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• Top 5 Web Analytics Tools for Your Site

  11 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  At the start of July 2023, Universal Analytics (UA) users had to say goodbye to their preferred web analytics tool as Google discontinued it. While some find Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can do what they need, many GA4 users are starting to realise GA4 doesn’t meet all the needs UA once fulfilled. Consequently, they are actively seeking another web analytics tool to complement GA4 and address those unmet requirements effectively.

  In this article, we’ll break down five of the top web analytics tools on the market. You’ll find details about their core capabilities, pricing structures and some noteworthy pros and cons to help you decide which tool is the right fit for you. We’ve also included some key features a good web analytics tool should have to give you a baseline for comparison.

  Whether you’re a marketing manager focused on ROI of campaigns, a web analyst focused on conversions or simply interested in learning more about web analytics, there’s something for you on this list.

  What is a web analytics tool ?

  Web analytics tools collect and analyse information about your website’s visitors, their behaviour and the technical performance of your site. A web analytics tool compiles, measures and analyses website data to give you the information you need to improve site performance, boost conversions and increase your ROI.

  What makes a web analytics tool good ?

  Before we get into tool specifics, let’s go over some of the core features you can expect from a web analytics tool.

  For a web analytics tool to be worth your time (and money), it needs to cover the basics. For example :

  • Visitor reports : The number of visitors, whether they were unique or repeat visitors, the source of traffic (where they found your website), device information (if they’re using a desktop or mobile device) and demographic information like geographic location

  • Behaviour reports : What your visitors did while on your site, conversion rates (e.g., if they signed up for or purchased something), the pages they entered and exited from, average session duration, total time spent on a page and bounce rates (if they left without interacting with anything)

  • Technical information : Page loading speed and event tracking — where users are clicking, what they’re downloading or sharing from your site, if they’re engaging with the media on it and how far down the page they’re scrolling

  • Marketing campaign information : Breakdowns of ad campaigns by provider, showing if ads resulted in traffic to your site and lead to an eventual sale or conversion

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) information : Which keywords on which pages are driving traffic to your site, and what search engines are they coming from

  • Real-time data tracking : Visitor, behaviour and technical information available in real-time, or close to it — allowing you to address to issues as they occur

  • Data visualisation : Charts and graphs illustrating the above information in an easily-readable format — helping identify opportunities and providing valuable insights you can leverage to improve site performance, conversion rates and the amount of time visitors spend on a page

  • Custom reporting : Create custom reports detailing the desired metrics and time frame you’re interested in

  • Security : User access controls and management tools to limit who can see and interact with user data

  • Resources : Official user guides, technical documentation, troubleshooting materials, customer support and community forums

  

  Pros and Cons of Google Analytics 4

  Despite many users’ dissatisfaction, GA4 isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s still a powerful tool with all the standard features you’d expect. It’s the most popular choice for web analytics for a few other reasons, too, including :

  • It’s free to use
  • It’s easy to set up
  • It has a convenient mobile app
  • It has a wealth of user documentation and technical resources online
  • Its machine-learning capabilities help predict user behaviour and offer insights on how to grow your site
  • It integrates easily with other Google tools, like Google Search Console, Google Ads and Google Cloud

  That said, it comes with some serious drawbacks. Many users accustomed to UA have reported being unhappy with the differences between it and GA4. Their reasons range from changes to the user interface and bounce rate calculations, as well as Google’s switch from pageview-focused metrics to event-based ones. 

  Let’s take a look at some of the other cons :

  • Lack of privacy, as Google uses data from Google Analytics for advertising purposes.
  • Cookie consent banners can frustrate visitors, and with 40-60% of web visitors rejecting consent, relying on them can lead to inaccurate data and an incomplete view of your web traffic and campaign outcomes.
  • Can’t import data from UA to GA4 
  • Missing features like heatmaps and session recording
  • Google Analytics 360, the GA for enterprises, costs $150,000/year

  Now that you know GA4’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s time to explore other tools that can help fill in GA4’s gaps.

