Research on available plugins with Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager support in Wordpress.
Google Analytics
The best plugins is Google Analytics Dashboard for WP as standard but if you want more then Better Google Analytics is for setting up goals and WP Google Analytics Events for event tracking. It is quite possible for all three of them to co-exist.
For the most straight-forward Google Analytics support, the way to go is GA Google Analytics.
Reviewed and tested, in order of number of active installs:
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Google Analytics by Yoast
is THE most popular one. It the basic setup with simple dashboard inside Wordpress admin. That’s it. -
Google Analytics Dashboard for WP
Everything as expected but more polished than Yoast. Also has reports on posts/pages lists per that specific post. If you want no-frills analytics, this is the way to go. -
Google Analytics by Kevin Sylvestre.
This is the most basic plugin adding only a code to the page without any settings or extra features. And it adds depreciated Analyticsga.jscode, not the preferredanalytics.jscode. Avoid this one. -
Google Analyticator
Dashboard report but no report per post/page. I do like the option to add additional tracking code before and after tracker initialization. I dislike the adverts. -
Better Google Analytics
Setup goals by destination URL, session duration or number of pages per session. Do an A/B testing on variating page/post titles, applied CSS or complete theme. All kinds of reports in the dashboard but not per post/page. The most advanced plugin of them all.You can also set the HTML position for analytics code or disable it if you will load it in another way.
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WP Google Analytics Events
Scroll and click tracking out of the box; just select page element by id/class and track clicks or scroll-into-view. It is straightforward, without reports inside WordPress. I like this concept, and it should co-exist with other plugins like Better Google Analytics. -
Google Analytics Dashboard By Analytify
Only the pro version has some more advanced features (Campaigns), but the free one doesn’t have any; it’s the most basic thing. Ah, yes: you can disable auto-inserting Google Analytics code. -
GA Google Analytics is the best no-frills analytics installer. Supports custom code but not external script loading. Still, I like the fact that the settings page is in the proper position inside the admin menu, and that it possesses all the necessary features.
Google Tag Manager
Extras
Event Tracking Tracker is very useful Chrome extension to monitor all kind of GA events inside your browser.
Additions from 2016
The straightforward plugin that I used to use to implement GA into WordPress is GA Google Analytics, by Jeff Starr plugin. It would simply just include GA code into the site, and nothing more than that.
Additions in 2022