Data Exploration

Overview

Matomo's reports are archived: fast, but limited to the combinations someone set up in advance. Questions like "which browsers do visitors from our newsletter use?" or "which events happen on which page?" need a secondary dimension or a quick cross table, often just once.

Data Exploration answers them straight from your website's raw data. Pick a dimension, optionally a second one and up to five metrics, and the table is ready. Matomo segments and simple row filters narrow the result, a click on a column sorts it, and the export gives you CSV or TSV.

Dimensions and metrics

Choose from acquisition (channel type, referrer, campaign), visitor (country, region, city, language, visitor type), technology (device type, operating system, browser, screen resolution), time (date, weekday, hour), visit (entry and exit pages) and behaviour dimensions (page URL, page title, events, downloads, outlinks, site search), plus your Custom Dimensions. Metrics cover visits, goals and actions: visits, unique visitors, bounce rate, visit duration, conversions, revenue, pageviews, events and more.

Protection of your Matomo

Every exploration checks the data volume first, stops queries that run too long where the database supports it, runs at most twice at the same time and uses a read replica when one is configured. Data Exploration creates no tables and no reports and changes neither Matomo itself nor other plugins.

Requirements

• Matomo 5.12 or newer
• PHP 8.1 or newer
• Optional: the free Marketing Campaigns Reporting plugin for campaign source and campaign medium, Channel Grouping for the channel group of every visit.

Installation

With one click through the Feinwerk connector or as a ZIP file, see Installing plugins.

License

Free plugin under GPL v3 or later.

Use cases

• Secondary dimensions like in Google Analytics: Devices per campaign, events per page, countries per channel: one dimension, a second one and up to five metrics in one table.
• Results at once: The table is built straight from the raw data. Nothing to set up, no archiving to wait for.
• Table, chart or both: Bars per row or lines over time, with the metric of your choice.
• Straight from your reports: The flask icon "Open in exploration" under the standard reports keeps the dimension, period and segment. "Explore this row" opens the visits of a report row, ready to break them down.
• A menu on every row: Filter to its value, break it down by a second dimension, or see the visits behind it in the Visits Log.
• Gentle on your database: A size check before every query, a time limit, at most two queries at the same time, caching and read replica support.

Data Exploration answers questions about your Matomo data straight from the raw data: a free-form table with one dimension, an optional secondary dimension and up to five metrics. Matomo's reports are archived and only show the combinations set up in advance. With Data Exploration you combine freely, for example browsers per campaign or events per page, without creating a report and without waiting for archiving.

Setup step by step

How to install and activate Data Exploration is described under Installing plugins. The plugin creates no tables and no reports; results are cached for at most an hour. It needs Matomo 5.12 or newer.

1. Open an exploration

The reporting menu has a new entry Explorations with the Free-form table. Or click the flask icon Open in exploration under a standard report. The exploration then takes the report's dimension, period and segment.

2. Choose dimensions and metrics

On the left, pick the dimension and optionally a second one, below it up to five metrics. Both lists are grouped and searchable. The table updates on every change. Combinations that cannot give numbers, such as downloads next to the page title, are greyed out with the reason.

3. Period, segment and filters

Choose the period and segment at the top of Matomo as usual; an exploration covers at most 31 days. Under Filters you narrow the rows further: a dimension contains, equals or does not contain a text, a metric is greater than or less than a number. Enter bounce rate and conversion rate in percent, the visit duration in seconds.

4. Chart or table

At the top of the result, choose Table, Chart or Both. With date, hour or weekday as the dimension, the chart shows lines over time, with a secondary dimension one line per value (the five largest). Otherwise it shows horizontal bars, one per row (the 20 largest). Metric in the chart selects which of the chosen metrics the chart shows.

5. Row menu and visits

At the end of each table row a menu offers three ways on: Filter to this value sets a filter on the row, Break down by a second dimension filters and opens the choice of the second dimension, Show these visits opens the Visits Log with exactly this row's visits (within the page's segment). Under many standard reports each row also offers Explore this row: the exploration opens on that row's visits, ready to break them down.

6. Sort, export, share

Click a column header to sort. Under Rows you choose how many rows appear, up to 1,000. Export as CSV or Export as TSV downloads the result. The whole exploration is part of the link: Copy link and send it to colleagues who can see the website.