  Top 5 web analytics tools (that aren’t Google)

  Below is a list of popular web analytics tools that, unless otherwise stated, have all the features a good tool should have.

  Adobe Analytics

  

  Adobe is a trusted name in software, with tools that have shaped the technological landscape for decades, like Photoshop and Illustrator. With web design and UX tools Dreamweaver and XD, it makes sense that they’d offer a web analytics platform as well.

  Adobe Analytics provides not just web analytics but marketing analytics that tell you about customer acquisition and retention, ROI and ad campaign performance metrics. Its machine learning (ML) and AI-powered analytics predict future customer behaviour based on previously collected data.

  Key features : 

  • Multichannel data collection that covers computers, mobile devices and IoT devices
  • Adobe Sensei (AI/ML) for marketing attribution and anomaly detection
  • Tag management through Adobe Experience Platform Launch simplifies the tag creation and maintenance process to help you track how users interact with your site

  Pros :

  • User-friendly and simple to learn with a drag-and-drop interface
  • When integrated with other Adobe software, it becomes a powerful solution for enterprises
  • Saves your team a lot of time with the recommendations and insights automatically generated by Adobe’s AI/ML

  Cons :

  • No free version
  • Adobe Sensei and tag manager limited to premium version
  • Expensive, especially when combined with the company’s other software
  • Steep learning curve for both setup and use

  Mobile app : Yes

  Integrations : Integrates with Adobe Experience Manager Sites, the company’s CMS. Adobe Target, a CRO tool and part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud subscription, integrates with Analytics.

  Pricing : Available upon request

  Matomo

  

  Matomo is the leading open-source web analytics solution designed to help you make more informed decisions and enhance your customer experience while ensuring GDPR compliance and user privacy. With Matomo Cloud, your data is stored in Europe, while Matomo On-Premise allows you to host your data on your own servers.

  Matomo is used on over 1 million websites, in over 190 countries, and in over 50 languages. Additionally, Matomo is an all-in-one solution, with traditional web analytics (visits, acquisition, etc.) alongside behavioural analytics (heatmaps, session recordings and more), plus a tag manager. No more inefficiently jumping back and forth between tabs in a huge tech stack. It’s all in Matomo, for one consistent, seamless and efficient experience. 

  Key features : 

  • Heatmaps and session recording to display what users are clicking on and how individual users interacted with your site 
  • A/B testing to compare different versions of the same content and see which gets better results
  • Robust API that lets you get insights by connecting your data to other platforms, like data visualisation or business intelligence tools

  Pros : 

  • Open-source, reviewed by experts to ensure that it’s secure
  • Offers On-Premise or Cloud-hosted options
  • Fully compliant with GDPR, so you can be data-driven without worrying. 
  • Option to run without cookies, meaning in most countries you can use Matomo without annoying cookie consent banners and while getting more accurate data
  • You retain complete ownership of your data, with no third parties using it for advertising or unspecified “own purposes”

  Cons : 

  • On-Premise is free, but that means an additional cost for advanced features (A/B testing, heatmaps, etc.) that are included by default on Matomo Cloud
  • Matomo On-Premise requires servers and technical expertise to setup and manage

  Mobile app : Matomo offers a free mobile app (iOS and Android) so you can access your analytics on the go. 

  Integrations : Matomo integrates easily with many other tools and platforms, including WordPress, Looker Studio, Magento, Jira, Drupal, Joomla and Cloudflare.

  Pricing : 

  • Varies based on monthly hits
  • Matomo On-Premise : free
  • Matomo Cloud : starting at €19/month

  Mixpanel

  

  Mixpanel’s features are heavily geared toward e-commerce companies. From the moment a visitor lands on your website to the moment they enter their payment details and complete a transaction, Mixpanel tracks these events.

  Similar to GA4, Mixpanel is an event-focused analytics platform. While you can still track pageviews with Mixpanel, its main focus is on the specific actions users take that lead them to purchases. Putting your attention on this information allows you to find out which events on your site are going through the sales funnel.

  They’re currently developing a Warehouse Events feature to simplify the process of importing data lakes and data warehouses.

