How to set up author tracking in WordPress with Google Analytics

By default, Google Analytics does not track the performance of articles categorized by each author on your website. So, it becomes difficult for you to find which author’s articles are performing the best in a multi-author setup. This data can help you take some important business decisions like whether or not you need to retain specific authors, which authors deserve more compensation and bonuses, etc.

Author tracking in Google Analytics can give you some valuable insights into the performance of your blog authors. With author tracking, you can discover the most popular author of your blog, sort page views for articles by author, see which author’s posts keep visitors on your site by analyzing the bounce rate, and get instant WordPress author stats for optimization.

But to track authors, you need to add Author as a custom dimension in Google Analytics.

In this article, I am going to show you how to set up author tracking in WordPress using Google Analytics and MonsterInsights, the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. You can find more about it in my MonsterInsights review.

How to set up author tracking in Google Analytics

To set up author tracking on your WordPress site, you will be needing MonsterInsights Pro. As the name suggests, it’s the premium version of the free MonsterInsights plugin that comes with a whole lot of other benefits including file downloads tracking, keyword tracking, form abandonment tracking, scroll depth tracking, enhanced eCommerce tracking, and more.

Install MonsterInsights

Download MonsterInsights Pro from your MonsterInsights account and install it manually from the WordPress dashboard. Once you have installed it, go to the MonsterInsights Settings page, enter your license key in the License Key field, and click on the Unlock Pro Features Now button.

Connect MonsterInsights with Google Analytics

Click on the Connect MonsterInsights button under Google Authentication to authorize MonsterInsights to view and manage your Google Analytics property. If you need help, you can follow this simple tutorial to connect MonsterInsights with WordPress and add a Google Analytics dashboard to WordPress.

Install the Dimensions add-on

Navigate to the MonsterInsights Addons page, find the Custom Dimensions addon, and install it.

Add new custom dimension in MonsterInsights

Go back to the MonsterInsights Settings page, click on the Conversions tab, and scroll down to Custom Dimensions section. Now, click on Add new custom dimension and select Author as the dimension type.

Set up Author custom dimension in Google Analytics

Now that you have added the Author custom dimension in MonsterInsights, you need to add it to your Google Analytics property. Login to your GA account, choose your property and click on the Admin tab. Under the Property tab, click on Custom Definitions and select Custom Dimensions.

Click on the New Custom Dimension button, enter Author in the Name field, select Hit from the Scope dropdown, and click on the Create button.

Verify custom dimension IDs

Now, if you remember clearly, we have two custom dimension IDs – one from MonsterInsights and one which we created in the previous step. Make sure that both have the same ID by comparing the index number from Google Analytics to the ID we assigned for the Author dimension in Step 4. If they don’t match, type in the correct number and click save the changes.

View author tracking information from WordPress dashboard

To view the author tracking reports created by MonsterInsights from within your WordPress dashboard, navigate to the MonsterInsights Reports page and select Dimensions.

View author tracking information on Google Analytics

You can also view the author’s performance report from Google Analytics. But before that, you need to create a custom report by navigating to Customization –> Custom Reports from the left-hand menu in the Google Analytics dashboard. Click on the New Custom Report button and define metric groups under the Report Content section. Also, you need to add ‘Author’ as your dimension in Dimension Drilldowns. Finally, hit the Save button.

That’s it, you now know how to find the page views and bounce rates for each author in an easy to understand format. So, what are you waiting for? Get MonsterInsights now and enable author tracking on your WordPress site right away using Google Analytics.