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• How to Conduct a Customer Journey Analysis (Step-by-Step)

  9 mai 2024, par Erin

  Your customers are everything.

  Treat them right, and you can generate recurring revenue for years. Treat them wrong ; you’ll be spinning your wheels and dealing with churn.

  How do you give your customers the best experience possible so they want to stick around ?

  Improve their customer experience.

  How ?

  By conducting a customer journey analysis.

  When you know how your customers experience your business, you can improve it to meet and exceed customer expectations.

  In this guide, we’ll break down how the customer journey works and give you a step-by-step guide to conduct a thorough customer journey analysis so you can grow your brand.

  What is a customer journey analysis ?

  Every customer you’ve ever served went on a journey to find you.

  From the moment they first heard of you, to the point that they became a customer. 

  Everything in between is the customer journey.

  A customer journey analysis is how you track and analyse how your customers use different channels to interact with your brand.

  

  Analysing your customer journey involves identifying the customer’s different touchpoints with your business so you can understand how it impacts their experience. 

  This means looking at every moment they interacted with your brand before, during and after a sale to help you gain actionable insights into their experience and improve it to reach your business objectives.

  Your customers go through specific customer touchpoints you can track. By analysing this customer journey from a bird’s eye view, you can get a clear picture of the entire customer experience.

  4 benefits of customer journey analysis

  Before we dive into the different steps involved in a customer journey analysis, let’s talk about why it’s vital to analyse the customer journey.

  By regularly analysing your customer journey, you’ll be able to improve the entire customer experience with practical insights, allowing you to :

  Understand your customers better

  What’s one key trait all successful businesses have ?

  They understand their customers.

  By analysing your customer journey regularly, you’ll gain new insights into their wants, needs, desires and behaviours, allowing you to serve them better. These insights will show you what led them to buy a product (or not).

  For example, through conducting a customer journey analysis, a company might find out that customers who come from LinkedIn are more likely to buy than those coming from Facebook.

  Find flaws in your customer journey

  Nobody wants to hear they have flaws. But the reality is your customer journey likely has a few flaws you could improve.

  By conducting customer journey analysis consistently, you’ll be able to pinpoint precisely where you’re losing prospects along the way. 

  For example, you may discover you’re losing customers through Facebook Ads. Or you may find your email strategy isn’t as good as it used to be.

  But it’s not just about the channel. It could be a transition between two channels. For example, you may have great engagement on Instagram but are not converting them into email subscribers. The issue may be that your transition between the two channels has a leak.

  Or you may find that prospects using certain devices (i.e., mobile, tablet, desktop) have lower conversions. This might be due to design and formatting issues across different devices.

  By looking closely at your customer journey and the different customer touchpoints, you’ll see issues preventing prospects from turning into leads or customers from returning to buy again as loyal customers.

  Gain insights into how you can improve your brand

  Your customer journey analysis won’t leave you with a list of problems. Instead, you’ll have a list of opportunities.

  Since you’ll be able to better understand your customers and where they’re falling off the sales funnel, you’ll have new insights into how you can improve the experience and grow your brand.

  For example, maybe you notice that your visitors are getting stuck at one stage of the customer journey and you’re trying to find out why.

  So, you leverage Matomo’s heatmaps, sessions recordings and scroll depth to find out more.

  In the case below, we can see that Matomo’s scroll map is showing that only 65% of the visitors are reaching the main call to action (to write a review). 

  

  To try to push for higher conversions and get more reviews, we could consider moving that button higher up on the page, ideally above the fold.

  Rather than guessing what’s preventing conversions, you can use user behaviour analytics to “step in our user’s shoes” so you can optimise faster and with confidence.

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  Grow your revenue

  By taking charge of your customer journey, you can implement different strategies that will help you increase your reach, gain more prospects, convert more prospects into customers and turn regulars into loyal customers.

  Using customer journey analysis will help you optimise those different touchpoints to maximise the ROI of your channels and get the most out of each marketing activity you implement.

  7 steps to conduct a customer journey analysis

  Now that you know the importance of conducting a customer journey analysis regularly, let’s dive into how to implement an analysis.

  Here are the seven steps you can take to analyse the customer journey to improve your customer experience :

  

  1. Map out your customer journey

  Your first step to conducting an effective customer journey analysis is to map your entire customer journey.

