GDPR-conscious Google Analytics 4 dashboard, local click heatmaps, and statistical anomaly insights — with a dependency-free front-end tracker.
DataMetric Analytics Dashboard and Heatmaps brings the analytics that matter into your WordPress admin, without sacrificing performance or privacy. Standard visitors download only a lightweight, dependency-free (vanilla JavaScript) tracker under 5 KB, while the heavier dashboard interface is loaded exclusively for logged-in administrators. All Google Analytics 4 (GA4) requests are batched, cached, and quota-aware.
Zero-setup Demo Mode: the moment you activate the plugin it runs in Demo Mode, so you can explore the entire experience — every GA4 report and the click heatmap — with realistic sample data and no configuration at all. Demo Mode stays on until you connect your own GA4 property.
Key features
- GA4 dashboard — Users, sessions, pageviews, engagement rate and average session duration KPIs, plus a multi-series 7 or 30-day traffic trend.
- Traffic acquisition — Source / medium (including referrers) breakdown with sessions, users, engagement and key events (conversions), so you can see which channel brings quality traffic.
- Local click heatmap — See where visitors click, rendered as an overlay on your own pages. Stored in your own database, contains no personal data, and is purged automatically after 30 days.
- Realtime — A live active-visitor count and a “last 30 minutes” sparkline.
- Audience & geography — Top pages, top landing pages, top countries, top events, device distribution, and a new-vs-returning visitor split.
- Visual GA4 Event Builder — Define custom GA4 events by clicking any button or link on the page — no code required.
- Statistical anomaly insights — Traffic and bounce-rate values that deviate significantly from the recent average are flagged using classic mean + standard deviation math (not machine learning).
- Privacy-first — Strict opt-in tracking that integrates with Complianz, Borlabs, CookieLawInfo, and Google Consent Mode v2.
A note on “insights”
The anomaly insights are produced by classic descriptive statistics (mean and standard deviation over the reporting window), not machine learning. They flag traffic and bounce-rate values that deviate significantly from the recent average.
External Services
This plugin connects to one external service, and only when you configure it:
- Google Analytics 4 (GA4) Data API (https://analyticsdata.googleapis.com)
- What it is and why it is used: Retrieves your own GA4 property’s reporting statistics (views, users, bounce rate, sessions, traffic sources, and devices) to display them in interactive charts on the admin dashboard. Requests are made only from wp-admin, only after you enter your GA4 Property ID and Service Account credentials, and only with your own Google credentials.
- Data sent: your GA4 Property ID and report queries, authenticated with the Service Account credentials you provide. No visitor data from your site is sent.
- Terms: https://marketingplatform.google.com/about/analytics/terms/us/
- Privacy Policy: https://policies.google.com/privacy
The local click heatmap and anomaly insights run entirely on your own server and database; no visitor tracking data ever leaves your site.
Bundled Third-Party Libraries
- ApexCharts.js (v4.7.0, MIT License) — used to render the admin dashboard charts. Source and documentation: https://github.com/apexcharts/apexcharts.js . The library is bundled locally (Admin/js/vendor/apexcharts.min.js); no chart data leaves your server through it.
Usage
Dashboard (wp-admin): Open DataMetric in the admin menu to view your KPIs, traffic trend, acquisition, device and country breakdowns, realtime activity, and anomaly insights. In Demo Mode these show sample data; once a GA4 property is connected they show live data.
Click heatmap (front-end): The heatmap is drawn on your actual pages, not inside wp-admin. While logged in as an administrator, open any page on the front end of your site, click the floating DataMetric button in the bottom-right corner, switch to the Click Heatmap tab and press Show Heatmap. Click-density dots are overlaid on the page (a sample heatmap in Demo Mode, or your real recorded clicks once live).
GA4 Event Builder: In the same front-end panel, open the Event Builder tab, click Start Element Selection, choose a button or link, give your GA4 event a name and save it. Clicks on that element are then reported to GA4 through your existing gtag setup.
Privacy Policy
DataMetric Analytics Dashboard and Heatmaps respects user privacy and complies with GDPR. Telemetry data is recorded locally on custom database tables, contains no personally identifiable information (PII), and is automatically purged after 30 days.
