### [How to Track User Journey Before Form Submission in WordPress](https://wpforms.com/how-to-track-user-journey-before-form-submission-in-wordpress/)

**Published:** August 26, 2026
**Author:** Hamza Shahid

**Excerpt:** When a user fills out a form on your site, how do you figure out what actually lead them to it? The answer to this question could help you acquire more leads and form submissions.

So, it's important to understand what pages someone reads before they submit. Luckily for you, WPForms can record the entire journey leading up to the form submissions.

In this guide, i'll walk you through how to switch that on and how to read what it gives you, along with how to measure your form analytics to improve conversions.

**Content:**

When a user fills out a form on your site, how do you figure out what actually lead them to it? The answer to this question could help you acquire more leads and form submissions.

So, it’s important to understand what pages someone reads before they submit. Luckily for you, WPForms can record the entire journey leading up to the form submissions.

In this guide, i’ll walk you through how to switch that on and how to read what it gives you, along with how to measure your form analytics to improve conversions.

[Track User Journey Before Form Submission! 😀](https://wpforms.com/pricing/)

## How to Track User Journey Before Form Submission in WordPress

In order to see which pages your visitors are viewing before they submit your form, WPForms offers the [User Journey Addon](https://wpforms.com/features/user-journey-addon/ "User Journey Addon").

And when you want to track how everyone behaves once they reach the form, you have advanced form analytics available.

Here’s how to set everything up in WordPress. The whole set up will takes less than 5 minutes!

- [Step 1: Install the WPForms Pro Plugin](#step-1-install-the-wpforms-pro-plugin)
- [Step 2: Install and Activate the User Journey Addon](#step-2-install-and-activate-the-user-journey-addon)
- [Step 3: Find a Visitor's Journey in Your Form Entries](#step-3-find-a-visitor-s-journey-in-your-form-entries)
- [Step 4: Send Each Journey Straight to Your Inbox](#step-4-send-each-journey-straight-to-your-inbox)
- [Step 5: Pair Journeys With Form Analytics for the Full Picture](#step-5-pair-journeys-with-form-analytics-for-the-full-picture)

### Step 1: Install the WPForms Pro Plugin

WPForms is a advanced drag-and-drop form builder for WordPress that’s used on 6+ million sites, with [2,100+ WordPress form templates](https://wpforms.com/templates/) to start from, an AI form builder and dozens of marketing/CRM integrations.

What I like the most about using WPForms here is the fact that the tracking lives inside the WordPress dashboard. This means, you never have to reference a separate analytics tool against a timestamp, trying to figure out which session belong to which lead.

For this tutorial, I’ll be using the User Journey addon, which requires a [Pro license or higher](https://wpforms.com/pricing/ "Pro license or higher") and also gives you access to advanced form analytics with field-level tracking and the ability to set a conversion goal!

[![The WPForms homepage](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/08/WPForms-Website.png)](https://wpforms.com/pricing/)To get started, buy the [Pro license](https://wpforms.com/pricing/). Then install WPForms on your website. If you need assistance, follow these instructions on [how to add a plugin to WordPress](http://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/step-by-step-guide-to-install-a-wordpress-plugin-for-beginners/).

[Upgrade to WPForms Pro Now! 🙂](https://wpforms.com/pricing)

### Step 2: Install and Activate the User Journey Addon

Journey data comes from an addon rather than the core plugin, so nothing gets recorded until you turn it on. The activation itself takes about twenty seconds.

In your WordPress dashboard, go to **WPForms » Addons**. Type *user journey* into the addon search box to bring the card to the top of the list.

![wpforms addons](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/WPForms-Addons-1024x696.png)Click **Install Addon** on the **User Journey** card and WPForms will download and switch it on for you with the card moving up to **Activated Addons** with its toggle reading **Activated**.

![Install user journey addon](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/install-user-journey-addon-1024x698.png)That’s the whole setup, with no tracking code to paste into your theme and no external account to connect. The addon reads page views straight from your own site.

Bear in mind though that WPForms can’t reconstruct visits it never watched, so any entry you collected before activating the addon will show an empty journey box.

### Step 3: Find a Visitor’s Journey in Your Form Entries

Once the addon is activated and your form is collecting entries, all future form submissions will include the User Journey information in the entry details.

