Matomo includes a User ID feature for enhanced tracking on websites that offer the ability for visitors to log in. This feature enables website owners to connect a unique identifier, such as each visitor’s username or email, with their analytics data for more accurate tracking. By tracking the User ID it is possible to connect visitors between visits across multiple dates and devices.

Benefits of enabling User ID tracking

One of the main benefits of tracking User IDs with Matomo is it improves the accuracy of unique visitor counts for your site. It does this by accurately identifying the same user across multiple visits from different devices. However, that is not all it does! There are several useful reports made available when User ID tracking is enabled, which can provide additional insights about your logged in visitors.

  • Understand where users are getting stuck on your site – You can easily segment your visits to show one particular user. This can help you to offer customer support if people are encountering challenges while navigating your site.
  • More accurate unique visitor counts – Matomo uses several heuristics to determine whether a visit is unique or not. However, User ID tracking is one of the most effective for tracking the same user across different devices and locations over time.
  • Learn what specific users are doing – You can show the Visits Log for specific users via their User ID. Look up a specific visitor’s User ID to see everything they have done on your site, across all of their visits. This is especially useful for providing customer support or performing security audits for a site.
  • View a full User Profile for specific users – Useful for market research. You can build a full profile of each user to see: how much time they spend on your site, where they access it from, and their lifetime Ecommerce value.
  • Get a list of your most engaged users – This can help you understand who your most engaged users are. You can also sort these tables by different metrics to see if, for example, the people spending the most time on your site are the same ones with the highest spend.