Install on WooCommerce and WordPress
WooCommerce runs on WordPress, so one plugin covers both. It carries the Whence tracker inside it and serves it from your own site, so nothing depends on another domain staying online. You paste one value, your site key. Then you connect WooCommerce so your orders come in.
Step 1: Download the plugin
In Whence, open Setup > Install and pick the WooCommerce tab (1), or WordPress for a site without a store. Click Download the plugin (2), then Copy (3) on Your site key.
Step 2: Upload and activate it in WordPress
In your WordPress admin, open Plugins, then Add New, then Upload Plugin. Choose the .zip you just downloaded, install it, then click Activate.
Step 3: Paste your site key
Open Settings, then Whence, and paste your site key into Site key. Paste the key alone, not the whole block. Leave Collection address as it is: it is already filled in. Save.
The plugin page then shows Set up. instead of Not recording yet.
If you would rather not use a plugin, Or paste the block by hand on the Install screen gives you the full block to paste in the head of your pages.
Step 4: Create a read-only WooCommerce key
The plugin alone does not bring in paid orders. In your WordPress admin, open WooCommerce, then Settings, then Advanced, then REST API. Click Add key, name it Whence, pick your user and set Permissions to Read. Click Generate API key, then copy the Consumer key and the Consumer secret.
Step 5: Connect WooCommerce in Whence
In Whence, open Setup > Connections. Under Other store platforms, click Connect (1) on the WooCommerce card.
Fill in Store address, Consumer key and Consumer secret (1), then click Connect WooCommerce (2).
Read access is enough: Whence never writes to your store. New orders arrive every 15 minutes, starting with the last 60 days.
What Whence receives
| From | What |
|---|---|
| The tracker the plugin loads | Visits and replays. |
| WooCommerce, through the plugin | Add to cart and checkout started, picked up automatically. |
| The WooCommerce connection | Orders. The plugin ties each order to its visit, on the classic checkout and the block checkout alike. Without the plugin, orders still arrive, but without their visit. |
On WooCommerce, Whence does not send purchases to your ad platforms from the server: they go through the browser pixel only. With that tag on your site, product views, carts and checkouts also go out from the server.
Consent and first-party tracking
Whence reads Google Consent Mode, Cookiebot and OneTrust on your site. Whence no longer shows a banner of its own: in Settings, Whence, keep Use my site’s cookie banner. Another banner can call whence.consent({ analytics: true, marketing: true }) when the visitor answers. See Which cookie banner to use.
First-party tracking (Send through this site, on by default) sends everything through your own site, so ad blockers do not cut it, and your server sets the visitor cookie, which Safari keeps. It needs:
- plugin version 1.2 or later;
- pretty permalinks (Settings, Permalinks, anything but Plain);
- the Relay key from the Install screen, pasted in Settings, Whence.
Without the relay key, the tracker sends to Whence directly. See First-party tracking.