10. Beehive

If you already have Beehive configured and are upgrading from a version prior to 3.4.0, you’ll see a message pop up to inform you that Google will be discontinuing Universal Analytics as of July 2023. For more information, see this Google article.

Click the Set Up Analytics 4 button to go straight to the Google Analytics > Account screen where you can add your Analytics 4 stream to Beehive to continue tracking visits and receiving data without interruptions after that date.

The statistics tab allows you to view all of your stats from one area.

Visitors

The Visitors panel displays traffic and activity data across multiple metrics, and using the available filters, will display comparative data over selected time frames.

Use the dropdown at the top-left to switch between the old Universal Analytics and the newer Google Analytics 4 data if you have both of them configured on your site.

The data for each metric during the currently selected time frame is displayed along the bottom of the panel. Click any metric to view a chart detailing that metric’s activity over time.

These metrics are defined as:

• Sessions – The number of unique user sessions during the selected time frame. A session is defined as a group of user interactions with your website that takes place within a given time frame.
• Users – The number of unique individual users who interacted with a site during the selected time frame.
• Pageviews – The number of pages that were fully loaded into a browser at the request of users. A user who views five pages in one session will result in a single session and five pageviews.
• Pages/Session – The average number of pages users viewed during a single session.
• Average Time – The average amount of time users spent interacting with a site during a single session.
• Bounce rate – A bounce occurs when a user leaves a site shortly after arriving without interacting with any elements on the page. The bounce rate is the number of these events as a percentage of all sessions during the selected time frame.

Time Frame Filter

Use the time frame filter to display data for a variety of periods, including custom data ranges.

Changing the time frame will refresh the data for every chart on the Statistics page, so all charts display data for the same period.

Compare to last period

Select the Compare to last period option, and then click a metric to see a comparison of the current data for that period and the data for the time frame preceding the current time frame.

For example, the lighter-colored line in the image below shows a site’s pageview data for the last month, while the bolder line shows the same metric for the month immediately preceding the last month.

Real-Time Visitors

View the real-time data of your site’s visitors, which is categorized by device. This panel displays the total number of current visitors, as well as a percentage breakdown by the following devices.

• Desktop
• Tablet
• Mobile

Mediums, Search Engines, and Top pages

Beehive displays key Search Engine Optimization data in three circle charts directly below the Visitors data.

These charts show traffic data in the following categories:

• Medium – The various sources for site traffic: organic, direct, referral, and so on.
• Social Networks – Traffic that was referred to a site from a social network.
• Search Engines – A ranking of search engines based on the amount of traffic derived from those sources.

Top Countries

The Top Countries chart uses color coding to show, geographically, where traffic is coming from to a site and the number of visitors from each country during the selected time frame.

Top Pages

A list of a site’s most visited pages and the number of visitors who viewed the pages during the selected time period, as well as the average amount of time users spent on that page and the percent change since the previous period.

The list contains links to the listed pages. Click any link to view that page.

You can configure both Google Analytics 4 and/or Universal Analytics options below if you wish, and toggle between the two when viewing the statistics in your site admin. See the Statistics (Analytics)chapter above.

You can create multiple views or data streams for each property (domain/site/network) in Google Analytics. This allows you to create more narrowly tailored reports, which has the added benefit of cleaning up the data as Google separates it from the rest.

Analytics 4 Profile

Once you have authenticated your Google Analytics account on the Accounts screen, click the Analytics 4 Profile dropdown menu and select the data stream you want to use for your site.

Then paste in the Measurement ID for that stream in the field provided to send data to your Google Analytics account.

Note that if you don’t need to view analytics data in your wp-admin, you can simply paste the Measurement ID for the stream you want to use in the field provided to send your site data to your Google Analytics account.

Linking Multiple Analytics Account

If you have multiple Google Analytics accounts linked to your Google account, then the data from only 25 of these streams will be displayed in the analytics dashboard to enhance your site’s performance.

However, If you want to increase this limit you can add the following filter in your theme or custom plugin’s function.php file

add_filter( 'beehive_google_analytics_ga4_accounts_page_size', function ( $limit ) {
// Increase the limit to 50
return 50;
} );

Note: Increasing the limit may introduce timeout errors due to an increased number of requests.

