Analytics Speak

Being accurate about counting PDF downloads involve two challenges

1. Clicks to the "download" button initiates the PDF download, but you have no way of telling if the download was completed successfully using GA. Log files are typically used to count partial vs. completed downloads.

2. GA allows only one conversion per session. ie If you went to a website and downloaded the same pdf 5 times. GA would register your session as having completed 1 conversion.

There are 2 ways to track actual number of PDF's downloaded in GA. Remember these are counts of the start of the PDF download, does not guarantee the PDF was fully downloaded

1. Go to the "Content" tab -> Top Content
Use the filter at the bottom to filter pages containing ".pdf"

                                                              




This will list all the people who saw the pages that ended in .pdf. Specify file name i.e filename.pdf in the filter if you have multiple pdf's.

2. If you have set up conversion goals for your PDF files then, Go to Goals -> Goals Verification Report to see total PDF downloads and which files they were.

                                                                                                                                                                                            

Log-files solution:

Log files record HTTP 206 for partial downloads and HTTP 200 for completed downloads. If you query out the number of HTTP 200's that should give you a record of all completed downloads.

I'd love to hear from you on comments/suggestions or better ways to count PDF downloads. Do leave your comments below.

Thanks!