To see this information, navigate to **WPForms » Entries** and then click on the name of your form.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/wpforms-entries-1024x885.png)This will take you to the entries page for that specific form, where you can simply click on the **View** button in front of any entry to open its form submissions details.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/click-view-action-1024x542.png)After opening the full details of your entry, scroll down to find the section labeled **User Journey**. Every row in that table carries three pieces of information:

- **Time:** When that visit happened.
- **Page title and path:** Which page they viewed, listed in the order they viewed them.
- **Duration:** How long they stayed before moving on.

Bear in mind that the referring source is recorded once per journey and not per row, so make sure to read the rows top to bottom and you get a narrative.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/entry-detail-user-journey-1024x890.png)Any visit carrying query parameters also gets an **Info** icon next to it, don’t forget to click it to see what WPForms recorded for that page.

Campaign tags like `utm_source` show up here, along with any search terms someone typed into your site. For a proper look at that side of the data, we have a separate guide on how to [track a lead source in WordPress](https://wpforms.com/how-to-track-lead-source-in-wordpress/).

![User Journey panel showing a UTM mapping list (source, medium, campaign, content) and subsequent page visits and a lead-form submission.](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/user-journey-url-parameters-1024x575.png)It’s important to remember that not every part looks like the examples I’ve shared above. Many times it’s possible a visitor landed on the form page page and submitted without reading anything else.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/direct-user-journey-example-1024x367.png)Depending on the type of user journey you see per lead, you’ll have to work on a different kind of follow up. For instance, a long path means the person already has your details and wants specifics.

Meanwhile, a journey that just shows a single page visit and then a submission usually means they want a call back and haven’t read much yet.

**Important**

If by any chance you notice a referral source that’s blank, it doesn’t automatically mean that your tracking is broken or anything.

Sometimes, referral data gets dropped when a visitor arrives from a non-SSL site to your SSL site, and most browsers would strip it before it reaches your server.

### Step 4: Send Each Journey Straight to Your Inbox

To read a voyage, you only need to follow the three procedures listed above. This one is optional, but it’s worthwhile when someone other than you handles the leads.

You can open entries one at a time, although you only get a few per day. Once the volume increases, it’s easier to include the path directly in the notification email.

WPForms features a smart tag designed specifically for this purpose, and adding it into your notification template delivers the journey alongside the lead.

In the form builder, locate your notification settings by navigating to **Settings » Notifications**. If you haven’t already, go ahead and enable email notifications by setting the **Enable Notifications** option to the on position.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/enable-notification-emails-1024x418.png)Click the smart tag symbol to the right of the **Email Message** field after scrolling down to it. The Smart Tags list opens as a result.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/click-show-smart-tags-1024x492.png)Pick **Entry User Journey** from the list and WPForms inserts it into the message as a tag chip wherever your cursor was sitting, and saves it as `{entry_user_journey}`.

![](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/click-entry-user-journey-smart-tag-1024x527.png)Save the form, and every notification from that point arrives with the visitor’s full path laid out as a table. Whoever picks up the lead never has to log in to WordPress to see it.

That tag is one of many [smart tags](https://wpforms.com/docs/how-to-use-smart-tags-in-wpforms/) you can drop into a notification. If you haven’t set notifications up before, our guide to [setting up notification emails](https://wpforms.com/docs/setup-form-notification-wpforms/) covers the basics first.

### Step 5: Pair Journeys With Form Analytics for the Full Picture

Although this step is also optional, if your form is doing poorly and you are unsure of the reason, I would recommend checking it out.

Individual paths show what one person did, but Form Analytics tracks what everyone performs on the form itself. Reading the aggregate first helps you decide which travel is worth opening.

Go to **WPForms » All Forms** in your dashboard. Next to the **Entries** column you’ll find **Views**, **Interactions**, and **Conversion** for every form on your site.

![Dashboard screenshot of WPForms forms overview with Add New button and form list: Newsletter Signup, Job Application, Support, etc.](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/See-Every-Forms-Health-at-a-Glance-1024x508.png)Hover over a form name and click **Analytics** to open its own report page.

![Forms Overview: first item 'Sullie's Bakery Contact Form' with actions (Edit, Entries, Analytics, Preview, Duplicate, Trash); author Sullie; 1,218 entries, 4,015 views, 51,679 interactions, 30.3% conversion.](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/form-analytics-wpforms-1024x440.png)At the top of the Form Analytics page, there is a card for each of the five core metrics:

- **Views:** How many times the form actually appeared on someone’s screen.
- **Interactions:** How many times visitors clicked into or typed in a field.
- **Conversion Rate:** The share of views that ended in a submission.
- **Abandonments:** Visitors who started filling the form and left, counted after an hour of inactivity.
- **Errors:** Submissions that failed validation, like a missing required field.