Universal Analytics Profile

Once you have authenticated your Google Analytics account on the Accounts screen, click the Universal Analytics Profile dropdown menu and select the view you want to use for your site.

If you have set up your own API project for this connection, check the Automatically detect Tracking ID checkbox to have Beehive automatically fetch that for you for the selected view, and add it where needed.

If you need to use a different Tracking ID, or just want to send analytics data from your site to your Google Analytics account, be sure that box is unchecked. Then manually enter the tracking ID in the field below.

Admin pages tracking

By default, only the activity on the frontend pages of your site is tracked. However, by enabling this Admin Page Tracking feature, activity in the wp-admin is also tracked.

IP Anonymization

Google does collect IP addresses in order to report geolocation data, but those addresses are never reported and are stored in an anonymous state. When enabled, IP Anonymization modifies collected IP addresses so they cannot be used by Google and allows you to ensure your audience that you are not leaving it up to Google to protect their data.

Multisite Super Admins have an additional option that, when selected, forces all subsites to anonymize IP addresses, as well.

Display Advertising

When enabled, this feature adds Google advertising cookies to your site or network so you can do things like:

• Create Remarketing Audiences based on specific behavior, demographic, and interest data, and share those lists with Google Ads.
• Use demographic and interest data in your Analytics reports.
• Create Segments based on demographic and interest data.

Keep in mind that you may need to update your privacy policy if you wish to enable this feature.

Exclude Roles from Tracking

If you don’t want certain users’ activity to be tracked and added to your analytics, you can exclude them by roles. Search for the user role and select it to ensure that when any users with that role are logged into the site, their activity will not be tracked. You can add multiple roles if you wish.

Statistics in post types

This allows you to display the statistics meta box on custom post types. By default, posts and pages are already included but you can remove these by clicking the x icon next to the name. Simply type in the name of the post type and select it from the dropdown.

Add your Google Tag Manager container ID (GTM ID) in the field provided and click Save Changes. If you’re not sure where to find your GTM ID, see this Google help doc.

In the Settings section are several built-in variables that you can enable, and you can define your own custom ones as well if needed.

You can use the data in your Google Tag Manager account as you see fit. If you need help with that, see this Google doc: https://support.google.com/tagmanager/answer/6164391

Default

Under the Default tab, you’ll find a number of post-related variables are built-in. Enable the ones you need by clicking the toggle on the left.

Visitors

Under the Visitors tab, you’ll find several variables related to the current visitor’s status. Enable the ones you need by clicking the toggle on the left.

Integrations

Under the Integrations tab, you’ll find variables related to currently supported plugins or services. At this time, WPMU DEV’s Forminator and Hustle plugins are supported. Note that if any plugin is not active, their options will appear greyed out here.

When any of the integration options are enabled for Forminator, and a form/poll/quiz is submitted successfully, Beehive will send a Data Layer event with form/quiz/poll data to GTM. The event names are:

• beehive.forminatorFormSubmit (for Form)
• beehive.forminatorPollSubmit (for Poll)
• beehive.forminatorQuizSubmit (for Quiz)

When integration is enabled for Hustle Leads, and an optin module is successfully submitted, Beehive will send a Data Layer event with module data to GTM. The event name is:

• beehive.hustleModuleSubmit (for all modules)

Excluding Forminator Field Data

If you need to exclude certain Forminator field data from the DataLayer sent to your Google Tag Manager, you can use the beehive_gtm_forminator_excluded_fields filter in your active theme’s functions.php file or a mu-plugin.

For example, you could anonymize the data sent to GTM by excluding the Name & Email fields from all forms using the code below. Add any additional field names on new lines as in this example. Note however that it is not possible to specify a form ID, so the specified field data from all forms would be excluded.

This filter can also be used to exclude field data from quizzes or polls. Just remember to specify the field names for these uses as well, not the IDs. For example, the answer field name from a poll could look like answers[question-3410-549], and from a quiz, it could look like 931.

There is unfortunately no equivalent filter for Hustle optin forms. This may be included in a future update however.