  Key features :

  • Custom alerts and anomaly detection
  • Boards, which allow you to share multiple reports and insights with your team in a range of visual styles 
  • Detailed segmentation reporting that lets you break down your data to the individual user, specific event or geographic level

  Pros :

  • Boards allow for emojis, gifs, images and videos to make collaboration fun
  • Powerful mobile analytics for iOS and Android apps
  • Free promotional credits for eligible startups 

  Cons :

  • Limited features in free plan
  • Best features limited to the Enterprise-tier subscription
  • Complicated set up
  • Steep learning curve

  Mobile app : No

  Integrations : Mixpanel has a load of integrations, including Figma, Google Cloud, Slack, HappyFox, Snowflake, Microsoft Azure, Optimizely, Mailchimp and Tenjin. They also have a WordPress plugin.

  Pricing : 

  • Starter : free plan available
  • Growth : $20/month
  • Enterprise $833/month

  HubSpot Marketing

  

  HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with marketing, sales, customer service, content management system (CMS) and operations tools. This greater ecosystem of HubSpot software allows you to practically run your entire business in one place.

  Even though HubSpot Marketing isn’t a dedicated web analytics tool, it provides comparable standard metrics as the other tools on this list, albeit without the more advanced analytical metrics they offer. If you’re already using HubSpot to host your website, it’s definitely worth consideration.

  Key features :

  • Customer Journey Analytics presents the steps your customers went through in the sales process, step-by-step, in a visual way
  • Dashboards for your reports, including both fully customisable options for power users and pre-made templates for new users

  Pros :

  • Integration with other HubSpot tools, like HubSpot CRM’s free live chat widget 
  • User-friendly interface with many features being drag-and-drop, like the report dashboard
  • 24/7 customer support

  Cons :

  • Can get expensive with upgrades and other HubSpot tool add ons
  • Not a dedicated web analytics tool, so it’s missing some of the features other tools have, like heatmaps
  • Not really worth it as a standalone tool
  • Some users report customer support is unhelpful

  Mobile app : Yes

  Integrations : The larger HubSpot CRM platform can connect with nearly 1,500 other apps through the HubSpot App Marketplace. These include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Make, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, Shopify, monday.com, Stripe, WooCommerce and hundreds of others.

  Pricing : 

  • Starter : $20/month ($18/month with annual plan) 
  • Professional : $890/month ($800/month with annual plan) 
  • Enterprise : $3,600/month ($43,200 billed annually)

  Kissmetrics

  

  Kissmetrics is a web analytics tool that is marketed toward SaaS and ecommerce companies. They label themselves as “person-based” because they combine event-based tracking with detailed user profiles of the visitors to your site, which allows you to gain insights into customer behaviour. 

  With user profiles, you can drill down to see how many times someone has visited your site, if they’ve purchased from you and the steps they took before completing a sale. This allows you to cater more to these users and drive growth.

  Key features : 

  • Person Profiles that give granular information about individual users and their activities on your site
  • Campaigns, an engagement messenger application, allows you to set up email automations that are triggered by specific events
  • Detailed reporting tools 

  Pros : 

  • No third-party cookies
  • No data sampling
  • APIs for Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Python and PHP

  Cons : 

  • Difficult installation
  • Strongest reporting features only available in the most expensive plan
  • Reports can be slow to generate
  • Requires custom JavaScript code to tack single-page applications
  • Doesn’t track demographic data, bounce rate, exits, session length or time on page

  Mobile app : No

  Integrations : Kissmetrics integrates with HubSpot, Appcues, Slack, Mailchimp, Shopify, WooCommerce, Recurly and a dozen others. There is also a Kissmetrics WordPress plugin.

  Pricing : 

  • Silver : $299/month (small businesses)
  • Gold : $499/month (medium) 
  • Platinum : custom pricing (enterprises)

  Conclusion

  In this article, you learned about popular tools for web analytics to better inform you of your options. Despite all of GA4’s shortcomings, by complementing it with another web analytics tool, teams can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their website traffic and enhance their overall analytics capabilities.

