Traffic sources acquisition analytics software

See which traffic sources bring valuable visitors with data you can trust

Q: How do I check my acquisition tracking is working?

Open Visitors > Real-time , generate a test visit and check that it appears with the expected referrer or campaign information. Reports refresh every few seconds with underlying visit-level data, such as referrers and goal conversions. Validate tracking before using aggregated acquisition reports.

See where your visitors come from based on your own unsampled analytics data. Make acquisition decisions with complete, unsampled, and defensible data.

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Trusted by 1 million organisations worldwide

Understand acquisition across channels, campaigns, and AI referrals

Compare where visitors come from, how campaigns perform, and which discovery sources are emerging with Matomo. Go from a high-level channel view down to a granular view of the specific referrers and campaigns behind your traffic.

Channel types and referrers

See how visitors reach your site across Direct Entry, Search Engines, Websites, Social Networks and Campaigns. Identify which sources drive visitors, comparing channel performance over time.

Analytics campaign tracking

With campaign-tagged links, you can measure marketing activity behind traffic by connecting campaigns to visits and conversions. Matomo even recognises its own campaign parameters and UTM parameters.

AI Assistants acquisition channel

Compare AI-referred traffic with search, social and campaigns to see AI’s role in discovery. Matomo reports human visits referred by AI assistants separately from automated AI agent and chatbot activity.

Follow acquisition channels from first visits to conversions

Identify the sources bringing people to your site before examining individual referrers, campaigns, and key touchpoints that lead to conversion. Matomo’s acquisition reports let you move from a high-level view to the sources, campaigns and touchpoints behind it.

Learn how it works

Compare acquisition channels at a glance
The Acquisition Overview lets you compare performance by channel without needing separate reports first. See visits and trends for source categories and then choose the channel you’d like to investigate further.
Find which sites and searches send you visitors
The Websites report shows referring domains and individual referring URLs. With Search Engine Keywords Performance, connect Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools to bring Google, Bing and Yahoo query data into Matomo. From there, you can use Row Evolution to follow keyword ranking changes over time.
Track campaigns in greater detail
The Campaign URL Builder lets you add consistent tracking parameters to links in ads, newsletters, social posts, and other marketing content. Track campaign name and keyword as standard. Source, medium and content are available with Matomo Cloud or Marketing Campaigns Reporting on On-Premise.
Compare AI Assistant referrals against other acquisition channels
Use the AI Assistants acquisition channel to compare human visits from recognised AI assistants with search, social, campaigns and other channels. Track visits, trends, and conversions. See how AI-referred traffic performs over time.
See how channels contribute to conversion
Multi-Channel Conversion Attribution shows you how conversion credit changes under Last Interaction, Last Non-Direct Interaction, First Interaction, Linear, Position Based and Time Decay models. Compare models to reveal potential undervalued touchpoints against Last Non-Direct attribution, Matomo’s default attribution model.

Make informed decisions with acquisition data you control

Teams can use Matomo acquisition data to guide spend, validate reports and review their analytics setup.

Learn how it works

Invest in channels that contribute to conversions
Invest more confidently in the channels and activities that drive results. Connect traffic sources to conversion outcomes and understand which activity is contributing to results.
Use report numbers you can explain and defend
Data and web managers can confidently explain performance and investigate discrepancies with Matomo’s analytics reports based on a complete dataset.
Build privacy intro acquisition analytics
Privacy and data protection can use Matomo’s privacy controls to manage data collection. Matomo uses first-party data by default and provides privacy controls that can be configured to support GDPR and ePrivacy requirements.
Control the data you collect
Matomo lets you keep ownership of your analytics data and export raw data through supported APIs. Move information into BI or data warehouse workflows and analyse acquisition data across the tools your organisation uses.
Easer GA4 migration
Matomo provides familiar acquisition concepts, including channels, referrers, campaigns, and Source/Medium-style reporting, for teams migrating from GA4.

Unsampled acquisition data you control

Matomo generates reports from the complete event dataset. When you investigate a result, you can access the underlying raw visit and action data.

Retain control of your analytics data. You can export reports and raw data through Matomo’s APIs for auditing, further analysis, or use in BI and data warehouse workflows. Matomo On-Premise users also enjoy direct database access.

When you need to validate acquisition performance, you can examine, export and reuse the data behind the report.

From setup to acquisition reports in three steps

Connect your site, define what matters, and check your data flow to start understanding acquisition.

