Mini-plugin to add an additional Google Analytics tracking code to web stories

web-stories-auto-analytics.php

<?php
/**
 * Plugin Name: Web Stories Additional GA Tracking
 * Description: Mini-plugin to add an additional Google Analytics tracking code to web stories
 * Plugin URI: https://wp.stories.google/
 * Author: Pascal Birchler, Google
 * Author URI: https://opensource.google.com/
 * Version: 0.0.1
 * License: Apache License 2.0
 * License URI: https://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 */

 // SEE https://amp.dev/documentation/components/amp-pixel/
add_action(
	'web_stories_print_analytics',
	static function () {
		// TODO: REPLACE WITH YOUR OWN GOOGLE ANALYTICS MEASUREMENT ID.
	        $tracking_id = 'G-12345';
		?>
		<amp-story-auto-analytics gtag-id="<?php echo esc_attr( $tracking_id ); ?>"></amp-story-auto-analytics>
		<?php
	}
);

Hi Pascal,

Thank you very much for sharing this mini plugin.

Could you please explain how I can install it on my wordpress website?

Thank you,
Keesha

@ilsajjh Click on "Download ZIP" at the top and then go to WordPress admin under Plugins -> Add New and upload the ZIP file as a new plugin to activate.

Perfect, thank you. So if I understand correctly, this will help me in tracking the traffic from the web stories separately. Now, do you know how I can ensure that the overall analytics (Site kit) will no longer include the web stories traffic? Basically, I want to make sure I can show the traffic to my website without the web stories traffic. Many thanks for your help!

I don't think there's currently a way to do that. I recommend asking in the Site Kit support forums for a way to disable the analytics output on specific pages like single stories.

@ilsajjh @swissspidy I use the Code Snippets Plugin to add code like this to my customer's sites. https://wordpress.org/plugins/code-snippets/. Adding it as a stand alone plugin works great too

This solution will store the web stories traffic in a separate property in GA. The other option is to use 2 GA views and create a filter to exclude traffic starting with /web-stories/ in your main view and then only include traffic from them in a new view.

@mikezielonka thank you so much for the feedback. Would you have the capacity for such a booking for my website?

@ilsajjh shoot me an email. me at mikezielonka dot com

Hi!

Can this mini plugin work with GA4?

No, GA4 does not currently support AMP / Web Stories.

@swissspidy I've started seeing issues with this little plugin on sites running site kit. here is an example of where I'm seeing it: https://kitchenconfidante.com/web-stories/coconut-ube-rolls

@mikezielonka Define "issues"? I see an amp-story-auto-analytics tag with UA-16723097-3 and a regular one by SK with UA-16723097-2. Plus an amp-pixel by Jetpack. No AMP validation issues.

Note that amp-story-auto-analytics and the regular amp-analytics by SK track slightly different things.

Depending on the issues you're seeing, I'd recommend opening a topic in our support forums or check out the GA help center. The comments section here is not the most ideal place.

@swissspidy I figured I'd start here in case anyone else is running into he issue.

Most of my creator and blogger customers have to track web stories separate from their main UA and GA4 properties for their ad networks. Something changed, which is causing both accounts to fire on web stories when in the past they didnt.

the link to the dot org post is here.

In case someone stumbles upon this and would like to disable Site Kit's analytics output on stories (so that you can add a separate one using this plugin here), you can do so using the following filter:

add_filter( 'googlesitekit_analytics-4_tag_amp_blocked', static function( $blocked ) { if ( is_singular( 'web-story' ) ) { return true; } return $blocked; } );