  If you want an option that delivers powerful insights while keeping privacy, security and compliance at the forefront, you should try Matomo. 

  Try Matomo alongside Google Analytics now to see how it compares.

  Start your 21-day free trial now – no credit card required.

• Data Privacy Issues to Be Aware of and How to Overcome Them

  9 mai 2024, par Erin

  Data privacy issues are a significant concern for users globally.

  Around 76% of US consumers report that they would not buy from a company they do not trust with their data. In the European Union, a 2021 study found that around 53% of EU internet users refused to let companies access their data for advertising purposes.

  These findings send a clear message : if companies want to build consumer trust, they must honour users’ data privacy concerns. The best way to do this is by adopting transparent, ethical data collection practices — which also supports the simultaneous goal of maintaining compliance with regional data privacy acts.

  So what exactly is data privacy ?

  

  Data privacy refers to the protections that govern how personal data is collected and used, especially with respect to an individual’s control over when, where and what information they share with others.

  Data privacy also refers to the extent to which organisations and governments go to protect the personal data that they collect. Different parts of the world have different data privacy acts. These regulations outline the measures organisations must take to safeguard the data they collect from their consumers and residents. They also outline the rights of data subjects, such as the right to opt out of a data collection strategy and correct false data. 

  As more organisations rely on personal data to provide services, people have become increasingly concerned about data privacy, particularly the level of control they have over their data and what organisations and governments do with their data.

  Why should organisations take data privacy issues seriously ?

  Organisations should take data privacy seriously because consumer trust depends on it and because they have a legal obligation to do so. Doing so also helps organisations prevent threat actors from illegally accessing consumer data. Strong data privacy helps you : 

  Comply with data protection acts

  Organisations that fail to comply with regional data protection acts could face severe penalties. For example, consider the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which is the primary data protection action for the European Union. The penalty system for GDPR fines consists of two tiers :

  • Less severe infringements — Which can lead to fines of up to €10 million (or 2% of an organisation’s worldwide annual revenue from the last financial year) per infringement.
  • More severe infringements — This can lead to fines of up to €20 million (or 4% of an organisation’s worldwide annual revenue from the last financial year) per infringement.

  The monetary value of these penalties is significant, so it is in the best interest of all organisations to be GDPR compliant. Other data protection acts have similar penalty systems to the GDPR. In Brazil, organisations non-compliant with the Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais (LGPD) could be fined up to 50 million reals (USD 10 million) or 2% of their worldwide annual revenue from the last financial year.

  Improve brand reputation

  Research shows that 81% of consumers feel that how an organisation treats their data reflects how they treat them as a consumer. This means a strong correlation exists between how people perceive an organisation’s data collection practices and their other business activities.

  

  Data breaches can have a significant impact on an organisation, especially their reputation and level of consumer trust. In 2022, hackers stole customer data from the Australian private health insurance company, Medibank, and released the data onto the dark web. Optus was also affected by a cyberattack, which compromised the information of current and former customers. Following these events, a study by Nature revealed that 83 percent of Australians were concerned about the security of their data, particularly in the hands of their service providers.

  Protect consumer data

  Protecting consumer data is essential to preventing data breaches. Unfortunately, cybersecurity attacks are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In 2023 alone, organisations like T-Mobile and Sony have been compromised and their data stolen.

  One way to protect consumer data is to retain 100% data ownership. This means that no external parties can see your data. You can achieve this with the web analytics platform, Matomo. With Matomo, you can store your own data on-premises (your own servers) or in the Cloud. Under both arrangements, you retain full ownership of your data.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, while respecting user privacy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  What are the most pressing data privacy issues that organisations are facing today ?

  Today’s most pressing data privacy challenges organisations face are complying with new data protection acts, maintaining consumer trust, and choosing the right web analytics platform. Here is a detailed breakdown of what these challenges mean for businesses.

  Complying with new and emerging data protection laws

  Ever since the European Union introduced the GDPR in 2018, other regions have enacted similar data protection acts. In the United States, California (CCPA), Virginia (VCDPA) and Colorado have their own state-level data protection acts. Meanwhile, Brazil and China have the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) and the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), respectively.

