• Follow us on Twitter
  • Add me on Linkedin
  • RSS

  • Home
  • Services
    • Biticodes
  • Tools + Calculators
    • Google Analytics Content Targeting Generator
    • A/B/n Split Test Confidence Calculator with Graphing
    • Simple Feedback Form with Google Analytics Integration
  • About
  • Contact

Blog - Latest News

Track RSS Subscribers on Your Blog with Google Analytics Goals

3 Comments/ in Analytics / by Robert Kingston
April 8, 2010

Subscribers mean extra readership - and quite often, extra revenue. Therefore, it makes sense to track them, so you can measure your progress relative to your effort. Here’s a simple way to track visitors who click on your RSS feed link on your page.

First, Adding the Code

It’s really quite simple to do. Within your RSS button code place the bolded code within the <a> tag:

<a href="http://{YOUR RSS FEED LINK}" onclick="pageTracker._trackPageview('/tracking/rss-click');"><img src="http://{YOUR RSS BUTTON IMAGE}"></a>

Or for Asynchronous tracking, use the following code:

<a href="http://{YOUR RSS FEED LINK}" onclick="_gaq.push(['_trackPageview', '/tracking/rss-click']);"><img src="http://{YOUR RSS BUTTON IMAGE}"></a>

Next, Setting Up Google Analytics

Once that’s done, setup the following goal in Google Analytics by following a few simple steps:

1. Login to Analytics and open the account that your blog is tracked within

2. Select “Edit” beside your blog’s profile

3. Click “Add a goal”

4. Name the goal “RSS subscribers”

5. Select the goal type as “URL Destination”

6. Select “Exact match” as the match type

7. Enter “/tracking/rss-click”, without the quotation marks.

8. Click “Save”

Voila - you’re done! See the image below for an example of setting up the goal:

Are these instructions easy enough?

Let me know in the comments…

← 10 Dangerous Analytics Assumptions
5 Essential Google Analytics Tips for Bloggers →
Comments

3 Responses to Track RSS Subscribers on Your Blog with Google Analytics Goals

  1. icreongame says:
    August 29, 2012 at 17:35

    Really great. I was looking for this type of goal setting in analytics. Really thanks for this post.

    Reply
  2. Anton says:
    June 13, 2013 at 03:39

    That doesn’t exactly work in case user subscribes to RSS clicking feed icon in his browser URL bar which many do ((

    Reply
  3. Robert Kingston says:
    July 24, 2013 at 18:31

    Thanks for bringing up one of the shortcomings of this tracking method, Anton. That’s one of the unfortunate issues about tracking RSS subscribers using onclick JavaScript.

    The method above will never be 100% accurate, but it should help webmasters and bloggers spot trends such as: “Where are my subscribers coming from?” or “Which posts are generating the most subscribers?”

    In terms of getting an exact figure for this, only Feedburner or similar tools will give you the best indication of this.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Want to join the discussion?
Feel free to contribute!

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

About Rob

I'm a freelance web analytics and optimisation specialist that helps companies make data driven decisions to improve sales, revenue or other objectives. Currently, I work with clients in education, retail, banking, energy and not for profits. Enjoy my site!

Subscribe For More Great Tips


Subscribe by RSS


Follow me on Twitter


Categories

  • Analytics
  • Conversion Rate Optimisation
  • Marketing & Consumer Insight
  • News
  • Testing

Most Popular Posts

  • Track WordPress Blog Comments in Google Analytics
  • Google Analytics’ New Site Speed Report Tracks Page Load Times
  • Build a Conversion Rate Heatmap by Hour & Day of Week in Google Docs
  • Cohorts.js: Open Source JavaScript MVT Split Testing Framework
  • Visualize Your Best Converting Hour & Day of the Week

Recent Posts

  • A Guide to Measuring Split Tests in Google Analytics & Other Tools
  • Web Browsers Most Susceptible to Browser Fingerprinting
  • Cohorts.js: Open Source JavaScript MVT Split Testing Framework
  • 10 Sources of Direct Traffic & How To Track Direct Shares
  • Track What Visitors Copy From Your Site in Google Analytics

Blogroll

  • Analytics Ninja
  • Justin Koro
  • LunaMetrics Blog
  • Marketing Experiments
  • Mint Metrics
  • SnowPlow Analytics
  • Teacup Marketing
  • Home
  • Services
    • Biticodes
  • Tools + Calculators
    • Google Analytics Content Targeting Generator
    • A/B/n Split Test Confidence Calculator with Graphing
    • Simple Feedback Form with Google Analytics Integration
  • About
  • Contact
418Follower294Subscribers
© Copyright - Optimisation Beacon - Wordpress Theme by Kriesi.at