  Customer journey mapping means looking at several factors :

  • Buying process
  • Customer actions
  • Buying emotions
  • Buying pain points
  • Solutions

  Once you have an overview of your customer journey maps, you’ll gain insights into your customers, their interests and how they interact with your brand. 

  After this, it’s time to dive into the touchpoints.

  2. Identify all the customer touchpoints 

  To improve your customer journey, you need to know every touchpoint a customer can (and does) make with your brand.

  This means taking note of every single channel and medium they use to communicate with your brand :

  • Website
  • Social media
  • Search engines (SEO)
  • Email marketing
  • Paid advertising
  • And more

  Essentially, anywhere you communicate and interact with your customers is fair game to analyse.

  If you want to analyse your entire sales funnel, you can try Matomo, a privacy-friendly web analytics tool. 

  You should make sure to split up your touchpoints into different customer journey stages :

  • Awareness
  • Consideration
  • Conversion
  • Advocacy

  Then, it’s time to move on to how customers interact on these channels.

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  3. Measure how customers interact on each channel

  To understand the customer journey, you can’t just know where your customers interact with you. You end up learning how they’re interacting.

  This is only possible by measuring customer interactions.

  How ?

  By using a web analytics tool like Matomo.

  With Matomo, you can track every customer action on your website.

  This means anytime they :

  • Visit your website
  • View a web page
  • Click a link
  • Fill out a form
  • Purchase a product
  • View different media
  • And more

  You should analyse your engagement on your website, apps and other channels, like email and social media.

  4. Implement marketing attribution

  Now that you know where your customers are and how they interact, it’s time to analyse the effectiveness of each channel based on your conversion rates.

  Implementing marketing attribution (or multi-touch attribution) is a great way to do this.

  Attribution is how you determine which channels led to a conversion.

  While single-touch attribution models credit one channel for a conversion, marketing attribution gives credit to a few channels.

  For example, let’s say Bob is looking for a new bank. He sees an Instagram post and finds himself on HSBC’s website. After looking at a few web pages, he attends a webinar hosted by HSBC on financial planning and investment strategies. One week later, he gets an email from HSBC following up on the webinar. Then, he decides to sign up for HSBC’s online banking.

  Single touch attribution would attribute 100% of the conversion to email, which doesn’t show the whole picture. Marketing attribution would credit all channels : social media, website content, webinars and email.

  Matomo offers multiple attribution models. These models leverage different weighting factors, like time decay or linear, so that you can allocate credit to each touchpoint based on its impact.

  Matomo’s multi-touch attribution reports give you in-depth insights into how revenue is distributed across different channels. These detailed reports help you analyse each channel’s contribution to revenue generation so you can optimise the customer journey and improve business outcomes.

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  Get the web insights you need, without compromising data accuracy.

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  5. Use a funnels report to find where visitors are leaving

  Once you set up your marketing attribution, it’s time to analyse where visitors are falling off.

  You can leverage Matomo funnels to find out the conversion rate at each step of the journey on your website. Funnel reports can help you see exactly where visitors are falling through the cracks so you can increase conversions.

  6. Analyse why visitors aren’t converting

  Once you can see where visitors are leaving, you can start to understand why.

  For example, let’s say you analyse your funnels report in Matomo and see your landing page is experiencing the highest level of drop-offs.

  

  You can also use form analytics to find out why users aren’t converting on your landing pages – a crucial part of the customer journey.

  7. A/B test to improve the customer journey

  The final step to improve your customer journey is to conduct A/B tests. These are tests where you test one version of a landing page to see which one converts better, drives more traffic, or generates more revenue.

  For example, you could create two versions of a header on your website and drive 50% of your traffic to each version. Then, once you’ve got your winner, you can keep that as your new landing page.

  

  Using the data from your A/B tests, you can optimise your customer journey to help convert more prospects into customers.

  Use Matomo to improve your customer journey analysis

  Now that you understand why it’s important to conduct customer journey analysis regularly and how it works, it’s time to put this into practice.

  To improve the customer journey, you need to understand what’s happening at each stage of your funnel. 

  Matomo gives you insights into your customer journey so you can improve website performance and convert more visitors into customers.

  Used by over 1 million websites, Matomo is the leading privacy-friendly web analytics solution in the world. 

  Matomo provides you with accurate, unsampled data so you understand exactly what’s going on with your website performance.

  The best part ?

  It’s easy to use and is compliant with the strictest privacy regulations.

  Try Matomo free for 21-days and start Improving your customer journey. No credit card required.