  For global organisations, complying with multiple data protection acts can be tough, as each act interprets the GDPR model differently. They each have their own provisions, terminology (or different interpretations of the same terminology), and penalties.

  A web analytics platform like Matomo can help your organisation comply with the GDPR and similar data protection acts. It has a range of privacy-friendly features including data anonymisation, IP anonymisation, and first-party cookies by default. You can also create and publish custom opt-out forms and let visitors view your collected data.

  

  Today’s most pressing data privacy challenges organisations face are complying with new data protection acts, maintaining consumer trust, and choosing the right web analytics platform. Here is a detailed breakdown of what these challenges mean for businesses.

  Complying with new and emerging data protection laws

  Ever since the European Union introduced the GDPR in 2018, other regions have enacted similar data protection acts. In the United States, California (CCPA), Virginia (VCDPA) and Colorado have their own state-level data protection acts. Meanwhile, Brazil and China have the General Data Protection Law (LGPD) and the Personal Information Protection Law (PIPL), respectively.

  For global organisations, complying with multiple data protection acts can be tough, as each act interprets the GDPR model differently. They each have their own provisions, terminology (or different interpretations of the same terminology), and penalties.

  A web analytics platform like Matomo can help your organisation comply with the GDPR and similar data protection acts. It has a range of privacy-friendly features including data anonymisation, IP anonymisation, and first-party cookies by default. You can also create and publish custom opt-out forms and let visitors view your collected data.

  Try Matomo for Free

  Get the web insights you need, while respecting user privacy.

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Maintaining consumer trust

  Building (and maintaining) consumer trust is a major hurdle for organisations. Stories about data breaches and data scandals — notably the Cambridge Analytical scandal — instil fear into the public’s hearts. After a while, people wonder, “Which company is next ?”

  One way to build and maintain trust is to be transparent about your data collection practices. Be open and honest about what data you collect (and why), where you store the data (and for how long), how you protect the data and whether you share data with third parties. 

  You should also prepare and publish your cyber incident response plan. Outline the steps you will take to contain, assess and manage a data breach.

  Choosing the right web analytics platform

  Organisations use web analytics to track and monitor web traffic, manage advertising campaigns and identify potential revenue streams. The most widely used web analytics platform is Google Analytics ; however, many users have raised concerns about privacy issues. 

  When searching for a Google Analytics alternative, consider a web analytics platform that takes data privacy seriously. Features like cookieless tracking, data anonymisation and IP anonymisation will let you track user activity without collecting personal data. Custom opt-out forms will let your web visitors enforce their data subject rights.

  What data protection acts exist right now ?

  

  As time goes on and more countries introduce their own data privacy laws, it becomes harder for organisations to adapt. Understanding the basics of each act can help streamline compliance. Here is what you need to know about the latest data protection acts.

  General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR)

  The GDPR is a data protection act created by the European Parliament and Council of the European Union. It comprises 11 chapters covering the general provisions, principles, data subject rights, penalties and other relevant information.

  The GDPR established a framework for organisations and governments to follow regarding the collection, processing, storing, transferring and deletion of personal data. Since coming into effect on 25 May 2018, other countries have used the GDPR as a model to enact similar data protection acts.

  General Data Protection Law (LGPD)

  The LGPD is Brazil’s main data protection act. The Federal Republic of Brazil signed the act on August 14, 2018, and it officially commenced on August 16, 2020. The act aimed to unify the 40 Brazilian laws that previously governed the country’s approach to processing personal data.

  Like the GDPR, the LGPD serves as a legal framework to regulate the collection and usage of personal data. It also outlines the duties of the national data protection authority, the Autoridade Nacional de Proteção de Dados (ANPD), which is responsible for enforcing the LGPD.

  Privacy Amendment (Notifiable Data Breaches) for the Privacy Act 1988

  Established by the Australian House of Representatives, the Privacy Act 1988 outlines how organisations and governments must manage personal data. The federal government has amended the Privacy Act 1988 twice — once in 2000, and again in 2014 — and is committing to a significant overhaul.

