Missing some expected views in your analytics or trying to understand the data? We'll walk through some common analytics questions and explanations below.
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Can't see heatmaps
Viewer heatmaps should populate in your video's engagement analytics almost immediately. If you can't see heatmaps for your video, first check out our Status page for any analytics outages. If everything looks good, reach out to us, and we’ll get to the bottom of it!
Note
Heatmaps will not be generated for podcast episodes played in podcasting apps (like Apple Podcasts, Spotify, etc.). We can only generate heatmaps for plays initiated from the Wistia player.
Where can I find unique plays?
To locate the unique plays for an individual media, navigate to the media's manage page and open the "Analytics" menu. In the “Engagement” tab, click “Show details.” Unique plays are included in the "Play Rate" calculation.
To find unique plays for an entire folder, click “Analytics,” then hover over the "Play Rate" tool tip.
Similarly, to find unique plays from the account level, navigate to Analytics > Overview, then hover over the Play Rate tool tip.
Tip
Unique plays are also included in the Top Media by Plays export from the folder or account-level analytics.
What is the difference between total plays and play rate?
On your media analytics page, you might see some variation between Total Plays and the number of people who played the media as calculated in Play Rate.
This is because the first number includes the true total number of plays, while the second number only includes individual or unique plays. This difference may indicate that a few people played your media more than once without clearing their cookies or using a different browser.
Why don't my play counts match between analytics tabs?
The Embed and Engagement tabs of your media analytics often show different play counts. This is expected, because they show different time frames.
The Engagement tab shows all-time plays, and the Embed tab only shows plays from the timeframe you pick, which is the last 30 days by default.
To compare the two tabs more closely:
Open a media's manage page and click "Analytics"
Click the "Embed" tab
Click the "Last 30 days" dropdown and choose "All available"
Compare the play count with the one on the Engagement tab
If the counts are far apart and you're not sure why, reach out to us and we'll take a look.
What's the difference between plays, visits, and views?
Wistia tracks how often your media loads and how often it's played. Here's what each term means:
Visits: The number of times your media loaded on a page, including repeat visits from the same viewer. A visit counts whether or not anyone pressed play.
Plays: The number of times your media was played, including replays.
Unique plays: The number of individual people who played your media. This number is used to calculate Play Rate.
Play rate: The percentage of people who loaded your media and then played it.
Tip
The Embed tab also breaks down visits and plays by location, so if you've embedded your media in multiple places, you can see which pages get the most engagement. Check out Media Embed Analytics for more information.
Anti-tracking software
If someone you know has played your media but did not show up in your analytics, they could be using anti-tracking software. Let’s cover some of the most commonly used applications:
Ad blockers: Although the original intent of these extensions is to block advertisements, they can often block browser tracking as well. The Wistia player relies on certain tracking to measure play events and record analytics. If the user disables this, we would have no way to record that information.
Virtual Private Networks (VPN): A VPN is essentially a server that acts as an intermediary between the user and the website they wish to connect to. So, rather than your viewer or listener playing your media directly, they connect to the VPN first, and the VPN then streams your media from its location. Using this method, we may be able to record a play event for the media that this person played, but their audience information may be misdirected or inaccurate.
Security browsers: There are browsers designed for maximum privacy that disable cookies and cache storage by default. Oftentimes, they double down by including a built-in ad blocker (e.g., Chromium-based browsers like Brave or Epic). These browsers account for only a small portion of internet users, but it never hurts to cover all your bases.
Analytics tracking test
Now that you know the common factors that can prevent a play session from being recorded, you can run a test to make sure your media is tracking analytics as expected.
First, open an incognito window. Why, you ask? An incognito window opens a new window with no cache or cookies saved, and its default settings disable third-party extensions.
Next, navigate to the public media page without logging in to Wistia. The media URL should look something like this: https://home.wistia.com/medias/30q7n48g4f.
Play your media, even if just for a few seconds. Now that you’ve played your media, return to your media analytics page and see if your play was tracked. Your plays are tracked in real time, but if you don’t see them right away, wait a minute and refresh the page.
Note
Make sure you’re not filtering out your own IP address, as this can block your own tracking, even if you're using an incognito window.
If you still don’t see your play session populate, let us know. We’ll be happy to help!
What happens to my analytics when I move, copy, or delete media?
Depending on what action you're taking, your media's analytics may remain intact, or start fresh.
Moving media to another folder in the same account: The media keeps all of its analytics. Folder totals update to match the media inside each folder. The original folder no longer counts that media's plays, and the new folder starts counting them.
Moving a folder into another folder: The folder's analytics start over to account for the new media in it, but each media inside keeps its own analytics.
Moving media to a different account: The media's analytics don't move with it. The media starts with fresh analytics in the new account.
Copying media: The copy starts with fresh analytics. The original media keeps all of its analytics.
Deleting media: The media's analytics no longer count toward your folder and account totals. If you restore the media from Recently Deleted, its analytics come back with it. Uploading the file again as a new media doesn't restore the analytics, because this is a new file that starts with its own, fresh analytics.
Note
Once deleted media is permanently removed after the restoring window ends, its analytics cannot be recovered.
Note
You can't recover analytics after moving media to a different account. If you'd like to keep a record of your analytics, export them before you move the media.
How do I reset or delete analytics?
To start analytics from scratch on any media, first navigate to the Engagement page of the media's analytics. Scroll down to the bottom of the page, past the heatmaps, and click "Reset stats."
Alert
Resetting stats will wipe heatmaps, plays, and engagement data (including comments) associated with the media. This cannot be undone.