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• The Guide to an Ethical Web : With Big Data Comes Big Responsibility

  13 mars, par Alex Carmona

  Roughly two-thirds of Earth’s 8 billion people use the internet for communication, education, entertainment, business and more. We are connected globally in ways previous generations could’ve never dreamed of. It’s been a wild ride, and we’re just starting.

  Many users have learned that experiences online can be a mix of good and bad. Sometimes, the bad can feel like it outweighs the good, particularly when large tech companies use our data shadily, cut corners on accessibility or act in any other way that devalues the human being behind the screen.

  As fellow internet citizens, what responsibility do we have to create a more ethical web for our customers ?

  In this article, we’ll look at ethical principles online and how to act (and not act) to build trust, reach customers regardless of ability, safeguard privacy and stay compliant while improving business outcomes.

  

  What is an “ethical web” ?

  When we talk about the ethical web, we’re talking about the use of the internet in an ethical way. Among other values, it involves transparency, consent and restraint. It applies the Golden Rule to the internet : Treat others (and their data and user experience) how you’d want yourself (and yours) to be treated. 

  With limited oversight, the internet has evolved in ways that often prioritise profit over user rights. While selling data or pushing cookies might seem logical in this context, they can undermine trust and reputation. And the tide is slowly but surely shifting as consumers and legislators push back.

  Consumers no longer want to buy from companies that will use their data in ways they don’t agree to. In 2022, 75% of UK and US consumers surveyed said they were uncomfortable purchasing from businesses with weak data ethics.

  Legislators worldwide have been taking part in this effort for nearly a decade, with laws like GDPR in the EU and LGPD in Brazil, as well as the various state laws in the US, like California’s CCPA and Virginia’s VCDPA. 

  Even tech giants are no longer above the law, like Meta, which was fined over a billion Euros for GDPR violations in 2023.

  

  These changes may make the internet feel less business-friendly at first glance, but ethical choices ultimately build a stronger digital ecosystem for both companies and consumers. 

  Likewise, all internet users alike can make this happen by shunning short-term profit and convenience for healthier, long-term choices and behaviour.

  As we dig into what it takes to build an ethical web, remember that no company or individual is free from mistakes in these areas nor is it an overnight fix. Progress is made one click at a time.

  Ethical SEO : Optimising your content and your ethics

  Content creation and search engine optimisation (SEO) require so much work that it’s hard to fault creators for not always abiding by search engine guidelines and seeking shortcuts – especially when there’s a sea of LinkedIn posts about how copying/pasting ChatGPT responses helped someone rank #1 for several keywords in one week.

  However, users turn to Google and other search engines for something of substance that will guide or entertain them.

  Content meets customer needs and is more likely to lead to sales when it’s well-written, original and optimised just enough to make it easier to find on the first page of results. This doesn’t happen when content teams dilute quality and waste a reader or viewer’s time on posts that will only yield a higher bounce rate.

  Some SEO pros do find success by building backlinks through private blog networks or crafting a million unedited posts with generative AI, but it’s short-lived. Google and other search engines always catch up, and their content plummets or gets penalised and delisted with every new update.

  Content teams can still rank at the top while sticking to ethical SEO principles. Here’s a sample list of dos and don’ts to get started :

  • Do put content quality above all else. Make content that serves the audience, not just a brand or partner ad network.
  • Do apply the E-E-A-T framework. Search engines value content written by authors who bring expertise, experience, authority and trust (E-E-A-T).
  • Don’t keyword stuff. This might have worked in the early days of SEO, but it hurts readability and now harms article performance.
  • Do use alt text as intended. While it can still help SEO, alt text should prioritise accessibility for users with screen readers.

  • Don’t steal content. Whether it’s violating copyright, copying/pasting other people’s content or simply paraphrasing without citation, companies should never steal content.
  • Don’t steal ideas. It’s okay to join in on a current conversation or trends in an industry, but content creators should be sure they have something valuable to add.
  • Do use AI tools as partners, not creators. AI can be an incredible aid in crafting content, but it should never be posted without a human’s touch.

  When we follow ethical SEO guidelines and get more clients with our content, how do we best handle their data ?

  Ethical data governance : Important principles and how to avoid data misuse

  Data governance comprises every aspect of how a company manages data, including storage, security, privacy, lifecycle management, setting policies and maintaining compliance with laws like GDPR and HIPAA.

