How to See Who Is Looking at Your Tumblr
By Rosemary Peters
The old saying goes "curiosity killed the cat," but in the case of your Tumblr profile, curiosity about who is looking at your page could help you get more followers. If you can see who is looking at your Tumblr and when, you can tailor your content to your target audience. Tumblr suggests using Google Analytics to help you with this task; however, it can't give you the Tumblr names of people who are checking out your site for reasons of privacy.
Get The Code To Generate Statistics For Your Website
Sign up for Google Analytics with your Google account (see link in Resources). If you do not have a Google account, you will first have to sign up for a Gmail account to get one.
Click "Sign up" if you are using Google Analytics for the first time. Otherwise, go to your Administration page, and click "Create new account" under the Accounts tab.
Answer the first question on the form, which is "What would you like to track?" Your options are Website and Mobile. Click on "Website" because your Tumblr blog is a website.
Enter a meaningful account name for your Tumblr blog. For example, you could use "Tumblr" as the account name. If you are tracking several websites with Google Analytics, this name is especially important to remind you which website you're analyzing.
Enter a website name. For example, you may choose your Tumblr username.
Enter the URL for your tumblr account without the "http://." For example, if your Tumblr URL is "http://fixyourzipper.tumblr.com/" then you would enter "fixyourzipper.tumblr.com/"
Select the industry category that best represents your Tumblr blog, and choose the reporting time zone.
Customize your data sharing options to specify what data you will share with Google, either directly or anonymously.
Click "Get Tracking ID" and click "I accept" on the Terms of Service.
Copy your tracking code.
Paste Tracking Code Into Tumblr
Log in to your Tumblr account.
Click "Customize" on your Dashboard.
Paste the code you copied form Google Analyics into the Description field. You can paste the code anywhere in the Description field, as it will not be visible to your followers. For your own clarity, you may want to paste it under the text that is visible to your followers.
Click "Save."
Who Is Looking?
Give it time for people to visit your blog. Depending on how many followers you have, this may take a few hours or a few days. Check your Google Analytics page each morning when your statistics refresh.
Log in to Google Analytics again.
Choose your Tumblr account on the Administration page, if you have more than one Web page you are tracking with Google Analytics.
View statistics about who is looking at your blog from the "View (Profile)" tab.
Tips
Some Tumblr themes enable you to paste your Google Analytics ID directly into your customizable fields.
References
Writer Bio
Rosemary Peters holds a Bachelor of Science in electrical engineering and a Master of Science in science communication. She has worked on editorial and design content across several publications, including "The Beacon" and "International Innovation." She has also spent time working in the Science radio unit at the BBC.