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• Your guide to cookies, web analytics, and GDPR compliance

  25 février 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Analytics Tips, Privacy, Security
  It’s been almost two years since the GDPR came into effect and turned the online world on its head. Confusion around cookies/cookie consent/cookie compliance remains till today. So we’d like to take this chance to talk more about the supposed “big bad” of the latest century. 

  Online cookies seem to have a bad reputation, but are they as bad as they seem ?

  To start, what are cookies on the internet ?

  An internet cookie a.k.a. an HTTP cookie, is a small piece of data sent from websites that is stored on your computer or mobile when you visit that site.

  Are all cookies bad ?

  No. Cookies themselves are usually harmless as they can’t infect computers with malware. 

  They can also be helpful for both websites who use them and individuals visiting those websites. For example, when online shopping, cookies on ecommerce sites keep track of what you’re shopping for. If you didn’t have that tracking, your cart would be empty every time you moved away from that site.

  For businesses/websites, cookies can be used for authentication (logins) and tracking website user experience. For example, tracking multiple visits to the same site in order to provide better experiences to customers visiting their website.

  

  The not-so-sweet types of cookies :

  Cookies that contain personal data

  Another example of a bad cookie is when cookies contain personal data directly in the cookie itself. For example, when websites store demographics or your name in a cookie ; or when a website stores survey results in a cookie. Use of cookies in these ways is considered bad practice nowadays.

  Third-party cookies
  

  They can be used by websites to learn about your visit and activity across multiple websites. Cookies can enter harmful territory when employed for “big brother” types of tracking i.e. when they’re used to build a virtual fingerprint of individuals after their activity is tracked from website to website. For example most advertising networks create third party cookies in your browser when you view an ad, which lets these advertisers track users across these websites and let companies buy more targeted ads.

  Why does Matomo use cookies ?

  

  For accurate reporting of new and returning visitors. Matomo uses cookies to store some information about visitors between visits. We also use cookies to remember if someone gave consent to tracking, or opted out of tracking. 

  Types of cookies Matomo uses :

  • Matomo by default uses first-party cookies, set on the domain of your site.
  • Cookies created by Matomo start with : _pk_ref, _pk_cvar, _pk_id, _pk_ses. See a list of all Matomo cookies : https://matomo.org/faq/general/faq_146/

  Cookie-less tracking - disable cookies and ensure cookie compliance :

  It’s possible to disable tracking cookies in Matomo by adding a line on the javascript code. When cookies are disabled, Matomo data will become slightly less accurate. Also, when cookies are disabled, there may still be a few cookies created in specific cases.

  If you disable cookies, Matomo tries to detect unique visitors by a fingerprint based on a few browser attributes : operating system, browser, browser plugins, IP address and browser language.

  By disabling tracking cookies, you may also use Matomo without needing to display a cookie consent screen. You can also keep tracking when they reject cookie consent by keeping cookies disabled.

  Cookies and the GDPR

  In some countries and according to the GDPR, websites need to provide a way for users to opt-out of all tracking, in particular tracking cookies.

  The GDPR regulates the use of cookies when they compromise an individual’s privacy. When cookies can identify an individual, it is considered personal data.

  

  Cookie compliance and the GDPR

  To be GDPR compliant you must :

  • Receive user consent before using any cookies (except strictly necessary cookies). Read more on cookies that are “clearly exempt from consent”.
  • Provide accurate and specific information about the data each cookie tracks and its purpose in plain language before consent is received.
  • Document and store consent received from users.
  • Allow users to access your service even if they refuse to allow the use of certain cookies
  • Make it as easy for users to withdraw their consent as it was for them to give their consent in the first place.

  Source : https://gdpr.eu/cookies/

  When does GDPR require cookie consent ?

  The purpose of the GDPR is to give individuals control over their personal data. As such this regulation has provisions and requirements which regulate the processing of personal data to protect the privacy of individuals. 

  This means in order to use cookies, you will sometimes need explicit consent from those individuals.

  When does GDPR not require cookie consent ?