Connect your website

Add Matomo using the JavaScript tracking code, a supported CMS integration such as WordPress, or Matomo Tag Manager. Once tracking is installed, Matomo starts recording visits and available referral information.

Tag campaigns and define conversions

Add campaign parameters to links in email, paid media, social, and other marketing activity with the Campaign URL Builder. Create goals for key actions like sign-up, download or purchase. Now you’re connecting acquisition activity with both visits and conversions.

Check your data, then open Acquisition

Generate a test visit and use Visitors > Real-time to confirm that visits, referrers, campaigns and conversions are being recorded as expected. Once you’ve confirmed everything is flowing, open Acquisition reports to start comparing performance. The result: a verified channel-by-channel view ready to analyse.

Choose how you host your acquisition analytics

Choose Matomo Cloud when you want Matomo to manage hosting and updates, or Matomo On-Premise when you want to manage the infrastructure yourself.

Matomo Cloud

Included

For teams that want Matomo to manage their analytics infrastructure to help them get started.

Matomo On-Premise

Paid add-on

For organisations that want to run Matomo on infrastructure they control.

Not sure which Matomo deployment model fits your requirements?

Understand what visitors do after they arrive

Acquisition reporting shows how visitors found you. These features help you understand what they do next.

Conversion Funnels

Use Conversion Funnels to see what visitors do between arrival and conversion, or where they drop out. Use Funnel drop-off points to identify journey steps and optimise for specific acquisition sources.

Heatmaps

See how different visitors from different acquisition sources behave once they’re on your landing pages. Heatmaps provide visual context for acquisition performance, so you can see whether certain sources are driving visitors to key content and CTAs.

Session Recordings

With Session Recordings, you can investigate individual visitor journeys. Follow clicks, scrolling, and page interactions preceding conversions and exits.

Matomo Tag Manager

Manage analytics and marketing tags in the same place. Measure more without editing more of your website code. Add or refine conversion and interaction tracking as needs evolve.

What teams like about Matomo acquisition analytics

Real wins from teams using traffic sources acquisition analytics that respect privacy.

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“We’re so glad that we’ve found Matomo to help bridge that gap to provide accurate, first-party data for our clients.”

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“It’s unsampled data.“

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“With one tool, we can get the interesting statistics to improve both our marketing approach and our UX approach.”

Learn more

Go deeper on the topic with our guides and resources.

What is AI brand visibility and what does it tell marketers?

Fnac Darty fined €7 million: when digital personalisation crosses the line on data privacy

ChatGPT Sites analytics: What it tracks and when you need more

Frequently Asked Questions

Why is some of my traffic showing as direct or unassigned?

Matomo doesn’t use “Unassigned” as a standard acquisition channel, so visits appear as Direct Entry in the absence of a usable referrer. This can happen with typed URLs, bookmarks, some email or desktop-app links, PDFs, or links that suppress referrer information. For marketing traffic, add Matomo or UTM campaign parameters so Matomo can identify it as a campaign instead.

Can I see where my traffic comes from without GA4?

Yes. Matomo provides standalone acquisition reporting for channels like search engines, websites, social networks, campaigns, Direct Entry and AI Assistants. Teams migrating from GA4 can use built-in Acquisition Overview and Channel Types reports. Custom Reports can provide a Source/Medium-style view when more detail is needed.

How do I check my acquisition tracking is working?

Open Visitors > Real-time, generate a test visit and check that it appears with the expected referrer or campaign information. Reports refresh every few seconds with underlying visit-level data, such as referrers and goal conversions. Validate tracking before using aggregated acquisition reports.

Does Matomo track traffic from AI assistants?

Yes. Matomo has a dedicated AI Assistants acquisition channel for AI-referred human visits from supported tools like ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot and Perplexity with available referrer information. Separate AI-assisted discovery from other acquisition sources to monitor how it contributes to traffic and conversions.

Is acquisition tracking available on both Cloud and On-Premise?

Yes. Matomo’s core acquisition and referrer reporting is available with both Matomo Cloud and Matomo On-Premise. The packaging differs for certain advanced capabilities: Cloud includes Matomo’s premium feature set. On-Premise starts with the free open-source core and can be extended with premium add-ons. The AI Assistants acquisition channel is available in Cloud and from Matomo 5.5.0 On-Premise.

See your acquisition picture with data you own

Start with unsampled analytics and keep control of your traffic-source data.