  The new proposals will make it easier for individuals to opt out of data collection, organisations will have to destroy collected data after a reasonable period, and small businesses will no longer be exempt from the Privacy Act.

  United States

  

  The United States does not have a federally mandated data protection act. Instead, each state has been gradually introducing its data protection acts, with the first being California, followed by Virginia and Colorado. Over a dozen other states are following suit, too.

  • California — The then-Governor of California Jerry Brown signed the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) into law on June 28, 2018. The act applies to organisations with gross annual revenue of more than USD 25 million, and that buy or sell products and services to 100,000 or more households or consumers.
  • Virginia — The Virginia Consumer Data Protection Act (VCDPA) took effect on January 1, 2023. It applies to organisations that process (or control) the personal data of 100,000 or more consumers in a financial year. It also applies to organisations that process (or control) the personal data of 25,000 or more consumers and gain more than 50% of gross revenue by selling that data.
  • Colorado — Colorado Governor Jared Polis signed the Colorado Privacy Act (ColoPA) into law in July 2021. The act applies to organisations that process (or control) the personal data of 100,000 or more Colorado residents annually. It also applies to organisations that earn revenue from the sale of personal data of at least 25,000 Colorado residents.

  Because the US regulations are a patchwork of differing legal acts, compliance can be a complicated endeavour for organisations operating across multiple jurisdictions. 

  How can organisations comply with data protection acts ?

  One way to ensure compliance is to keep up with the latest data protection acts. But that is a very time-consuming task.

  Over 16 US states are in the process of signing new acts. And countries like China, Turkey and Australia are about to overhaul — in a big way — their own data privacy protection acts. 

  Knowledge is power. But you also have a business to run, right ? 

  That’s where Matomo comes in.

  Streamline data privacy compliance with Matomo

  Although data privacy is a major concern for individuals and companies operating in multiple parts of the world — as they must comply with new, conflicting data protection laws — it is possible to overcome the biggest data privacy issues.

  Matomo enables your visitors to take back control of their data. You can choose where you store your data on-premises and in the Cloud (EU-based). You can use various features, retain 100% data ownership, protect visitor privacy and ensure compliance.

  Try the 21-day free trial of Matomo today, start your free analytics trial. No credit card required.

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• Bash script to automate FFmpeg operations fails when calling the command, but copy-pasting the generated command into the terminal works [duplicate]

  28 février, par GaboScharff99

  I wrote a bash script which automates a number of conversion operations on video files using FFmpeg. Oddly enough, the FFmpeg call itself now fails when running the script, with a very confusing error message, I might add, but when I copy the command generated by the script into the terminal and run it, it works flawlessly. I'm sorry to insert such a long code block here, but considering how strange this error is, it might be anywhere in the script, so here it is :

  


  #!/bin/bash

audioTrack=1
subSource=1
subTrack=0
transcodeVideo=1
transcodeAudio=1
volumeMultiplier=1
degradeToStereo=0
subLanguage="Japanese"

while getopts "t:ns:vam:dl:h" opt; do
    case "$opt" in
        t) audioTrack=${OPTARG};;
        n) subSource=0;;
        s) subTrack=${OPTARG};;
        v) transcodeVideo=0;;
        a) transcodeAudio=0;;
        m) volumeMultiplier=${OPTARG};;
        d) degradeToStereo=1;;
        l) subLanguage=${OPTARG};;
        h)
            echo "Options:"
            echo "-t [integer]: Audio track number. Default: 1."
            echo "-n: If included, subtitles will be taken from internal source."
            echo "-s [integer]: Subtitles track number. Default: 0."
            echo "-v: If included, video source will be copied without transcoding."
            echo "-a: If included, audio source will be copied without transcoding."
            echo "-m [number]: Volume multiplier. If 1, volume is unaffected. Default: 1"
            echo "-d: If included, audio will be degraded to stereo."
            echo "-l [language]: Subtitles language. Only used for external subtitles source. Default: Japanese."
            exit 0
        ;;
    esac
done