  Applying data ethics to governance is doing it all in a transparent, restrained way that acknowledges an individual’s right to ownership over their data. 

  For organisations, this translates to getting consent to collect data and clearly spelling out how it will be stored and used — and sticking to it.

  If a user’s birth date is needed for legal reasons, it cannot be sold to a third party or later used for something else without explicit permission. Reusing data in ways that stray from its original purpose is a form of commingling, one of the data misuses that is easy for even well-intentioned teams to do accidentally.

  Ethical data governance also includes the vigilant safeguarding of users’ data and minimising potential privacy issues.

  Failing to implement and adhere to strong security measures leads to situations like the National Public Data (NPD) breach, where cyber criminals expose the addresses, phone numbers and social security numbers of hundreds of millions of people. This was due in large part to a weakness in storing login credentials and a lack of password policy enforcement.

  No one at NPD wanted this to happen, but security likely took a backseat to other business concerns, leading to the company’s filing for bankruptcy.

  More importantly, as a data broker that aggregates information from other sources, the people affected likely had no clue this organisation had been buying and selling their data. The companies originally entrusted with their information helped provide the leaked data, showing a lack of care for privacy.

  Situations like this reinforce the need for strict data protection laws and for companies to refine their data governance approach. 

  Businesses can improve their data governance posturing with managers and other higher-ups setting the right tone at the top. If leadership takes a firm and disciplined approach by setting and adhering to strong policies, the rest of the team will follow and minimise the chances of data misuse and security incidents.

  One way to start is by using tools that make the principles of data ethics easier to follow.

  Ethical web analytics : Drawing insights while respecting privacy

  Web analytics tools are designed to gather data about users and what they do while visiting a site.
  The most popular tool worldwide is Google Analytics (GA). Its brand name and feature set carry a lot of weight, but many former users have switched to alternatives due to dissatisfaction with the changes made in GA4 and reservations about the way Google handles data.

  

  Google is another tech giant that has been slapped with massive GDPR fines for issues over its data processing practices. It has run so afoul of compliance that it was banned in France and Austria for a while. Additionally, in the US Department of Justice’s ongoing antitrust lawsuit against Google, the company’s data tracking has been targeted for both how it affects users and potential rivals.

  Unlike GA, ethical web analytics tools allow websites to get the data they need while respecting user privacy.

  Matomo offers privacy protections like :

  • Providing data anonymisation and IP anonymisation
  • Allowing users the ability to not process personally identifiable information (PII)
  • Disabling the ability to track users across websites by default to make compliance easier
  • Giving users full control over their customer data without the risk of it getting into the hands of third parties
  • Much more

  We’re also fully transparent about how we handle your data on the web and in the Matomo Cloud and in how we build Matomo as an open-source tool. Our openness allows you to be more open with your customers and how you ethically use their data.

  There are other GDPR-compliant tools on the market, but some of them, like Adobe Analytics, require more setup from users for compliance, don’t grant full control over data and don’t offer on-premise options or consent-free tracking.

  Beyond tracking, there are other ways to make a user’s experience more enjoyable and ethical.

  Ethical user experience : User-friendliness, not user-hostility

  When designing a website or application, creating a positive user experience (UX) always comes first. 

  The UI should be simple to navigate, data and privacy policy information should be easy to find and customers should feel welcomed. They must never be tricked into consenting or installing. 

  When businesses resort to user-hostile tactics, the UX becomes a battle between the user and them. What may seem like a clever tactic to increase sign-ups can alienate potential customers and ruin a brand’s image. 

  Here are some best practices for creating a more ethical UX :

  Avoid dark patterns

  Dark patterns are UI designs and strategies that mislead users into paying for, agreeing to or doing something they don’t actually want. These designs are unethical because they’re manipulative and remove transparency and consent from the interaction. 

  In some cases, they’re illegal and can bring lawsuits. 

  In 2023, Italy’s Data Protection Authority (DPA) fined a digital marketing company €300,000 for alleged GDPR violations. They employed dark patterns by asking customers to accept cookies again after rejecting them and placing the option to reject cookies outside the cookie banner. 

  Despite their legality and 56% of surveyed customers losing trust in platforms that employ dark patterns, a review by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) found that 76% of the websites examined contained at least one dark pattern.

