Google Analytics. You may also like to see our guide on 10 website marketing data you must track on every WordPress site.

If you liked this article, then please subscribe to our YouTube Channel for WordPress video tutorials. You can also find us on Twitter and Facebook.

245 Shares
Share
Tweet
Share
Pin
Popular on WPBeginner Right Now!
  • How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org

  • Checklist

    Checklist: 15 Things You MUST DO Before Changing WordPress Themes

  • How to Start Your Own Podcast (Step by Step)

    How to Start Your Own Podcast (Step by Step)

  • How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

    How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress

About the Editorial Staff

Editorial Staff at WPBeginner is a team of WordPress experts led by Syed Balkhi. Trusted by over 1.3 million readers worldwide.

The Ultimate WordPress Toolkit

2 Comments

Leave a Reply
  1. Hansjörg Leichsenring says:
    Jun 11, 2019 at 3:35 am

    In the description of WP Scroll Depth you can read “If you are running GTM, you don’t really need this plugin.” So there seems to be a third way to measure scrolls by Google’s Tag Manager.
    Maybe you can describe this way too

    Cheers from Germany
    Hansjörg

    Reply
    • WPBeginner Support says:
      Jun 11, 2019 at 10:41 am

      We can look into possibly including that however, it is not a beginner friendly process which is why we’re recommending these two methods.

      Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Thanks for choosing to leave a comment. Please keep in mind that all comments are moderated according to our comment policy, and your email address will NOT be published. Please Do NOT use keywords in the name field. Let's have a personal and meaningful conversation.

Over 1,320,000+ Readers

Get fresh content from WPBeginner

Featured WordPress Plugin
TrustPulse
TrustPulse
Instantly get 15% more conversions with social proof. Learn More »
How to Start a Blog How to Start a Blog
I need help with ...
Starting a
Blog
WordPress
Performance
WordPress
Security
WordPress
SEO
WordPress
Errors
Building an
Online Store
Useful WordPress Guides
    • 7 Best WordPress Backup Plugins Compared (Pros and Cons)
    • How to Fix the Error Establishing a Database Connection in WordPress
    • Why You Need a CDN for your WordPress Blog? [Infographic]
    • 30 Legit Ways to Make Money Online Blogging with WordPress
    • Self Hosted WordPress.org vs. Free WordPress.com [Infograph]
    • Free Recording: WordPress Workshop for Beginners
    • 24 Must Have WordPress Plugins for Business Websites
    • How to Properly Move Your Blog from WordPress.com to WordPress.org
    • 5 Best Contact Form Plugins for WordPress Compared
    • Which is the Best WordPress Popup Plugin? (Comparison)
    • Best WooCommerce Hosting in 2021 (Comparison)
    • How to Fix the Internal Server Error in WordPress
    • How to Install WordPress - Complete WordPress Installation Tutorial
    • Why You Should Start Building an Email List Right Away
    • How to Properly Move WordPress to a New Domain Without Losing SEO
    • How to Choose the Best WordPress Hosting for Your Website
    • How to Choose the Best Blogging Platform (Comparison)
    • WordPress Tutorials - 200+ Step by Step WordPress Tutorials
    • 5 Best WordPress Ecommerce Plugins Compared
    • 5 Best WordPress Membership Plugins (Compared)
    • 7 Best Email Marketing Services for Small Business (2021)
    • How to Choose the Best Domain Registrar (Compared)
    • The Truth About Shared WordPress Web Hosting
    • When Do You Really Need Managed WordPress Hosting?
    • 5 Best Drag and Drop WordPress Page Builders Compared
    • How to Switch from Blogger to WordPress without Losing Google Rankings
    • How to Properly Switch From Wix to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • How to Properly Move from Weebly to WordPress (Step by Step)
    • Do You Really Need a VPS? Best WordPress VPS Hosting Compared
    • How to Properly Move from Squarespace to WordPress
    • How to Register a Domain Name (+ tip to get it for FREE)
    • HostGator Review - An Honest Look at Speed & Uptime (2021)
    • SiteGround Reviews from 4464 Users & Our Experts (2021)
    • Bluehost Review from Real Users + Performance Stats (2021)
    • How Much Does It Really Cost to Build a WordPress Website?
    • How to Create an Email Newsletter the RIGHT WAY (Step by Step)
    • Free Business Name Generator (A.I Powered)
    • How to Create a Free Business Email Address in 5 Minutes (Step by Step)
    • How to Install Google Analytics in WordPress for Beginners
    • How to Move WordPress to a New Host or Server With No Downtime
    • Why is WordPress Free? What are the Costs? What is the Catch?
    • How to Make a Website in 2021 – Step by Step Guide
Deals & Coupons (view all)
MemberPress
MemberPress Coupon
Get up to 50% OFF on MemberPress WordPress premium membership plugin.
Liquid Web
Liquid Web Coupon
Get 50% OFF on Liquid Web managed WordPress hosting plans for 3 months. From just $9.50.
Featured In
About WPBeginner®

WPBeginner is a free WordPress resource site for Beginners. WPBeginner was founded in July 2009 by Syed Balkhi. The main goal of this site is to provide quality tips, tricks, hacks, and other WordPress resources that allows WordPress beginners to improve their site(s).

Join our team: We are Hiring!

Site Links
  • About Us
  • Contact Us
  • FTC Disclosure
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  • Free Blog Setup
  • Free Business Tools
  • Growth Fund
Our Sites
  • OptinMonster
  • MonsterInsights
  • WPForms
  • SeedProd
  • Nameboy
  • RafflePress
  • Smash Balloon
  • AIOSEO

Copyright © 2009 - 2021 WPBeginner LLC. All Rights Reserved. WPBeginner® is a registered trademark.

Managed by Awesome Motive | WordPress hosting by SiteGround | WordPress Security by Sucuri.