  Then there are many cookies that generally do NOT require consent (Source : https://wikis.ec.europa.eu/display/WEBGUIDE/04.+Cookies). 

  These are :

  • user input cookies, for the duration of a session
  • authentication cookies, for the duration of a session
  • user-centric security cookies, used to detect authentication abuses and linked to the functionality explicitly requested by the user, for a limited persistent duration
  • multimedia content player session cookies, such as flash player cookies, for the duration of a session
  • load balancing session cookies and other technical cookies, for the duration of session
  • user interface customisation cookies, for a browser session or a few hours, when additional information in a prominent location is provided (e.g. “uses cookies” written next to the customisation feature)

  Tracking cookies and consent vs legitimate interest

  

  User consent is not always required :

  We understand that whenever you collect and process personal data, you need – almost always – to ask for their consent. However, there are instances where you have to process data under “legitimate interests”. The GDPR states that processing of personal data is lawful “if processing is necessary for the purposes of the legitimate interests”. This means if you have “legitimate interests” you can avoid asking for consent for collecting and processing personal information. Learn more : https://cookieinformation.com/resources/blog/what-is-legitimate-interest-under-the-gdpr 

  A lawful basis for processing personal data (proceeding with caution) :

  We’ve also written about having a lawful basis for processing personal data under GDPR with Matomo. The caveat here is you need to have a strong argument for legitimate interests. If you are processing personal data which may represent a risk to the final user, then getting consent is, for us, still the right lawful basis. If you are not sure, at the time of writing ICO is providing a tool in order to help you make this decision.

  How is Matomo Analytics GDPR compliant ?

  Matomo can be configured to automatically anonymise data so you don’t process any personal data. This allows you to completely avoid GDPR. If you decide to process personal data, Matomo provides you with 12 steps to easily comply with the GDPR guidelines.

  New developments on cookies and the GDPR

  In the early days of the GDPR, a spate of cookie management platforms (CMPs) popped up to help websites and people comply with GDPR rules around cookies.

  These have become problematic in recent years. Europe’s highest court ruled pre-checked box for cookie boxes does not give enough consent. 

  As well as that, new research suggests most cookie consent pop-ups in the EU fall short of GDPR. A new study called, ‘Dark Patterns after the GDPR’ from MIT, UCL and Aarhus University found that a vast majority of websites aren’t following GDPR rules around cookies. The study found most cookie consent pop-ups in the EU to be undermining the GDPR by finding sneaky ways to convince website visitors to click ‘accept’.

  Disclaimer

  We are not lawyers and don’t claim to be. The information provided here is to help give an introduction to issues you may encounter when dealing cookies. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns. 

  Additional resources :

  • How do the cookie rules relate to the GDPR ? 
  • Cookies, the GDPR, and the ePrivacy Directive

• 4 ways to create more effective funnels

  24 février 2020, par Jake Thornton — Uncategorized

  Accurately measuring the success of your customer’s journey on your website is vital to increasing conversions and having the best outcome for your business. When it comes to website analytics, the Funnels feature is the best place to start measuring each touch point in the customer journey. From here you’ll find out where you lose your visitors so you can make changes to your website and convert more in the future.

  The funnels feature lets you measure the steps (actions, events and pages) your users go through to reach the desired outcomes you want them to achieve. This gives you valuable insights into the desired journey for your customers. 

  When creating a funnel with the funnels feature, you anticipate the customer journey that you want to measure, for example : 

  Step 1 – Visitor lands on your homepage and sees the promotion you’re offering. 
  Step 2 – They click the call-to-action (CTA) button which leads them to information on the product
  Step 3 – They add the product to their cart
  Step 4 – They fill in their personal information and credit card details
  Step 5 – They click the “pay now” button

  From here you can see exactly how many visitors you lose between each step. Then you can implement new techniques to decrease these drop-offs and evaluate the success of your changes over time.

  But what about the non-conventional routes to conversion ?

  That’s right, visitors can end up in all different directions on your website. It’s important to use other features in Matomo to discover these popular pathways your visitors may be taking before the point of conversion.

