Click Counter and Heat Maps (Free) vs SlimStat Analytics

Click Counter and Heat Maps by Code Domination is a comprehensive click tracking solution that lets you monitor user interactions on any element of your WordPress site using CSS selectors. Track button clicks, link clicks, form submissions, or any other clickable element with detailed analytics and insights. Key Features Visual Element Picker * Click-to-select any element on your site * Automatically generates the CSS selector * No coding knowledge required Advanced Analytics * View click counts with timestamps * Track page URLs where clicks occurred * Filter data by date range * Visual charts showing click trends over time * Detailed click logs with full information Goal Tracking * Set click goals for any tracked element * Receive email notifications when goals are reached * Track progress with visual progress bars * Perfect for conversion tracking Data Management * Export click data to CSV * Automatic data retention policies * Rate limiting to prevent spam * Bot detection and filtering Smart Exclusions * Exclude all logged-in users * Exclude specific user roles (Admin, Editor, etc.) * Self-ignore mode with cookie-based tracking * IP-based rate limiting Developer Friendly * Shortcode support: [click_count selector=".buy-button"] * Clean, efficient code following WordPress standards * Custom database tables for optimal performance * Translation ready How It Works Add a Tracker: Use the visual picker or enter a CSS selector (like .buy-button or #signup-form) Set Goals (Optional): Define click targets and email notifications Track Clicks: The plugin automatically tracks all clicks on matching elements Analyze Data: View charts, logs, and export reports Take Action: Use insights to optimize your site’s performance Perfect For E-commerce: Track add-to-cart, checkout, and purchase buttons Lead Generation: Monitor form submissions and signup clicks Content Marketing: Measure engagement with CTAs and links A/B Testing: Compare performance of different elements Conversion Optimization: Identify high-performing buttons and links Privacy & Performance No external dependencies for click tracking Non-personal site data shared weekly to improve the plugin (see External Services) Hashed IP addresses (never stores actual IPs) Bot detection prevents false clicks Lightweight JavaScript using native browser APIs Works with all caching plugins External Services This plugin makes connections to external services under specific circumstances: 1. Site Telemetry (Automatic) – When: Weekly via WordPress cron, and on plugin activation/deactivation – What’s sent: Website URL, domain name, plugin version, estimated monthly pageviews (aggregated, non-personal), average server response speed (milliseconds), and activation/deactivation/update events – Where: https://plugins-for-wp.com/wp-json/st-telemetry/v1/collect – Why: To understand plugin usage patterns, ensure compatibility across WordPress versions and hosting environments, improve plugin features, and provide better support – User control: This data collection is a condition of using the plugin. No personally identifiable visitor data, IP addresses, or individual click-level tracking data from your site visitors is transmitted. 2. Deactivation Feedback (Optional) – When: Only when you deactivate the plugin and choose to submit feedback – What’s sent: Plugin slug, site URL, reason for deactivation (selected from predefined options), optional user comments, WordPress version, PHP version, and plugin version – Where: https://plugins-for-wp.com/wp-json/st-feedback/v1/submit – Why: To help us improve the plugin based on user feedback – User control: Completely optional – you can click “Cancel” or simply close the feedback dialog without submitting anything External Service Policies: – Terms of Service: https://www.plugins-for-wp.com/terms-and-conditions/ – Privacy Policy: https://www.plugins-for-wp.com/privacy-policy/ Privacy What This Plugin Does NOT Do: – Does not store actual IP addresses (only hashed) – Does not use cookies for tracking (only for self-ignore feature) – Does not transmit individual visitor data to third parties – Does not track across sites – Does not collect personal visitor information What Data Is Stored Locally: – Click counts per CSS selector – Timestamp of each click – Page URL where click occurred (optional, can be disabled) – Hashed IP address (for rate limiting only) – User agent string (for bot detection) – User ID (only if user is logged in) – Aggregated daily pageview counts (for telemetry reporting) What Data Is Transmitted: – Non-personal site-level data is sent weekly to plugins-for-wp.com to help improve the plugin (see External Services section above for full details) – No individual visitor data, IP addresses, or click-level data is ever transmitted

