Modern analytics should not only tell you what happened, but help you understand why it happened and what to do next. Many analytics tools either overwhelm users with raw data or rely on third-party tracking methods that are increasingly blocked by browsers, resulting in incomplete or misleading data.

Must-Have Analytics takes a different approach. It is a WordPress-native, first-party analytics system designed to turn raw data into actionable insights, while maintaining full control over privacy, performance, and data ownership.

TL;DR – What makes Must-Have Analytics different?

  • Remarketing and email list export – Create behavior-based user segments and export them for remarketing platforms or email campaigns.
  • Correlation analysis and Sankey paths – Understand what actually matters by seeing which metrics influence each other and how users move through your site.
  • Advanced goals and retrospective goals – Track real business outcomes and apply new goal definitions to historical data without losing past insights.
  • Server-side conversion tracking – Send conversions directly from the server to ad platforms for more reliable attribution and tracking accuracy.
  • Built-in reports – Access ready-to-use analytics reports directly in WordPress without external dashboards.

Each of these areas is explained in detail below.

Must-Have Analytics in Action

What Is Must-Have Analytics?

Must-Have Analytics is a WordPress plugin that tracks website usage and user behavior without relying on third-party analytics platforms. All data is collected as first-party data and stored inside your WordPress environment.

This makes it especially suitable for site owners who:

  • want full ownership of their analytics data,
  • prefer predictable GDPR-friendly data handling,
  • need analytics tightly integrated into WordPress and WooCommerce.

Why First-Party Tracking Matters More Than Ever

One of the core principles behind Must-Have Analytics is first-party tracking, and this is increasingly critical in today’s browser landscape.

Most modern browsers actively block third-party tracking scripts and pixels by default, including common solutions such as Facebook (Meta), TikTok, and other advertising or analytics platforms. As a result, traditional client-side pixel-based tracking often leads to missing sessions, underreported conversions, and unreliable attribution.

First-party tracking works differently. Because tracking happens within your own domain and server environment, it is not classified as third-party tracking and therefore is not blocked by browsers in the same way. This ensures that core analytics data—sessions, events, goals—remains consistent and reliable.

In addition, Must-Have Analytics supports server-side conversion tracking. Conversions are sent directly from the server to advertising platforms, meaning conversions are recorded even if the user’s browser blocks tracking scripts or pixels. This significantly reduces data loss and improves attribution accuracy over time.

Privacy-First by Design

Privacy is not an afterthought in Must-Have Analytics; it is a design baseline.

The plugin supports cookieless tracking out of the box, allowing basic analytics to run without requiring user consent. When deeper analysis is required, optional first-party cookies and profiling features can be enabled in a controlled and transparent way.

Because analytics data is not sent to external third parties by default, compliance is achieved structurally, rather than through complex consent workarounds or partial solutions.

Advanced Goals: Measuring What Actually Matters

Meaningful analytics starts with meaningful goals. Must-Have Analytics allows you to define advanced, business-oriented goals, including:

  • page-based goals (e.g. reaching a thank-you page),
  • event-based goals (form submissions, button clicks, interactions),
  • WooCommerce goals (add-to-cart, checkout steps, purchases),
  • custom goals based on URLs, parameters, or internal events.

Goals are not limited to a single type of site; they can be adapted to content sites, lead-generation pages, and e-commerce workflows alike.

Retrospective Goals

A key differentiator is retrospective goal tracking. Goals can be created or refined after data has already been collected and then applied retroactively to historical visits.

This allows you to:

  • test new hypotheses without waiting for new traffic,
  • analyze past performance using improved goal definitions,
  • refine conversion logic without losing historical insights.

Correlation Analysis and Sankey Path Visualization

Raw numbers rarely explain behavior on their own. Must-Have Analytics includes built-in tools that help uncover relationships and flows within your data.

Correlation Analysis

Correlation analysis helps identify which metrics tend to move together. This is particularly useful for:

  • validating optimization hypotheses,
  • identifying behaviors linked to conversions,
  • distinguishing meaningful signals from coincidence.

Sankey Paths

Sankey diagrams visualize how users move through your site:

  • where they enter,
  • which paths they follow,
  • where they drop out.