  Here are 4 Matomo features for discovering important alternative funnels on your website :

  Transitions

  The transitions feature lets you visualise mini funnels on selected pages. You can see how visitors landed on a specific page, and then where they moved on to from this specific page.

  First you need to identify the page(s) that sells your product or service the most. 

  Whether it’s your homepage, a product page or an information page on your services. The transitions feature will then show you the before and after pathways visitors are already taking to get from page to page

  

  The transitions feature is located under Behaviour – Pages. Find the important page you would like to analyse and click on the Transitions icon.

  

  In the example above, you’ll see 18% of visitors who entered from internal pages came from the homepage, which you may have already suspected as the first step in your conversion funnel.

  However, the exact same % of visitors are also entering through a blog post article called /best-of-the-best/

  In this case, it highlights the importance of creating funnels with popular blog posts as the first step in the funnel. Your visitors may have found this post through social media, a search engine etc. Whatever the case, your blog posts could be your biggest influencer for conversions on your website.

  >> Learn more about Transitions

  Page Overlay

  The overlay feature lets you see exactly where visitors are clicking on your landing pages which moves them either in the right or wrong direction in the conversion funnel. 

  If you see a high percentage of clicks to a page that’s off the beaten track from your desired conversion funnel, use the Funnels feature to follow this pathway and analyse how they get back to the pathway you initially intended them to take.

  

  The best thing about the page overlay feature is the visualisation showing the results on the landing page itself. This gives you an idea of where they may be getting distracted by the wrong content.

  You can locate the page overlay feature beside the transitions feature, shown in the screenshot below.

  

  The page overlay feature also gives you a summary of the pageviews, clicks, bounce rates, exit rates and average time spent on page, so you can measure the overall success of each page in the display menu.

  >> Learn more about Page Overlay

  Users Flow

  If you’re looking to see many of the most popular pathways your visitors are taking all at once, then Users Flow is a powerful feature which shows this visualisation.

  Note : For Matomo On-Premise users, Users Flow is a premium feature. More information here.

  

  The thicker the blue line between interactions means the more popular the pathway is. 

  Here you can see how visitors are navigating their way through your website before converting, this presenting clear steps in the conversion funnel that require monitoring and improving on to ensure your efforts are going into the right areas on your website.

  >> Learn more about Users Flow

  Row Evolution

  Another important feature to use which is integrated within the funnels feature, is row evolution which shows you important changes in your user’s behaviour over time.

  

  Having row evolution integrated within the funnels feature gives you a big advantage as it lets you measure the specific metrics and landing pages within your conversion funnel.

  

  You’ll be able to see the increases and decreases in entries and exits to your landing page, as well as increases and decreases in the number of visitors who proceed to the next step in the funnel, and the conversion rate %.

  You’ll also be able to add annotations so you can note all the changes you make to your landing pages over time and quickly identify how these changes impacted your conversion funnels.

  >>Learn more about Row Evolution

  Continually create more and more funnels !

  Measuring the success of the desired pathway you want your customers to take is crucial to ensure you are presenting the best possible user experience for your visitors.

  However, creating funnels for the less desired pathways is equally important. This way you’ll discover popular journeys your visitors are taking within your website you weren’t previously aware of, and can monitor them to make sure they still work in the future. You’ll be able to fix pain points easier and find faster ways to get visitors back on the right track to converting.

• Switch to Matomo for WordPress from Google Analytics

  10 mars 2020, par Joselyn Khor — Plugins, Privacy
  While Google Analytics may seem like a great plugin option on the WordPress directory, we’d like to present a new ethical alternative called Matomo for WordPress, which gives you 100% data ownership and privacy protection.

  Firstly what does Google Analytics offer in WordPress ?

  When you think of getting insights about visitors on your WordPress (WP) sites, the first thing that comes to mind might be Google Analytics. Why not right ? Especially when there are good free Google Analytics plugins, like Monster Insights and Site Kit. 