Most analytics plugins quietly hand your visitors to someone else’s cloud. SlimStat doesn’t. Every pageview, click, and visitor lands in your own WordPress database and stays there: yours to read in real time, yours to purge whenever you want, never shipped off to Google or anyone else. See the whole story the moment it happens: who’s on your site right now, where they are in the world, what they’re reading, and which links they follow on the way out. Set a goal and watch it convert, or chain a few steps into a WooCommerce funnel and see exactly where people slip away. It’s the depth you’d expect from a hosted analytics service, running entirely on your own terms. Best part: privacy isn’t a setting you have to hunt for. Anonymized IPs, Do Not Track, a consent banner, and scheduled data cleanup are GDPR-ready from the first activation. Thousands of WordPress sites already trust SlimStat to keep their analytics honest, fast, and entirely their own. Main Features Real-time access log — Your site’s pulse, live. Watch each visit land the instant it happens: the page, the spot on the map, the search or link that sent them, how quickly your server replied, human or bot. Complete access log — Every visit in one searchable table. Drill into the full history and break it down by date, country, browser, OS, referrer, search term, or content type to answer the questions the summary charts can’t. Goals & funnels — Turn raw traffic into answers. Define a goal to measure a conversion (a WooCommerce sale, a signup, a key pageview) and see uniques, totals, and conversion rate. Or chain steps into a funnel to spot exactly where visitors drop off. One goal is free; up to five goals and full funnels unlock with Pro. Outbound link report — See which external links actually earn clicks. SlimStat records every outbound link your visitors follow, so you know what’s sending traffic off your site and which partnerships pull their weight. Know your visitors — Go past pageviews to the people behind them: returning readers, logged-in users, and a full audience breakdown by country, language, browser, OS, and screen size. (Pro’s User Overview adds per-visitor journeys, time on site, and Gravatars.) Your data, your server — No third-party cloud, no Google looking over your shoulder. Every byte lives in your WordPress database, and one-way IP hashing lets you count unique visitors without ever storing who they are. GDPR, sorted — Anonymize or hash IPs, honor Do Not Track, auto-purge old records on a schedule, and drop in a translatable consent banner that snaps straight into the WP Consent API (WPML and Polylang welcome). Compliance by design, not an afterthought. Admin bar stats — Keep an eye on the numbers without leaving your work. Online visitors, pageviews, and top pages sit one glance away in the WordPress admin bar, on every screen. Make every report yours — Rearrange, add, or hide widgets across Real-Time, Overview, Audience, Site Analysis, and Traffic Sources until each screen shows exactly what you care about. Shortcodes — Drop any report into a widget, post, or page with a single shortcode. Filters — Decide who counts. Skip your own team, known bots, whole IP ranges, admin pages, or entire countries so your stats reflect real visitors, not noise. Geolocation — Put a city and country to every visitor, plus their browser and operating system, powered by MaxMind and Browscap. World map — Watch your audience light up across the globe at a glance, even from your phone (map by JQVMap). Export & email — Download your reports as CSV files, generate user heatmaps, or get the day’s numbers in your inbox each morning (heatmaps and email reports via Pro). Cache-friendly — Plays nicely with W3 Total Cache, WP Super Cache, Cloudflare, and most caching plugins. Pro Pack Features Love the free plugin? Pro is for sites that live by their numbers. It adds the heavier tools without changing a thing about how SlimStat respects your data: Email reports — Wake up to the numbers that matter. Schedule the reports you care about and have them land in your inbox as clean HTML tables, with the columns laid out your way. Heatmaps — See exactly where visitors click, and where they don’t, with a heatmap layer painted right over your live pages. User overview — Follow individual registered users: what they viewed, how long they stayed, and how fast your server answered, with Gravatars to put a face to the visit. Extended overview — Add your own columns to the User Overview report and export file, so it tracks exactly what your site cares about. More goals & funnels — Up to five conversion goals and three full funnels, with ready-made templates for WooCommerce checkout, signups, and content engagement. Network analytics — Run reports and settings across an entire multisite network from one place. MaxMind integration — Connect MaxMind’s geolocation API for richer, more precise detail on where your visitors come from. Custom database — Store all your analytics in a separate, external database to keep your main WordPress DB lean. Export to Excel — Download any report as a ready-to-share Excel file. Requirements WordPress 5.6+ PHP 7.4+ MySQL 5.0.3+ At least 5 MB of free web space (240 MB if you plan on using the external libraries for geolocation and browser detection) At least 10 MB of free DB space At least 32 Mb of free PHP memory for the tracker (peak memory usage) Please note If you decide to uninstall Slimstat Analytics, all the stats will be PERMANENTLY deleted from your database. Make sure to setup a database backup (wp_slim_*) to avoid losing your data. Report Bugs Having trouble with a bug? Please create an issue on GitHub. Kindly note that GitHub is exclusively for bug reports; other inquiries will be closed. For security vulnerabilities, please report them through the Patchstack Vulnerability Disclosure Program. The Patchstack team will validate, triage, and handle any security issues.