  

  If a company is worried that they may be relying on dark patterns, here are some examples of what to avoid :

  • Pre-ticking boxes to have users agree to third-party cookies, sign up for a newsletter, etc.
  • Complicated cookie banners without a one-click way to reject all unnecessary cookies
  • Hiding important text with text colour, under drop-down menus or requiring hovering over something with a mouse 
  • “Confirm shaming” users with emotionally manipulative language to delay subscription cancellations or opt out of tracking 

  Improve trust centres

  Trust centres are the sections of a website that outline how a company approaches topics like data governance, user privacy and security. 

  They should be easy to find and understand. If a user has a question about a company’s data policy, it should be one click away with language that doesn’t require a law degree to comprehend.

  Additionally, trust centres must cover all relevant details, including where data is stored and who does the subprocessing. This is an area where even some of the best-intentioned companies may miss the mark, but it’s also an easy fix and a great place to start creating a more ethical web.

  Embrace inclusivity

  People want to feel welcomed to the party — and deserve to be — regardless of their race, ethnicity, religion, gender identity, orientation or ability. 

  Inclusivity is great for customers and companies alike. 

  A study by the Unstereotype Alliance found that progressive marketing drove up short- and long-term sales, customer loyalty and purchase consideration. A Kantar study reported that 75% of surveyed customers around the world consider a company’s diversity and inclusivity when making a purchasing decision.

  An easy place to start embracing inclusivity is with a website’s blog images. The people in photos and cartoons should reflect a variety of different backgrounds.

  Another area to improve inclusivity is by making your site or app more accessible.

  Accessibility ethics : An internet for everyone

  Accessibility is designing your product in a way that everyone can enjoy or take part in, regardless of ability. Digital accessibility is applying this design to the web and applications by making accommodations like adding descriptive alt text to images for users with visual impairments.

  Just because someone has a hearing, vision, speech, mobility, neurological or other impairment doesn’t mean they have any less of a right to shop online, read silly listicles or get into arguments with strangers in the comment section.

  Beyond being the right thing to do, the Fable team shows there’s a strong business case for accessibility. People with disabilities have money to spend, and the accommodations businesses make for them often benefit people without disabilities, too – as anyone who streams with subtitles can attest.

  Despite being a win-win for greater inclusivity and business, much of the web is still inaccessible. WebAIM, a leader in web accessibility, studied a million web pages and found an average of over 55 accessibility errors per page.

  We must all play a more active role in improving the experience of our users with disabilities, and we can start with accessibility auditing and testing.

  An accessibility audit is an evaluation of how usable a site is for people with disabilities. It may be done in-house by an expert on a company’s team or, for better results, a third-party consultant who can give a fully objective audit.

  Auditing might consist of running an automated tool or manually checking your site, PDFs, emails and other materials for compliance with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines list.

  Accessibility testing is narrower than auditing. It checks how accessibility or its absence looks in action. It can be done after a site, app, email or product is released, but it ideally starts in the development process.

  Testing should be done manually and with automated tools. Manual checks put developers in the position of their users, allowing them to get a better idea of what users are dealing with firsthand. Automated tools can save time and money, but there should always be manual testing in the process.

  Auditing gives teams an idea of where to start with improving accessibility, and testing helps make sure accommodations work as intended.

  Conclusion

  At Matomo, we strive to make the ethical web a reality, starting with web analytics.

  For our users, it means full compliance with stringent policies like GDPR and providing 100% accurate data. For their customers, it’s collecting only the data required to do the job and enabling cookieless configurations to get rid of annoying banners. 

  For both parties, it’s knowing that respect for privacy is one of our foundational values, whether it’s the ability to look under Matomo’s hood and read our open-source code, the option to store data on-premise to minimise the chances of it falling into the wrong hands or one of the other ways that we protect privacy.

  If you weren’t 100% ethical before, it’s never too late to change. You can even bring your Google Analytics data with you.

  Join us in our mission to improve the web. We can’t do it alone ! 

  Try Matomo free for 21 days

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• Google Optimize vs Matomo A/B Testing : Everything You Need to Know

  17 mars 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  Google Optimize is a popular A/B testing tool marketers use to validate the performance of different marketing assets, website design elements and promotional offers. 

  But by September 2023, Google will sunset both free and paid versions of the Optimize product. 

  If you’re searching for an equally robust, but GDPR compliant, privacy-friendly alternative to Google Optimize, have a look at Matomo A/B Testing. 

  Integrated with our analytics platform and conversion rate optimisation (CRO) tools, Matomo allows you to run A/B and A/B/n tests without any usage caps or compromises in user privacy.