Custom

Under the Custom tab, you can define your own custom variables if needed. To add a variable, click the Add Variable button, then enter the Name and Value, and click Save Changes.

Verifying data sent to GTM

You can see exactly which data is being sent to your connected GTM account by toggling on the Preview feature in your GTM workspace to open the TagAssistant. Then visit any page on your site and check the output under the Data Layer tab on the TagAssistant screen.

If you have enabled integration options with Forminator, submit a Forminator form/quiz/poll from your site, and you’ll see data similar to the below example, where you can also see all the form field variables along with the defaults and any custom ones you may have added.

If you have enabled the integration with Hustle, an optin module submitted from your site would send data similar to the below example, along with the default and custom variables as well.

If you do not have a custom API project set up, you can use Google’s shared API instead. Click the Connect with Google button to get started. Note that this is the same process if you click the same button in the Quick Setup modal.

Choose the Google account you wish to use to connect Beehive to Google Analytics.

Check the box to allow Beehive to See and download your Google Analytics data.

Then click the Continue button at the bottom.

Beehive is now connected to your Google Analytics account. You can configure the Universal Analytics view and/or Google Analytics 4 data stream you wish to use for this connection under the Google Analytics > Account tab.

To connect Beehive to Google Analytics using a custom API project you created in the Google Developers Console, click Set up API project and enter the Client ID and Client Secret into the fields provided. Then click Authorize.

When you click Authorize, you will be asked to log in to the API project and grant permission for Google Analytics to collect data from this site. Log in with the Google account used to create the project.

Click Allow in the pop up to confirm the connection between Beehive and Google Analytics.

At this point, you have created an API project and given permission for Beehive to pass data to that project. You can configure the view (profile) you wish to use for this connection under the Google Analytics tab.

Manage your general Beehive settings here.

Statistics Tab

If this is enabled, a top-level statistics tab will appear in the WP Admin sidebar which displays your Google Analytics. Click the toggle to enable/disable this feature and replace the name in the available field to rename the tab that will appear in the sidebar.

Manage your plugin data settings by configuring the Uninstallation and Reste Settings modules.

Uninstallation

When Beehive is uninstalled, the settings that you have made within the plugin can either be kept by selecting Preserve or be discarded by choosing the Reset option.

Reset Settings

If you are wanting to start on a clean slate, you can click on the Reset button to instantly revert all the settings back to their default state. Just keep in mind that this will also remove your Google authentication and your statistics report.

Here you can determine who can see the data and reports compiled by your analytics account.

Statistics

Select either the user roles or the capability required to view your statistics in the WordPress Dashboard area.

User Roles

To adjust this per user role, click on the Roles tab, then toggle on the ones who you want to be able to view the stats.

• On single sites, the Administrator role will appear at the top, and is enabled by default.
• On multisite networks, the Network Administrator role will appear at the top, and is enabled by default.
• On multisite networks, the roles enabled will apply to every site in the network unless the Allow site admins to overwrite this setting box is checked.

You can fine-tune exactly what you wish selected user roles to be able to view by clicking on the role once toggled, and drilling into the dropdowns to select the specific elements you want.

Capabilities

To adjust this according to a minimum required capability, click on the Capabilities tab. Then enter the capability required to view stats in the admin area. Note there is no fine-tuning available as above for this option.

• On multisite networks, the capability set here will apply to every site in the network unless the Allow site admins to overwrite this setting box is checked.

Settings

This section enables you to specify the user roles or users who can access and adjust the plugin settings.

User Roles

To adjust this per role, click the User Role tab, and select the roles you need.

• On single sites, the Administrator role will be enabled by default.
• On multisite networks, the Network Administrator role will also appear there and be enabled by default.
• On multisite networks, the roles enabled here will apply to every site in the network unless the Allow site admins to overwrite this setting box is checked.

Custom Users

To adjust this per user, click the Custom Users tab. Then select either Exclude or Include and click Add User to add the ones you want to exclude or include from the User Role settings.

• Here again, on multisite networks, the users included/excluded here will apply to every site in the network unless the Allow site admins to overwrite this setting box is checked.

