Click Counter by Simple Tools

Requirements

Installation

From WordPress.org

1. In your WordPress admin go to Plugins → Add New
2. Search for Click Counter
3. Click Install Now then Activate

Manual Upload

1. Download the ZIP file from WordPress.org or your account
2. Go to Plugins → Add New → Upload Plugin
3. Choose the ZIP and click Install Now
4. Click Activate

Updating

Updates appear in Dashboard → Updates. Update like any other plugin. All your tracked selectors, click data, and settings are preserved during updates.

Uninstalling

Deactivate and delete from the Plugins screen. The plugin's database tables (wp_clicco_selectors and wp_clicco_clicks) remain after deletion. Delete those tables manually via phpMyAdmin if you want a clean removal.

Quick Start

Start tracking clicks in under 2 minutes:

1. Go to Click Counter in your WordPress admin sidebar
2. Click the Add Click Tracker button
3. Click the picker icon next to the selector field to open the visual element picker, or type a CSS selector manually (e.g. .buy-button or #signup-form)
4. If using the picker: your site opens in a new window with a purple highlight overlay — click the element you want to track
5. Give the tracker a friendly name like “Buy Button” (optional but recommended)
6. Click Save

Click Counter Tab

This is the main dashboard you see when you open the plugin. It lists all your tracked elements in a table.

Table Columns

Actions Explained

• Edit — Opens a modal where you can change the selector, name, or goal settings
• Reset — Deletes all click data for this tracker but keeps the tracker itself. Also resets the goal notification flag so you can receive the goal email again
• Delete (×) — Permanently removes the tracker and all its click data
• Reset All Counts — Clears click data for every tracker at once. The trackers themselves remain

Visual Element Picker

The element picker lets you select elements to track visually without writing CSS selectors.

How to Use

1. Click Add Click Tracker (or Edit an existing tracker)
2. Click the customizer icon next to the selector input
3. A new browser window opens showing your live site
4. A small blue control box appears at the bottom-right with a toggle switch
5. Hover over any element — it highlights in purple
6. Click the element you want to track
7. The window closes and the CSS selector is automatically filled in

Picker Controls

How Selectors Are Generated

The picker generates CSS selectors using a smart algorithm:

• If the element has an ID, it uses that (e.g. #signup-btn) since IDs are unique
• If no ID, it builds a path using tag names and classes (e.g. div.hero > a.cta-button)
• It uses :nth-child() when sibling elements share the same tag to ensure uniqueness
• It walks up the DOM tree until it finds a selector that matches exactly one element

Goal Tracking

Set click targets for any tracker and receive an email when the goal is reached.

Setting Up a Goal

1. Add or edit a tracker
2. Toggle Enable Goal Tracking on
3. Enter your target in the Goal (clicks) field (e.g. 1000)
4. Enter a Notification Email address
5. Click Save

Goal Progress

Trackers with goals show a visual progress bar in the Click Counter tab displaying current clicks vs. the target (e.g. 750/1000) with a percentage-based fill.

Email Notifications

• A WordPress cron job checks goals once daily (runs as part of the daily cleanup task)
• When total clicks meet or exceed the goal count, an email is sent
• The email includes the selector, name, goal count, current count, and a link to your analytics page
• Each goal only sends one notification — it won't email you repeatedly

Analytics & Charts

The Analytics tab provides a visual chart, detailed click logs, and data export.

Chart

A bar chart at the top shows clicks per day for your selected date range. Hover over any bar to see the exact date and click count.

Filters

Click Logs

Below the chart is a paginated table showing every individual click event:

The log table shows 50 entries per page with pagination controls.

CSV Export

Export click data for use in Excel, Google Sheets, or other tools.

How to Export

1. Go to the Analytics tab
2. Set your desired filters (tracker and date range)
3. Click the Export CSV button
4. A CSV file downloads immediately

CSV Columns

The export includes: Selector, Name, Page URL, Page Title, and Clicked At.