  Disclaimer : Please note that the information provided in this blog post is for general informational purposes only and is not intended to provide legal advice. Every situation is unique and requires a specific legal analysis. If you have any questions regarding the legal implications of any matter, please consult with your legal team or seek advice from a qualified legal professional.

  Google Optimize vs Matomo : Key Capabilities Compared 

  This guide shows how Matomo A/B testing stacks against Google Optimize in terms of features, reporting, integrations and pricing.

  Supported Platforms 

  Google Optimize supports experiments for dynamic websites and single-page mobile apps only. 

  If you want to run split tests in mobile apps, you’ll have to do so via Firebase — Google’s app development platform. It also has a free tier but paid usage-based subscription kicks in after your product(s) reaches a certain usage threshold. 

  Google Optimize also doesn’t support CRO experiments for web or desktop applications, email campaigns or paid ad campaigns.Matomo A/B Testing, in contrast, allows you to run experiments in virtually every channel. We have three installation options — using JavaScript, server-side technology, or our mobile tracking SDK. These allow you to run split tests in any type of web or mobile app (including games), a desktop product, or on your website. Also, you can do different email marketing tests (e.g., compare subject line variants).

  A/B Testing 

  A/B testing (split testing) is the core feature of both products. Marketers use A/B testing to determine which creative elements such as website microcopy, button placements and banner versions, resonate better with target audiences. 

  You can benchmark different versions against one another to determine which variation resonates more with users. Or you can test an A version against B, C, D and beyond. This is called A/B/n testing. 

  Both Matomo A/B testing and Google Optimize let you test either separate page elements or two completely different landing page designs, using redirect tests. You can show different variants to different user groups (aka apply targeting criteria). For example, activate tests only for certain device types, locations or types of on-site behaviour. 

  The advantage of Matomo is that we don’t limit the number of concurrent experiments you can run. With Google Optimize, you’re limited to 5 simultaneous experiments. Likewise, 

  Matomo lets you select an unlimited number of experiment objectives, whereas Google caps the maximum choice to 3 predefined options per experiment. 

  Objectives are criteria the underlying statistical model will use to determine the best-performing version. Typically, marketers use metrics such as page views, session duration, bounce rate or generated revenue as conversion goals. 

  

  Multivariate testing (MVT)

  Multivariate testing (MVT) allows you to “pack” several A/B tests into one active experiment. In other words : You create a stack of variants to determine which combination drives the best marketing outcomes. 

  For example, an MVT experiment can include five versions of a web page, where each has a different slogan, product image, call-to-action, etc. Visitors are then served with a different variation. The tracking code collects data on their behaviours and desired outcomes (objectives) and reports the results.

  MVT saves marketers time as it’s a great alternative to doing separate A/B tests for each variable. Both Matomo and Google Optimize support this feature. However, Google Optimize caps the number of possible combinations at 16, whereas Matomo has no limits. 

  Redirect Tests

  Redirect tests, also known as split URL tests, allow you to serve two entirely different web page versions to users and compare their performance. This option comes in handy when you’re redesigning your website or want to test a localised page version in a new market. 

  Also, redirect tests are a great way to validate the performance of bottom-of-the-funnel (BoFU) pages as a checkout page (for eCommerce websites), a pricing page (for SaaS apps) or a contact/booking form (for a B2B service businesses). 

  You can do split URL tests with Google Optimize and Matomo A/B Testing. 

  Experiment Design 

  Google Optimize provides a visual editor for making simple page changes to your website (e.g., changing button colour or adding several headline variations). You can then preview the changes before publishing an experiment. For more complex experiments (e.g., testing different page block sequences), you’ll have to codify experiments using custom JavaScript, HTML and CSS.

  In Matomo, all A/B tests are configured on the server-side (i.e., by editing your website’s raw HTML) or client-side via JavaScript. Afterwards, you use the Matomo interface to start or schedule an experiment, set objectives and view reports. 

  Experiment Configuration 

  Marketers know how complex customer journeys can be. Multiple factors — from location and device to time of the day and discount size — can impact your conversion rates. That’s why a great CRO app allows you to configure multiple tracking conditions. 

  Matomo A/B testing comes with granular controls. First of all, you can decide which percentage of total web visitors participate in any given experiment. By default, the number is set to 100%, but you can change it to any other option. 