7. Settings for super users

Under Administration → System → General settings → Feinwerk Data Exploration (FeinwerkDataExploration) super users set the longest period (up to 31 days), the row limit, the time limit per query, the largest number of visits in the chosen period, whether to use the read replica, and the role that may use explorations (default: view access).

Examples

Devices per campaign. Dimension Campaign name, secondary dimension Device type, metrics Visits and Conversions. You see at once whether a campaign converts worse on smartphones.

Events per page. Dimension Page URL, secondary dimension Event category, metric Events. No standard Matomo report shows pageviews and events per page URL side by side.

Country and channel. Dimension Country, secondary dimension Channel type or, with Channel Grouping, the Channel group, metrics Visits, Bounce rate and Revenue.

With other plugins

• Marketing Campaigns Reporting: campaign source and campaign medium become dimensions, and the campaign name comes from the plugin's campaign data, lower-cased when its setting says so.
• Channel Grouping: the channel group of each visit becomes a dimension.
• Custom Dimensions: every active Custom Dimension of the website is available, visit or action scope.

Good to know

• Visits next to actions: when a visit metric stands next to an action dimension, it counts the visits with that action. A visit with three pages counts on three rows, so the sum over all rows is larger than the number of visits. The column header says so.
• Large websites and long periods: an exploration reads the raw data of the period. With visit dimensions (channel, country, device) that is the visits, with pages, events, downloads or outlinks the actions, often many times more. Before exploring, the page counts the visits of the period: above a quarter of the threshold (default 2 million) it warns, above the threshold the page offers the most recent days that fit. After a slow exploration the page says how to make it faster.
• When the time limit stops an exploration: choose a shorter period or a segment, or use a visit dimension instead of pages or events. Super users can let explorations run on a read replica ([database_reader] in config.ini.php) and raise the time limit when the database has room for it. On large instances, enough memory for temporary tables (MariaDB: tmp_table_size and max_heap_table_size, MySQL 8: temptable_max_ram) and a buffer pool that holds the indexes of the log tables help. For questions you ask regularly over long periods, archived reports are the better tool.
• Protection of your instance: every exploration checks the number of visits in the period first, stops queries that run too long (where the database supports it: MySQL 5.7.8 and newer, MariaDB 10.1 and newer) and runs at most twice at the same time. Results, visit counts and filter values are cached, one hour for past periods, five minutes when today is included. A few quick changes start only one query.
• Deleted raw data: if Matomo deletes old raw data (Privacy → Anonymize data), the page shows the earliest complete day and the table covers only the days after it.
• Signed-in users only: anonymous users never use explorations, even when they may see a website's reports.
• Event value and OR segments: when a segment combines a goal condition and an action condition with OR, the sum of event values can be too high.
• Period too large: instead of only refusing, the page offers the most recent days of the period that fit the threshold. One click loads them.
• System Check: under Administration → Diagnostic → System Check administrators see whether a read replica is used, whether the database stops long queries, whether old raw data is deleted and the limits in force.
• Roll-up sites: they have no raw data of their own, so there are no explorations.
• No changes to Matomo: Data Exploration changes neither Matomo itself nor other plugins, so it survives Matomo updates.

Technical reference

Property	Value
Technical name	FeinwerkDataExploration
Current version	0.1.1
Matomo	≥ 5.12.0, < 6.0.0-b1
PHP	≥ 8.1.0
License	free
Database changes	none in the current version

FAQ

How is Data Exploration different from archived reports?

Archived reports are lasting and have a long history. Data Exploration is for questions you ask now or once: no setup, no waiting, at most 31 days, and no report is created.

Why at most 31 days?

Explorations read raw data. A month keeps queries fast and protects your database. For long periods, archived reports are the right tool.

Who can use explorations?

Signed-in users with view access to the website. Super users can require a higher role. Anonymous users never use explorations.

What happens on large websites and long periods?

The page counts the visits first and warns about large periods. When a period is too large, it offers the most recent days that fit. Queries are stopped at the time limit where the database supports it, and after a slow query the page says what makes it faster: a shorter period, a segment, or a visit dimension instead of pages. Matomo's System Check shows administrators how explorations run on their server.

Does it work with campaigns and channels?

Yes. With the free Marketing Campaigns Reporting plugin you get campaign source and campaign medium, with Channel Grouping the channel group of every visit.

Can I export or share results?

As CSV or TSV, and every exploration lives in its link. Send it to colleagues who can see the website.

Which Matomo version do I need?

Matomo 5.12 or newer and PHP 8.1 or newer.