echo "Audio track: $audioTrack."
echo "Subtitles track: $subTrack."
params="-map 0:0 -map 0:$audioTrack -map $subSource:$subTrack -c:v"

if [[ $transcodeVideo -eq 1 ]]; then
    echo "Video will be transcoded."
    params="$params hevc"
elif [[ $transcodeVideo -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "Video will be copied without transcoding."
    params="$params copy"
fi

params="$params -c:a"

if [[ $transcodeAudio -eq 1 ]]; then
    echo "Audio will be transcoded."
    params="$params libopus"
elif [[ $transcodeAudio -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "Audio will be copied without transcoding."
    params="$params copy"
fi

if [[ $volumeMultiplier -ne 1 ]]; then
    echo "Volume will be multiplied by a factor of $volumeMultiplier."
    params="$params -filter:a 'volume=$volumeMultiplier'"
else
    echo "Volume will be unaffected."
fi

if [[ $degradeToStereo -eq 1 ]]; then
    echo "Audio will be degraded to stereo."
    params="$params -ac 2"
elif [[ $degradeToStereo -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "Audio will not be degraded to stereo."
fi

params="$params -c:s copy"

if [[ $subSource -eq 1 ]]; then
    echo "Subtitles source is external."
    echo "Subtitles language is $subLanguage."
    params="$params -metadata:s:s:0 title='' -metadata:s:s:0 language='$subLanguage'"
else
    echo "Subtitles source is internal."
fi

if [[ -f titles.txt ]]; then
    echo "A titles.txt file was found. Titles will be changed according to it."
    echo "Please check titles.txt to make sure the titles are correct."
    changeTitles=1
    counter=0
else
    echo "A titles.txt file was not found. Titles will not be changed."
    changeTitles=0
fi

read -p "Are these options correct? (y/n) " choice

case "$choice" in
    y|Y)
        echo "Initiating conversion sequence. This may take a while..."

        mkdir output
        currentParams=""

        shopt -s nullglob
        for i in *.mp4 *.mkv; do
            currentParams=$params
            fileNameNoExtension=$(echo $i | rev | cut -f 2- -d '.' | rev)

            if [[ $subSource -eq 1 ]]; then
                currentParams="-f srt -i $fileNameNoExtension.srt $currentParams"
            fi

            if [[ $changeTitles -eq 1 ]]; then
                ((counter++))
                currentParams="$currentParams -metadata title='$(awk "NR==$counter" titles.txt)'"
            fi

            ffmpeg -i "$i" $currentParams "output/$fileNameNoExtension.mkv"
        done

        echo "Conversion finished!"
    ;;
    n|N) echo "Operation canceled. Exiting.";;
    *) echo "Invalid input. Try again.";;
esac


  


  The directory I'm running this in contains six video files :

  


  

  1. E1 - The Pirates of Orion.mkv

  


  2. E2 - Bem.mkv

  


  3. E3 - The Practical Joker.mkv

  


  4. E4 - Albatross.mkv

  


  5. E5 - How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth.mkv

  


  6. E6 - The Counter-Clock Incident.mkv

  


  


  Here's the titles.txt file, for completion's sake :

  


  Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 1 - The Pirates of Orion
Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 2 - Bem
Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 3 - The Practical Joker
Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 4 - Albatross
Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 5 - How Sharper Than a Serpent's Tooth
Star Trek: The Animated Series - Season 2, Episode 6 - The Counter-Clock Incident


  


  And finally, here's the error message given by FFmpeg on the terminal for every video file when running the command :

  


  Unable to find a suitable output format for 'Trek:'
Trek:: Invalid argument


  


  Maybe there are better ways to handle all of this, but first and foremost, I would like to figure out why the command fails with such a confusing error message. The only place where the string 'Trek :' is found is in the title taken from titles.txt, but I don't understand why that's seemingly being passed to the name of the output file instead of the title, and apparently only when running the script.

  


  Thanks a lot for your answers ! I know this is quite a bit of text, so I really appreciate you taking your time to read through this.