The Beehive Statistics widget provides access to site traffic statistics directly from the dashboard of any site with Beehive activated and connected to Google Analytics.

For sites that are not connected to Google Analytics, Beehive will display a notification to that effect. Click the link provided or go to the Accounts module to connect Beehive to Google Analytics.

Widget Tools and Tabs

Use the tools and tabs at the top of the widget to access the desired statistical data or view.

The tools include:

• See all stats – Click to open the Statistics page where a detailed report of site traffic data can be found.
• Refresh data – Click to pull in fresh data from Google Analytics.
• Time frame filter – Click the drop-down menu to apply a custom time frame and display data for the selected period only. The selected time frame will apply to all metrics viewed until the time frame is changed.

The tabs include:

• General stats – Each panel within the General Stats tab can be clicked to see a more detailed display of that data.
• Audience – The Audience tab displays data related to users’ behavior while on a site: numbers of unique users, sessions, page views, and page per session.
• Top Pages and Views – A list of a site’s most visited pages, along with the number of visitors, the average time users spend on those pages, and whether the pages are trending up or down.
• Traffic – This tab displays the leading sources of a site’s traffic geographically, by search engine, medium, and social network.

There are 5 APIs that you will need to enable, as follows:

• Google Analytics API – this API enables those with established credentials to configure the data collection and the reporting profile for a specific property.
• Google Analytics Reporting API – this API enables authorized users to build custom dashboards in Google Analytics, automate complex reporting tasks, and integrate with applications like Beehive.
• Google Analytics Data API – this API allows for programmatic access to the report data of the connected account so your Google Analytics 4 data can be displayed in your site admin.
• Google Analytics Admin API – this API allows for programmatic access to the configuration data of the connected account to fetch the list of GA4 properties associated with that account.
• Google People API – this API collects user profile and contact information for consenting users and shares that data with Google Analytics.

To get started, click the + Enable APIs and Services link to access the Google library of APIs.

For each of the 5 APIs listed above, use the search tool to locate it.

Click on the corresponding result. For example, you would see this when searching for the Google Analytics API:

On the next screen, click the Enable button to enable the API.

If you are prompted to create credentials, ignore the request, and exit the prompt. Google requires OAuth 2.0 credentials for API connections, but it is better to add all the required APIs before creating those credentials.

Once all 5 required APIs are added to the project, it’s time to create the OAuth Client ID.

Google requires informed user consent for most of its data collection APIs. In the case of Beehive, Google requires an OAuth 2.0 Client ID which, in turn, requires that users grant consent to the data collection via a consent screen. First, we will configure the consent screen, then the Client ID.

There are many routes to the OAuth credential screen, but the following path is the most direct.

First, navigate to your Google API Project Dashboard by clicking Google APIs in the upper left corner. Once there, click the Oauth Consent Screen tab.

If you’re a Google Workspace user and want this app to be restricted to users within your organization, select the Internal option here. For all other cases, select External. Then click the Create button.

The following screen is where you’ll enter the info that appears on the consent screen when authorizing the app. As you will be the only one authorizing it for integration with Beehive, you should only need to fill in the following required fields:

• App name – enter any name you like
• User support email – use the same address as the Google account you’re logged-in with
• Developer contact email – same as above

Then click +Add Domain and enter your site’s domain name in the Authorized Domains section. Click Save & Continue.

You can ignore everything on the Scopes and Test Users screens, and simply click the Save & Continue button on each of those. Then, on the final Summary screen, click the Back to Dashboard button at the bottom.

On that next screen, click the Publish App button, then the Confirm button in the little modal that pops up.

Next, click on the Credentials tab and, in the +Create Credentials dropdown, select Oauth client ID.

Create Client ID

Complete the Create OAuth Client ID form as instructed below and click Create.

Application type – Select Web application and a series of settings relevant to web applications will appear.

Name – Here you are actually naming the credentials associated with this project. The name can be anything that works for you.

Authorized Javascript origins – All the javascript required for Beehive to function is contained in the app, so Admins can ignore this field.

Authorized redirect URIs– You must add the URI of the site being connected twice, once with a slash (/) at the end, and once without a slash (/) at the end.