  Likewise, you can change which percentage of traffic each variant gets in an experiment. For example, your original version can get 30% of traffic, while options A and B receive 40% each. We also allow users to specify custom parameters for experiment participation. You can only show your variants to people in specific geo-location or returning visitors only. 

  Finally, you can select any type of meaningful objective to evaluate each variant’s performance. With Matomo, you can either use standard website analytics metrics (e.g., total page views, bounce rate, CTR, visit direction, etc) or custom goals (e.g., form click, asset download, eCommerce order, etc). 

  In other words : You’re in charge of deciding on your campaign targeting criteria, duration and evaluation objectives.

  A free Google Optimize account comes with three main types of user targeting options : 

  • Geo-targeting at city, region, metro and country levels. 

  • Technology targeting  by browser, OS or device type, first-party cookie, etc. 
  • Behavioural targeting based on metrics like “time since first arrival” and “page referrer” (referral traffic source). 

  Users can also configure other types of tracking scenarios (for example to only serve tests to signed-in users), using condition-based rules. 

  Reporting 

  Both Matomo and Google Optimize use different statistical models to evaluate which variation performs best. 

  Matomo relies on statistical hypothesis testing, which we use to count unique visitors and report on conversion rates. We analyse all user data (with no data sampling applied), meaning you get accurate reporting, based on first-hand data, rather than deductions. For that reason, we ask users to avoid drawing conclusions before their experiment participation numbers reach a statistically significant result. Typically, we recommend running an experiment for at least several business cycles to get a comprehensive report. 

  Google Optimize, in turn, uses Bayesian inference — a statistical method, which relies on a random sample of users to compare the performance rates of each creative against one another. While a Bayesian model generates CRO reports faster and at a bigger scale, it’s based on inferences.

  Model developers need to have the necessary skills to translate subjective prior beliefs about the probability of a certain event into a mathematical formula. Since Google Optimize is a proprietary tool, you cannot audit the underlying model design and verify its accuracy. In other words, you trust that it was created with the right judgement. 

  In comparison, Matomo started as an open-source project, and our source code can be audited independently by anyone at any time. 

  Another reporting difference to mind is the reporting delays. Matomo Cloud generates A/B reports within 6 hours and in only 1 hour for Matomo On-Premise. Google Optimize, in turn, requires 12 hours from the first experiment setup to start reporting on results. 

  When you configure a test experiment and want to quickly verify that everything is set up correctly, this can be an inconvenience.

  User Privacy & GDPR Compliance 

  Google Optimize works in conjunction with Google Analytics, which isn’t GDPR compliant. 

  For all website traffic from the EU, you’re therefore obliged to show a cookie consent banner. The kicker, however, is that you can only show an Optimize experiment after the user gives consent to tracking. If the user doesn’t, they will only see an original page version. Considering that almost 40% of global consumers reject cookie consent banners, this can significantly affect your results.

  This renders Google Optimize mostly useless in the EU since it would only allow you to run tests with a fraction ( 60%) of EU traffic — and even less if you apply any extra targeting criteria. 

  In comparison, Matomo is fully GDPR compliant. Therefore, our users are legally exempt from displaying cookie-consent banners in most EU markets (with Germany and the UK being an exception). Since Matomo A/B testing is part of Matomo web analytics, you don’t have to worry about GDPR compliance or breaches in user privacy. 

  Digital Experience Intelligence 

  You can get comprehensive statistical data on variants’ performance with Google Optimize. But you don’t get further insights on why some tests are more successful than others. 

  Matomo enables you to collect more insights with two extra features :

  • User session recordings : Monitor how users behave on different page versions. Observe clicks, mouse movements, scrolls, page changes, and form interactions to better understand the users’ cumulative digital experience. 
  • Heatmaps : Determine which elements attract the most users’ attention to fine-tune your split tests. With a standard CRO tool, you only assume that a certain page element does matter for most users. A heatmap can help you determine for sure. 

  Both of these features are bundled into your Matomo Cloud subscription. 

  Integrations 

  Both Matomo and Google Optimize integrate with multiple other tools. 

  Google Optimize has native integrations with other products in the marketing family — GA, Google Ads, Google Tag Manager, Google BigQuery, Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP), and Firebase. Separately, other popular marketing apps have created custom connectors for integrating Google Optimize data. 

  Matomo A/B Testing, in turn, can be combined with other web analytics and CRO features such as Funnels, Multi-Channel Attribution, Tag Manager, Form Analytics, Heatmaps, Session Recording, and more ! 

