Hook into Hit-Tracking

[djstini]

Hi,

is there a way to trigger a custom action on every visit that is filtered/tracked by Matomo?

Couldn't find anything on that in the Documentation https://developer.matomo.org/api-reference/wordpress/hooks-reference#filters

[diosmosis]

Hi @djstini, there's currently no WordPress specific hook, though it shouldn't be too hard to add. Can you explain your intended use case? What would you use such a hook for?

[djstini]

Hi @diosmosis my Use-Case is the following:

We are using Matomo for the general tracking of the site. As Matomo includes mechanisms to filter out bots etc. i would like to leverage this filtering in order to create, for example, custom metrics.

Let's say for example whenever a "real" visitor visits a page I want to update a post-meta.

[diosmosis]

@djstini for something that generic, it sounds like you might be better served by creating a custom Matomo plugin, and having that installed in WordPress. Is that a solution that might work for you? (Note: you would want to look at the RequestProcessor API, https://developer.matomo.org/guides/tracking-requests. You'd create a new one in a new Matomo plugin, and add your WordPress specific logic to one of the hooks in that class.)

[djstini]

Ahh okay, so i'd just extend on the Matomo-RequestProcessor and add my stuff that way. That sounds doable.

Thanks :3

[diosmosis]

Glad this approach might work for you! One thing to note: for Matomo plugins to be installed as WordPress plugins, the main plugin file needs to have this bit of code at the top:

if (defined( 'ABSPATH')
&& function_exists('add_action')) {
    $path = '/matomo/app/core/Plugin.php';
    if (defined('WP_PLUGIN_DIR') && WP_PLUGIN_DIR && file_exists(WP_PLUGIN_DIR . $path)) {
        require_once WP_PLUGIN_DIR . $path;
    } elseif (defined('WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR') && WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR && file_exists(WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR . $path)) {
        require_once WPMU_PLUGIN_DIR . $path;
    } else {
        return;
    }
    add_action('plugins_loaded', function () {
        if (function_exists('matomo_add_plugin')) {
            matomo_add_plugin(__DIR__, __FILE__, true);
        }
    });
}

This isn't documented anywhere as far as I know, since it's automatically added by Matomo marketplace. You'll have to add it yourself.

I'll keep this issue open as I imagine WordPress hooks would be more convenient for some use cases.