Self Ignore Tab

Exclude your own clicks from being tracked by setting a browser cookie.

How to Enable

1. Go to Click Counter → Self Ignore
2. Your current status is displayed (tracking or ignored)
3. Click Enable Ignore or visit the provided URL
4. Your clicks are now excluded

How It Works

• Sets a cookie called clicco_ignore in your browser
• The cookie lasts 400 days
• Works automatically across all tabs and windows in the same browser
• You must enable it separately in different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, etc.) since cookies are not shared between browsers
• Does not persist in incognito/private browsing mode

Sharing With Team Members

Copy the Enable Ignore URL from the Self Ignore tab and share it with colleagues or clients. When they visit the URL, their clicks are excluded from that browser going forward.

Disabling Ignore

When the ignore cookie is active, the Self Ignore tab shows a Disable Ignore button and URL. Visit it to remove the cookie and start tracking your clicks again.

Settings Tab

General Settings

Exclude by User Role

Selectively exclude specific roles from tracking. A grid of checkboxes shows all registered roles on your site (Administrator, Editor, Author, Contributor, Subscriber, plus any custom roles from plugins like WooCommerce).

Tracking Options

Data Management

Shortcode Reference

The Settings tab also shows the shortcode syntax for displaying click counts on the frontend:

• [click_count selector=".buy-button"] — Display count by CSS selector
• [click_count id="1"] — Display count by tracker ID

Shortcode

Use the [click_count] shortcode to display live click counts anywhere on your site.

Parameters

Use one or the other — if both are provided, id takes priority. The shortcode outputs a plain number formatted with your locale's number separators (e.g. “1,234”).

Usage Examples

How It Works

Frontend Tracking

1. When a page loads, the plugin outputs a lightweight inline JavaScript tracker (no external JS files)
2. The script uses event delegation — a single click listener on document.body checks every click against all your saved selectors using element.closest()
3. When a click matches, the tracker sends data to admin-ajax.php using the sendBeacon API (falls back to fetch with keepalive: true)
4. The server validates the nonce, checks bot detection, checks rate limits, verifies the selector exists in the database, and records the click

Database Tables

Performance Notes

• Single event listener for all selectors via delegation — no matter how many trackers you add
• sendBeacon is non-blocking and doesn't delay page navigation or slow down the visitor experience
• Database indexes on selector_id and clicked_at for fast analytics queries
• Daily cron cleanup automatically purges old data per your retention setting
• No external JavaScript files loaded — the tracker is injected inline

Bot Detection

The plugin automatically filters out clicks from bots and crawlers to keep your data accurate.

What Gets Filtered

• Known bots: Googlebot, Bingbot, Yandex, Baidu, DuckDuckGo, and more
• SEO tools: Semrush, Ahrefs, Mj12bot, Dotbot, Petalbot
• Social crawlers: Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter bots
• Monitoring services: Pingdom, UptimeRobot
• Automation tools: Selenium, Puppeteer, Playwright, PhantomJS
• Scripting agents: wget, curl, Python, Java, PHP, Ruby, Perl
• Empty or suspiciously short user agents (under 20 characters)

Bot detection runs server-side on every AJAX click request. If a bot is detected, the click is silently discarded.

Rate Limiting

Prevents a single visitor from inflating your click counts.

• Default: 100 clicks per IP address per hour
• Configurable in Settings → Data Management
• Set to 0 to disable rate limiting
• IP addresses are stored as SHA-256 hashes (never in plaintext) using your site's AUTH_SALT for the hash key
• Works with Cloudflare, reverse proxies, and load balancers by checking CF-Connecting-IP, X-Real-IP, and X-Forwarded-For headers in priority order

Privacy & Data

What Is Stored

Where Data Is Stored

Everything is stored locally in your WordPress database. No data is sent to external servers or third parties.

External Connections

Data Retention

Click records are automatically deleted after the configured retention period (default 90 days) via a daily cron job. Set retention to 0 to keep data indefinitely.

Troubleshooting