![Dashboard showing form analytics: views, interactions, conversion rate, abandonments, and errors for a bakery contact form (overview panel).](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/form-analytics-page-wpforms-1024x500.png)The **Form Fields** table, which appears below the cards, divides your form into fields one at a time. To locate the field where people sit the longest, sort by average time.

![Analytics table of form fields: First name, Last name, Email, Message, and Phone with views, interactions, and errors per field.](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/analytics-field-view-1024x351.png)On the **Conversion Rate** card, click **Set Goal** to specify a target percentage. The card then compares your live rate to the goal using an up or down arrow.

![Forms Analytics dashboard for Sullie's Bakery Contact Form showing Views 1,360; Interactions 17,354; Conversion Rate 30%; Abandonments 1,245 (21.2%); Errors 208 (15.3%).](https://wpforms.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/07/set-goal-conversion-rate-1024x302.png)When you read the two together, each one fills in the gaps left by the other.

A sinking conversion rate with one field taking thirty seconds indicates where the problem is, and the journeys of the entries that did come through reveal which pages are already doing their job.

Our complete guide to [Form Analytics](https://wpforms.com/docs/complete-guide-to-form-analytics/) goes through every metric in detail, and there’s a walkthrough on how to use [WPForms Analytics](https://wpforms.com/how-to-use-wpforms-analytics-to-improve-your-forms/ "WPForms Analytics") to improve your forms once you know what you’re reading.

### FAQs on Tracking the User Journey Before Form Submission

A few questions come up again and again about tracking the pages visitors view before they submit a form, mostly about what the data covers and where it comes from. Here are the answers to the most common ones.

#### Does the User Journey addon work on entries I already collected?

Recording starts when you activate it, so entries that arrived earlier will show an empty **User Journey** section, and there’s no way to fill in past visits because those page views were never stored anywhere.

If your entries look blank right after installing, check the submission date before assuming something is broken.

#### Why is the referral source blank in some journeys?

When a visitor comes from a site running plain HTTP to your HTTPS site, browsers drop the referrer on the way through, so there’s nothing for WPForms to record.

Privacy settings, VPNs, and browser extensions also all strip referrer data, and direct traffic like a typed URL or an email client link often has no referrer to send in the first place.

#### Can I track the customer journey without Google Analytics?

Yes, and that independence from Google Analytics is largely why the addon exists. Journey tracking runs entirely inside WordPress, so you have no property to configure and no waiting for data to show up in an external dashboard.

It also keeps the data first party, since everything is written to your own WordPress database instead of being sent to a third party service.

#### Does journey tracking still work if someone abandons the form?

It does, as long as you also run the [Form Abandonment addon](https://wpforms.com/features/form-abandonment/) on that form. Abandoned entries pick up journey data the same way completed ones do.

That combination is worth setting up, because it shows you the pages people read before deciding not to submit. Those paths often point at the exact page where interest drops off.

#### How is User Journey different from Form Analytics?

User Journey shows one visitor’s path through your site before a single submission. Form Analytics counts views, interactions, conversions, abandonments, and errors across everyone who reached the form.

In practice you read them together, starting with the aggregate. Analytics tells you a form has a problem, and the individual journeys show you which pages the people who converted actually read.

#### Which WPForms license do I need for user journey tracking?

The User Journey addon requires a Pro license or higher. Form Analytics arrives with WPForms for everyone, though Lite, Basic, and Plus. Users see form view counts on the **All Forms** page only. The full analytics page, field by field tracking, conversion goals, exports, and the AI insights all sit at Pro or higher.

### Next, Turn Those Journeys Into Higher-Converting Pages

Once you can see which pages your best leads read before converting, the follow up work is on those pages. Our guide to [form conversion optimization](https://wpforms.com/a-beginners-guide-to-form-conversion-optimization/) covers the changes worth testing first, from field count to button copy.

You can also add more context to each entry while you’re in there since the [Geolocation addon](https://wpforms.com/features/geolocation-addon/) records where your visitors are submitting from, which pairs nicely with knowing what they read.

[Start Tracking Your Visitors’ Journeys! 🙂](https://wpforms.com/pricing)

Ready to build your form? Get started today with the easiest WordPress form builder plugin. [WPForms Pro](https://wpforms.com/pricing) includes lots of free templates and offers a 14-day money-back guarantee.

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**Categories:** WordPress Tutorials

**Tags:** form analytics, user journey, WPForms, wpforms pro

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