Matomo Analytics is a free and open source web analytics solution. It’s a powerful alternative for Google Analytics, and has a strong focus on data protection.

A short history of Matomo Analytics

Matomo Analytics (formerly known as Piwik) first version dates back to 2007 and was created by Matthieu Aubry, who is still the team leader. In 2018, it was renamed Matomo.

The tool’s code is written in PHP, Javascript and uses a SQL database (MySQL). This setup makes it easy to install install the platform, since PHP, Javascript and MySQL are very popular for web solutions.

Matomo is used on more than one million websites. It has been translated into 54 languages and has an active community.

Matomo is an especially interesting solution for professional websites such as company showcase sites. You may find it difficult to use, or even impossible to integrate with other tools in the Google ecosystem, such as Google Ads, Google DataStudio and …), as we’ll see.

Why use Matomo Analytics?

Are you looking for a way to measure your website’s performance? Then you’re probaly familiar with Google Analytics. However, if need an alterative because of GDPR, then Matomo may be the right solution for you.

Reporting

Matomo, like Google Analytics, records all statistics about your website visitors. You can find out which pages they visit most often, how they move between pages, how long they stay on each page, and so on.

Typically, reports are presented in tables and contain numbers and are organized in several dimensions. Let’s start with dimensions.

Dimensions

Dimensions are attributes that can be used to classify the data. Just like Google Analytics, Matomo provides you with a broad range of dimensions. Here is an (incomplete) list:

• temporal: The date, hour, day, week, month,…, of the Internet user’s visit.
• The URL of a page visited, entry and exit pages.
• Traffic acquisition channels (organic and paid, referral, direct, …).
• The search engines that bring traffic.
• The browsers that visitors use
• Geographic: The country, region, or city in which the visitor is situated

Numbers

All of the dimensions are quantified with numbers. Again, Matomo provides you with the same information like Google Analytics:

• The number of sessions (visits)
• The number of pages per session.
• The session duration
• The bounce rate
• If you follow them via events, the actions taken
• Click on a button
• scrolling
• Visit a specific web page

Data segmentation

For analyzing the data, it makes sense to create so called segments. They can be defined in any way you want, but it makes sense to follow established practises, for example:

• Visitors who have converted the X goal and came from Google Ads
• Visitors who view more than three pages in a single session are
  

Segments provide a quick access to statistics for users who have a particular behaviour. BUt keep in mind that in Matomo, data in segments are only available from the time they are created. This is the big difference to Google Analytics. Google Analytics allows you you to pull up historical data about a segment instantly. If you know segments that you will use, create them immediately. This will ensure that you have access to data about these segments right from the beginning.

Userflows

Matomo allows you to visualize the most common steps taken by visitors on your site. But it can be difficult to use this tool to understand the user’s journey through the site. While it can give you a feeling of what is going on, it is often much easier to focus on pages and see the previous and next paths in more detailed reports.

Heatmaps

Heatmaps allow you to visualize the behavior of users on you webpage. Although there are specialized software vendors like Crazyegg or Hotjar, it is certainly practical to have an integrated solution like Matomo. Be aware, that using heatmaps can lead to a huge increase in data volume. You should plan ahead if you decide to self-host your data.

On-Site Searches

If you have a bigger site, e.g., an online shop, you can also track search results made on the site. This is very useful to understand what your visitors are looking for and for optimizing the search perforanc on your website.

Matomo Analytics Installation

Matomo offers two  basic installation options, self-hosted on your on premesis and a cloud solution.

Matomo Self-hosted

Since Matomo is open source, you can download the source code and install it on your server. You will need to plan for its size, as it will store a lot of data and require a server that can navigate through the data. A self-hosted solution doesn’t provide all features that Matomo offers out of the box: you’ll have to add paid plugins to have all the features that you need.

Matomo Cloud

Matomo Cloud is the second option. It’s a hosting solution that Matomo offers. You can create an account with a few clicks. This option allows you to access almost all plugins necessary for site analysis. Those plugins, in self-hosted solutions, have to be purchased separately and renewed each year. This quickly increases the cost of the solution.

Data collection

Matomo supports different types of data collection, client side and server side.

Client side

The most classic installation is the one suggested by most analytical tools: a Javascript tag to be integrated on site on client side (frontend).

Then, you will be presented with two solutions:

• Integrate directly Javascript code into the header of your website.
• Use the Matomo Tag Manager. It’s the equivalent of Google Tag Manager. You can integrate not only the Matomo Analytics tag, but any other tags you might need. This makes it much easier for advanced usage.

If you have a CMS system like WordPress you can use the Matomo plugin. The stup and install is very simple and done with a few clicks.

Server side

Although this installation is more complicated, server side tracking it gives you a better picture of traffic and interactions on the site. Tracking cannot be blocked by an advertising blocker because they work only in clients. For example, you can track 100% of ecommerce sales and have perfect consistency between your back office and your web analytics tool. This will allow you to make better decisions and provide a more precise analysis.

Matomo Reporting API

Matomo’s Reporting API is well documented and is very simple to use. The API lets you programmatically retrieve any analytics reports from Matomo. You can select if you want the data for one or several websites and specify date intervals and format (CSV, JSON, XML, etc.). Matomo also provides Management APIs to create, update and delete websites, users, user privileges, custom dashboards, email reports, goals, funnels, custom dimensions, alerts, videos, heatmaps, session recordings, custom segments, and more

Differences between Matomo Analytics & Google Analytics

Matomo can be used in place of Google Analytics without sacrificing functionality and data quality. Matomo works in the same way as Google Analytics, but it requires more work on your side if you want to use it for free (self-hosted). Also, the seld-hosted solutin requires you to pay extra for additional features such as heatmaps, etc. The cloud solution start with 19€ a month for 50.000 hits and includes most of the extra features (e.g., heatmaps) that are otherwise subject to a yearly fee in self-hosted environment. 

Google’s ecosystem around Google Analytics provides an easy integration with each other. This is where Google stands out. For example, to create impressive and useful reports, you can send Google Ads data directly to Google Analytics.

It’s more challenging with Matomo and that’s okay. It’s not difficult to create a lot of things (e.g., a Google Data Studio connector).

Matomo Analytics and GDPR Compliance

In 2022, privacy will be a major concern for both internet users and businesses. Website publishers face many challenges when applying the GDPR.  Google Analytics is not currently compliant for use under the GDPR.

Matomo can be used without consent, but this reduces the number of statistics that are retrieved.

Summary

Matomo Analytics provides a high-performance solution to analyse the performance of websites and applications. It’s a strong competitor to Google Analytics and a must if you have to comply with GDPR rules.

Get in touch with us to learn how to use Matomo for your website.

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