Every course creator has a lesson that quietly kills completions. Students hit it, stall, and never come back. Without analytics you learn this from refund requests; with analytics you learn it from a chart, weeks earlier.
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Here is what course analytics should actually tell you, and how the reporting stack works in Learnomy (built by us at Wbcom Designs): a free dashboard for the pulse, and a Pro analytics layer for the diagnosis.
The pulse: what the free dashboard shows
Out of the box, the admin dashboard tracks the vitals: total courses, active enrollments, transactions, certificates issued, pending reviews, and instructor applications, with trends and quick actions. Instructors get their own funnel view per course, including a Students at Risk widget listing learners who have gone quiet, with a one-click reminder, which we covered in the marketplace guide.
That is monitoring. Diagnosis needs to go deeper.
The diagnosis: four questions Pro analytics answers
1. Where does the money actually come from?
Revenue trends over 7, 30, 90, or 365 days, with course performance side by side. Typical finding: two courses drive most revenue while five split the remainder, which should redirect your marketing budget the same afternoon.
2. Where do students disengage?
Engagement tracking across the academy shows which courses hold attention and which leak. Cross-reference with completion funnels and the stalling lesson identifies itself.
3. Which quiz question is broken?
This is the sharpest tool in the box: per-question difficulty with answer-distribution drilldown. When 80% of students pick the same wrong option on one question, one of two things is true: the question is badly worded, or the lesson before it failed to teach the concept. Either way you now know exactly what to fix, down to the question ID. No survey, no guessing.
4. Which instructors drive results?
Instructor reports compare rosters, progress, and outcomes across teachers, which matters for marketplace revenue splits and for deciding whose course template the rest should copy.
Everything exports as CSV or PDF for stakeholders who live in spreadsheets and board decks.
A monthly 20-minute analytics routine
- Revenue view, 30 days: any course trending down two months straight goes on the refresh list
- Engagement view: pick the one course with the worst completion trend
- Quiz stats on that course: open the hardest question’s answer distribution; fix the question or the lesson that precedes it
- Export the summary PDF if anyone upstream needs proof of work
That single loop, run monthly, beats a redesign of everything: you always fix the measured worst thing, not the guessed one.
What to look for in any LMS reporting
- Per-question analytics, not just per-quiz averages (this is the rare one)
- Time-range filters, not lifetime-only numbers
- Instructor-level rollups if you have multiple teachers
- Export, because analytics locked in a dashboard cannot reach your accountant
Reporting depth varies wildly across LMS plugins and is usually a premium tier everywhere; see how the options stack up in our LMS comparison.
FAQ
What analytics do WordPress LMS plugins include?
Basics like enrollments and revenue are common. Deeper diagnosis, per-question quiz difficulty, engagement trends, instructor comparisons, is typically a premium layer; in Learnomy it is the Pro Advanced Analytics extension.
Can I see which quiz questions students get wrong most?
Yes, Learnomy Pro shows per-question difficulty with the full answer distribution, so you can spot a broken question or a lesson that is not landing.
Can I export course reports?
Yes, reports export as CSV and PDF with 7/30/90/365-day filters.
How do I find students about to drop out?
The instructor dashboard’s Students at Risk widget flags learners gone quiet and includes a one-click reminder email.