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Share Analytics gives you a clear picture of how visitors interact with the sharing buttons on your site. It tracks button clicks, records likes, pulls in external share counts from Facebook and Pinterest, and presents everything in a single, easy-to-read dashboard — right inside WordPress.
This guide walks you through every part of the analytics system so you can set it up, read the data, and keep things running smoothly.
Share Analytics tracks three types of engagement data and combines them into unified reports:
All three data sources feed into a single analytics view, so you always see the complete picture.
The full analytics dashboard is the central place to review your sharing performance across the entire site.
The dashboard is divided into several sections:
Summary cards at the top display:
Each card shows a percentage change compared to the previous period. For example, when viewing “Last 7 Days,” the change is calculated against the 7 days before that.
Shares by Platform shows a breakdown of clicks by each social platform, so you can see which networks your audience prefers.
Shares Over Time chart (powered by Chart.js) plots daily click and like activity. The chart automatically adjusts its date range based on the period you select.
Top Shared Posts table lists the posts with the most engagement. Each row shows:
Use the tabs at the top of the dashboard to switch between time ranges:
The top posts table supports pagination and can be sorted by total shares or by like count.
A compact version of your analytics appears on the main WordPress Dashboard (the screen you see right after logging in).
The widget includes:
At the bottom, a View Full Analytics button takes you directly to the full analytics dashboard.
When sharing buttons are enabled for a post type (e.g., Posts, Pages), a share count column is automatically added to the corresponding list table in the WordPress admin.
When you are editing a post in the Gutenberg block editor, a Share Analytics panel appears in the right-hand sidebar.
The panel shows data specific to the post you are editing:
A Refresh button lets you force-refresh the external share counts for the current post without waiting for the cache to expire.
Click tracking is enabled by default when you install the plugin. You can toggle it on or off at any time.
When click tracking is enabled, the plugin records a click event every time a visitor clicks one of these sharing buttons:
Facebook and Pinterest clicks are intentionally excluded from click tracking. Instead, the plugin uses the SharedCount API to retrieve actual share counts for these two platforms. This avoids double-counting — a button click does not always result in a completed share on Facebook or Pinterest, and the API provides the true total.
Clicks are recorded via the WordPress REST API. When a visitor clicks a sharing button, a lightweight request is sent to your site in the background. Each click record includes the post ID, platform name, timestamp, referrer URL, and user agent. No personally identifiable information is stored.
Like tracking is separate from click tracking and is always active. It uses IP-based detection to allow visitors to like/unlike a post without needing to log in.
The SharedCount API provides real share counts for Facebook and Pinterest — the two platforms where click tracking alone cannot tell you how many times a post was actually shared.
A default SharedCount API key is bundled with the plugin, so external share counts work out of the box without any configuration. You do not need to sign up for a SharedCount account unless you want to.
If you prefer to use your own SharedCount API key (for example, to get higher rate limits), you can override the default:
API results are cached for 1 hour to avoid hitting rate limits. After the cache expires, the next request for that post’s share counts will fetch fresh data from SharedCount. If the API returns an error, the error result is cached for only 5 minutes before the plugin tries again.
External share counts (Facebook and Pinterest) are fetched on demand for individual posts. To update counts across your entire site at once, use the bulk sync feature.
When editing a post in the block editor, open the Share Analytics sidebar panel and click the Refresh button. This fetches fresh external share counts for that specific post immediately.
The bulk sync only processes post types that have sharing buttons enabled in your Sharing Buttons configuration. For example, if you have sharing buttons enabled for Posts and Pages, only published posts and pages will be included in the sync.
If you ever need to start fresh, you can wipe all analytics data from the Settings page.
Clearing analytics data removes:
This action cannot be undone. Like data (stored in a separate table) and your plugin settings are not affected by this action.
Click tracking data is automatically pruned after 90 days. A daily background task (WordPress cron job) removes records older than 90 days. This keeps your database lean without requiring any manual maintenance.
External share counts (from the SharedCount API) are stored as post meta and are not pruned — they persist as long as the post exists.
Like data is also not pruned and persists indefinitely.
The analytics system combines three types of engagement:
The “Total Shares” figure on the dashboard is the sum of clicks and likes for the selected period. External API shares are displayed separately because they are not filtered by time period (the API reports lifetime totals).
Clicking a Facebook or Pinterest share button does not guarantee the visitor completed the share. They might close the popup without posting. The SharedCount API provides the actual number of completed shares on these platforms, which is more accurate. To avoid inflating numbers by counting both the click and the API share, the plugin skips click tracking for these two platforms.
The impact is minimal. Clicks are recorded via a lightweight REST API request that fires asynchronously in the background after the visitor clicks a sharing button. The tracking script is small and only loads on singular post/page views.
No. The like system uses IP-based tracking, so any visitor can like or unlike a post. Each IP address can only register one like per post.
Deactivating the plugin stops data collection but does not delete any existing data. Your click records, like records, and external share counts remain in the database. If you reactivate the plugin later, all historical data will still be available.
The daily data pruning cron job is unscheduled when the plugin is deactivated, so no background tasks run while the plugin is inactive.
Yes, in two ways:
The analytics dashboard and REST API endpoints require the manage_options capability, which is typically limited to administrators. The click tracking and like tracking endpoints are public (they need to work for all site visitors), but they only record data — they do not expose any analytics information.
The share count column only appears on post types where sharing buttons are enabled. Check your Sharing Buttons configuration (the wpzoom-sharing post type entry) and make sure the relevant post types are selected.