This makes them especially useful for UX analysis, funnel optimization, and content structure decisions.

WooCommerce and Business-Oriented Measurement

For WooCommerce stores, Must-Have Analytics tracks more than page views. It understands business-relevant events, such as:

  • add-to-cart actions,
  • checkout steps,
  • completed purchases,
  • conversion rates and revenue-related events.

This allows store owners to analyze actual business performance, not just traffic volume.

Remarketing Export: Turning Analytics into Audiences

Must-Have Analytics allows you to export remarketing audiences based on real on-site behavior.

These exports can be used with platforms such as Google, Meta, and TikTok, and can be built from segments like:

  • visitors of specific pages or products,
  • users who reached the cart but did not purchase,
  • high-engagement or returning visitors,
  • exclusion lists for already converted users.

Because these audiences are built from first-party data, they reflect actual user behavior, not black-box platform assumptions.

Email List Export and Email Summaries (Separate Features)

Email-related features are intentionally separated.

Email List Export

Where email data is lawfully available (for example from WooCommerce orders or form submissions), Must-Have Analytics allows exporting email-based datasets. These exports can be used to:

  • build segmented mailing lists,
  • sync data with email marketing platforms,
  • refine and clean existing email audiences based on behavior.

Email Summaries

Separately, the plugin can generate automated email summaries of analytics data. These summaries are intended for:

  • stakeholders who do not log into WordPress regularly,
  • periodic KPI overviews,
  • lightweight reporting without manual exports.

Advanced Profiling: Understanding Behavior Over Time

Must-Have Analytics supports high-level user profiling, allowing sessions and events to be linked over time once identifiers (such as email or name) become available.

This enables:

  • multi-visit journey analysis,
  • cohort-based behavior comparison,
  • deeper segmentation for marketing and optimization,
  • more accurate remarketing audience creation.

Important note: although it is not visible externally whether profiling is enabled, profiling in the European Union may require user consent. Therefore, in Must-Have Analytics, advanced profiling features for EU users can only be activated when appropriate user consent has been given.

Reports and charts

Must-Have Analytics includes a wide range of ready-to-use reports, including:

  • Overview and real-time activity
  • Pages and entry/exit reports
  • Referrers and traffic sources
  • Devices, browsers, and locations
  • Sessions and visits
  • Goals and conversions
  • WooCommerce performance
  • Sankey paths
  • Correlation analysis
  • Remarketing and export reports

Report filtering and segmentation

All reports in Must-Have Analytics are fully filterable. Each report includes a dedicated filter panel that allows data to be narrowed down based on visitor attributes, behavior, traffic sources, and business-related conditions. This makes it possible to analyze the same report from multiple perspectives without duplicating reports or exporting data first.

Filters are applied consistently across reports, so once you understand the filtering logic, it works the same way whether you are analyzing visits, sessions, goals, or WooCommerce performance.

Chart metrics and analytical overlays

Charts in Must-Have Analytics support additional analytical layers that can be applied directly on top of the data:

  • Moving average
  • Trend line
  • Standard deviation
  • Bollinger bands
  • Cumulative line

These overlays help interpret the data beyond raw values. They make it easier to tell the difference between one-time spikes and real trends, evaluate the stability of growth, and understand how metrics evolve over time. In practice, this allows decisions to be based on statistical signals rather than visual guesswork.

Report exports and chart downloads

Must-Have Analytics provides multiple export options across all reports:

  • every report table can be exported to CSV, Excel (XLS), or PDF
  • every generated chart can be downloaded as a PNG image

This makes analytics data fully portable. Reports can be shared with clients or stakeholders, imported into external tools, or reused in presentations and documentation without rebuilding them manually. Instead of being locked inside the dashboard, insights can move freely into decision-making, reporting, and communication workflows.

Final Thoughts

Must-Have Analytics is not designed to replicate traditional analytics platforms. It is built to support real decision-making, with a focus on:

  • first-party data ownership,
  • reliable tracking in a post-pixel world,
  • advanced but practical analysis tools,
  • marketing-ready outputs,
  • and deep WordPress integration.

For anyone who wants analytics that goes beyond counting visits—and actually supports optimization, growth, and compliance—Must-Have Analytics is built for that purpose.