  These give you access to a great analytics platform, but the downside with Google Analytics is the lack of transparency around privacy and data ownership.

  

  Matomo Analytics for WordPress is an ethical alternative to Google Analytics for WordPress

  If you’re more interested in a privacy-respecting, GDPR compliant alternative, there’s now a new option on the WP plugins directory : Matomo Analytics – Ethical Stats. Powerful Insights. 

  It’s free and can be considered the #1 ethical alternative to Google Analytics in terms of features and capabilities. Why is it important to choose a web analytics platform that respects privacy ?

  

  Risk facing fines for non-GDPR compliance and privacy/data breaches

  In Europe there’s an overarching privacy law called GDPR which provides better privacy protection for EU citizens on the web. 

  Websites need to be GDPR compliant and follow rules governing how personal data is used or risk facing fines up to 4% of their yearly revenue for data/privacy breaches or non-compliance. Even if your website is based outside of Europe. If you have visitors from Europe, you can still be liable.

  

  In the US, there isn’t one main privacy law, there hundreds on both the federal and state levels to protect the personal data (or personally identifiable information) of US residents – like the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA). There are also industry-specific statutes related to data privacy like HIPAA.

  To protect your website from coming under fire for privacy breaches, best practise is to find platforms that are privacy and GDPR compliant by design. 

  When you own your own data – as with the case of Matomo – you have control over where data is stored, what you’re doing with it, and can better protect the privacy of your visitors.

  At this point you may be asking, “what’s the point of an analytics platform if you have to follow all these rules ?”

  The importance of analytics for your WordPress site

  • Figuring out how your audience behaves to increase conversions
  • Setting, tracking and measuring conversion goals
  • Being able to find insights to improve and optimize your site 
  • Making smarter, data-driven decisions so your company can thrive, rather than risk being left behind

  Analytics is used to answer questions like :

  • Where are your website visitors coming from (location) ?
  • How many people visit your website ?
  • Which are the most popular pages on your site ?
  • What sources of traffic are coming to your site (social, marketing campaigns, search) ?
  • Is your marketing campaign performing better this month compared to last ?

  Matomo can answer all of the above questions. BONUS : On top of that, with Matomo you get the peace of mind knowing you’re the only one who has access to those answers.

  

  Matomo Analytics vs Google Analytics on WordPress

  The top 5 most useful features in Matomo Analytics that’s comparable to GA

  1. Campaign measurement – traffic. Matomo also has a URL builder that lets you track which campaigns are working effectively
  2. Tracking goals. Matomo empowers you to set goals you can track. Being able to see this means you can accurately measure your return on investment (ROI) 
  3. Audience reports to learn about visitors. Matomo’s powerful visitors feature lets you learn who is visiting your site, what their journey is and the steps they take to conversion.
  4. In depth view of behaviour with Funnels in Matomo. This tracks the journey of your visitors from the moment they enter your site, to when they leave. Giving you insight into where and why you lose your visitors.
  5. Custom reports. Where you create your unique reports to fit your business goals.

  Other benefits of using Matomo :

  • No data sampling which means you get 100% accurate reporting
  • 100% data ownership
  • Free Tag Manager
  • Search engine keyword rankings
  • Unlimited websites
  • Unlimited team members
  • GDPR manager
  • API access
  • Hosted on your own servers so you have full control over where your data is stored

  Learn more about the differences in this comprehensive table.

  

  Matomo Analytics for WordPress is free !

  Matomo Analytics is the best free Google Analytics alternative on the WordPress Directory. In addition to having comparable features where you can do pretty much do everything you wanted to do in GA. Matomo Analytics for WordPress makes for an ethical choice because you can respect your visitor’s privacy, can become GDPR compliant, and maintain control over your own data.

  Google Analytics leads the market for good reasons. It’s a great free tool for those who want analytics, but there’s no clarity when it comes to grey areas like privacy and data ownership. If these are major concerns for you, Matomo offers complete peace of mind that you’re doing the best you can to stay ethical while growing your business and website.

  It’s just as easy to install in a few click !

  Install and see for yourself !