  You can also conveniently export your website analytics or CRO data using Matomo Analytics API to analyse it in another app. 

  Pricing 

  Google Optimize is a free tool but has usage caps. If you want to schedule more than 5 concurrent experiments or test more than 16 variants at once, you’ll have to upgrade to Optimize 360. Optimize 360 prices aren’t listed publicly but are said to be closer to six figures per year. 

  Matomo A/B Testing is available with every Cloud subscription (starting from €19) and Matomo On-Premise users can also get A/B Testing as a plugin (starting from €199/year). In each case, there are no caps or data limits. 

  Google Optimize vs Matomo A/B Testing : Comparison Table

  Features/capabilities	Google Optimize	Matomo A/B test
  Supported channels	Web	Web, mobile, email, digital campaigns
  A/B testing
  Multivariate testing (MVT)
  Split URL tests
  Web analytics integration	Native with UA/GA4	Native with Matomo You can also migrate historical UA (GA3) data to Matomo
  Audience segmentation	Basic	Advanced
  Geo-targeting
  Technology targeting
  Behavioural targeting	Basic	Advanced
  Reporting model	Bayesian analysis	Statistical hypothesis testing
  Report availability	Within 12 hours after setup	6 hours for Matomo Cloud 1 hour for Matomo On-Premise
  Heatmaps		Included with Matomo Cloud
  Session recordings		Included with Matomo Cloud
  GDPR compliance
  Support	Self-help desk on a free tier	Self-help guides, user forum, email
  Price	Free limited tier	From €19 for Cloud subscription From €199/year as plugin for On-Premise

  Final Thoughts : Who Benefits the Most From an A/B Testing Tool ?

  Split testing is an excellent method for validating various assumptions about your target customers. 

  With A/B testing tools you get a data-backed answer to research hypotheses such as “How different pricing affects purchases ?”, “What contact button placement generates more clicks ?”, “Which registration form performs best with new app subscribers ?” and more. 

  Such insights can be game-changing when you’re trying to improve your demand-generation efforts or conversion rates at the BoFu stage. But to get meaningful results from CRO tests, you need to select measurable, representative objectives.

  For example, split testing different pricing strategies for low-priced, frequently purchased products makes sense as you can run an experiment for a couple of weeks to get a statistically relevant sample. 

  But if you’re in a B2B SaaS product, where the average sales cycle takes weeks (or months) to finalise and things like “time-sensitive discounts” or “one-time promos” don’t really work, getting adequate CRO data will be harder. 

  To see tangible results from CRO, you’ll need to spend more time on test ideation than implementation. Your team needs to figure out : which elements to test, in what order, and why. 

  Effective CRO tests are designed for a specific part of the funnel and assume that you’re capable of effectively identifying and tracking conversions (goals) at the selected stage. This alone can be a complex task since not all customer journeys are alike. For SaaS websites, using a goal like “free trial account registration” can be a good starting point.

  A good test also produces a meaningful difference between the proposed variant and the original version. As Nima Yassini, Partner at Deloitte Digital, rightfully argues :

  “I see people experimenting with the goal of creating an uplift. There’s nothing wrong with that, but if you’re only looking to get wins you will be crushed when the first few tests fail. The industry average says that only one in five to seven tests win, so you need to be prepared to lose most of the time”.

  In many cases, CRO tests don’t provide the data you expected (e.g., people equally click the blue and green buttons). In this case, you need to start building your hypothesis from scratch. 

  At the same time, it’s easy to get caught up in optimising for “vanity metrics” — such that look good in the report, but don’t quite match your marketing objectives. For example, better email headline variations can improve your email open rates. But if users don’t proceed to engage with the email content (e.g. click-through to your website or use a provided discount code), your efforts are still falling short. 

  That’s why developing a baseline strategy is important before committing to an A/B testing tool. Google Optimize appealed to many users because it’s free and allows you to test your split test strategy cost-effectively. 

  With its upcoming depreciation, many marketers are very committed to a more expensive A/B tool (especially when they’re not fully sure about their CRO strategy and its results). 

  Matomo A/B testing is a cost-effective, GDPR-compliant alternative to Google Optimize with a low learning curve and extra competitive features. 

  Discover if Matomo A/B Testing is the ideal Google Optimize alternative for your organization with our free 21-day trial. No credit card required.