How to set up events for tracking user behaviour - Mapping Matomo and code

As product managers / instance managers we would like to get a detailed understanding of how users are interacting with the product and more specifically with certain features.

Aside from tracking visits on specific pages, Matomo allows us also to track clickable elements (buttons, links) as well as errors occurring to understand how users are using the features and detect possible flaws in UX.

Setting up events can be tricky though, as defining an event on an element (like a button or an input field) can be dependent on how it has been coded, which differs across the product due to the lack of a styleguide (which is in progress :)).

Using the example of the implementing analytics for the new checkout process, this article explains how we are working to build a resuable methodology for Matomo.

1. Matomo Setup

First, let´s have a look on how events are reported in Matomo. There are 3 hierarchies:

Events Category
Event Action
Event Name

For example under the category alert we can differentiate between the event actions success and error.

The next sub-level are event names, where we can for example see the specific buttons that have been clicked during the checkout process.

2. How to create an event

In order to track these interactions, both a trigger and a tag need to be defined within the tag manager.

A tag is a snippet of code which can be executed on your site, as soon as the condition of a connected trigger is met.

To create an functioning trigger on an element it is important to know how the element has been defined in the code. Along the work of the new checkout process we started creating a wiki on which element to be tracked how. See more details in this issue.

Element

Code

Matomo