You can quickly copy your URI redirects by navigating to the Accounts tab in Beehive. Under the Set up API Project section, you will notice a dropdown area for URI Redirects. Click on the row or the arrow to expand the section and you will be able to easily copy both of the URIs required for this step in the process.

When you are ready, click Create and Google will generate your credentials.

You can copy your Client ID and Client Secret key directly from this module or you can locate them at a later stage in your Credentials tab, as discussed below.

Locating Your Client Secret and Client ID

The Credentials screen contains a list of the Client IDs for all your Google API projects. Each Client ID will have an associated Client Secret, which can be viewed by clicking the name of the project or the pencil icon.

When you open the Client ID page, the Secret Key may not appear immediately. If not, simply refresh the page, and the key should appear beneath the Client ID.

The Client ID for this project cannot be changed, but users can reset the Client Secret as necessary by clicking Reset Secret.

If you followed our advice and connected the network using the Google Analytics API and did so from Network Admin, every subsite can now connect using the simple Connect with Google method.

When you visit Beehive > Accounts in any subsite admin, you’ll see a notification that Beehive is connected at the network level, but the subsite admin can connect to their own account should they wish to by using the simple Connect with Google method.

Click Connect with Google, then follow the directions in the Connect with Google chapter above.

How will statistics work if Google Analytics is connected only in the network admin?

The Google Analytics 4 tag (G-XXXXXXX) of the data stream (profile) selected in the network admin will be output on all pages of all sites, whether they are domain-mapped or not. Data will be sent to the connected Google Analytics data stream from the entire network.

Statistics for the network will be viewable in the network admin only.

How will statistics work if Google Analytics is connected both in the network admin and in a subsite?

The Google Analytics 4 tag (G-XXXXXXX) of the data stream (profile) selected in the network admin will be output on all pages of all sites, whether they are domain-mapped or not. Data will be sent to the connected Google Analytics data stream from the entire network. Network statistics will be viewable in the network admin.

If a subsite is also connected using the Connect with Google option, the Google Analytics 4 tag of the data stream (profile) selected in that subsite will also be output on all pages of that subsite, whether it is domain-mapped or not. Data will be sent to the connected Google Analytics data stream from that subsite as well. Only statistics for the GA4 data stream selected in that subsite will be viewable in that subsite admin.

How will statistics work if Google Analytics is connected only in a subsite?

The Google Analytics 4 tag (G-XXXXXXX) of the data stream (profile) selected in the subsite will be output on all pages of that subsite only, whether it is domain-mapped or not. Data will be sent to the connected Google Analytics data stream from that subsite. Statistics for that subsite will be viewable in that subsite admin only.

Note that if Beehive is not connected in the network admin, the Connect with Google option is not available on subsites. Connecting only one or more subsites can only be done by using a custom API project for each subsite.

How will Google Tag Manager work if it’s configured only in the network admin?

The Google Tag Manager container ID (GTM-XXXXXXX) entered in the network admin will be output on all pages of all sites, whether they are domain-mapped or not. Data for the variables selected in the network admin > Google Tag Manager > Settings will be included in the data layer sent to the selected GTM container ID from the entire network.

How will Google Tag Manager work if it’s configured in both the network admin and in a subsite?

The Google Tag Manager container ID (GTM-XXXXXXX) entered in the network admin will be output on all pages of all sites, whether they are domain-mapped or not. Data for the variables selected in the network admin > Google Tag Manager > Settings will be included in the data layer sent to the specified GTM container ID from the entire network.

If a different Google Tag Manager container ID is entered in a subsite, that GTM ID will also be output on all pages of that subsite, whether it is domain-mapped or not. Data for the variables selected in the subsite > Google Tag Manager > Settings will be included in the data layer sent to the specified GTM container ID from that subsite.

How will Google Tag Manager work if it’s configured only in a subsite?

If a Google Tag Manager container ID is entered in a subsite only, that GTM ID will be output on all pages of that subsite only, whether it is domain-mapped or not. Data for the variables selected in that subsite > Google Tag Manager > Settings will be included in the data layer sent to the specified GTM container ID from that subsite.