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• Privacy in Business : What Is It and Why Is It Important ?

  13 juillet 2022, par Erin — Privacy

  Privacy concerns loom large among consumers. Yet, businesses remain reluctant to change the old ways of doing things until they become an operational nuisance. 

  More and more businesses are slowly starting to feel the pressure to incorporate privacy best practices. But what exactly does privacy mean in business ? And why is it important for businesses to protect users’ privacy ? 

  In this blog, we’ll answer all of these questions and more. 

  What is Privacy in Business ?

  In the corporate world, privacy stands for the business decision to use collected consumer data in a safe, secure and compliant way. 

  Companies with a privacy-centred culture : 

  • Get explicit user consent to tracking, opt-ins and data sharing 
  • Collect strictly necessary data in compliance with regulations 
  • Ask for permissions to collect, process and store sensitive data 
  • Provide transparent explanations about data operationalisation and usage 
  • Have mechanisms for data collection opt-outs and data removal requests 
  • Implement security controls for storing collected data and limit access permissions to it 

  In other words : They treat consumers’ data with utmost integrity and security – and provide reassurances of ethical data usage. 

  What Are the Ethical Business Issues Related to Privacy ?

  Consumer data analytics has been around for decades. But digital technologies – ubiquitous connectivity, social media networks, data science and machine learning – increased the magnitude and sophistication of customer profiling.

  Big Tech companies like Google and Facebook, among others, capture millions of data points about users. These include general demographics data like “age” or “gender”, as well as more granular insights such as “income”, “past browsing history” or “recently visited geo-locations”. 

  When combined, such personally identifiable information (PII) can be used to approximate the user’s exact address, frequently purchased goods, political beliefs or past medical conditions. Then such information is shared with third parties such as advertisers. 

  That’s when ethical issues arise. 

  The Cambridge Analytica data scandal is a prime example of consumer data that was unethically exploited. 

  Over the years, Google also faced a series of regulatory issues surrounding consumer privacy breaches :

  • In 2021, a Google Chrome browser update put some 2.6 billion users at risk of “surveillance, manipulation and abuse” by providing third parties with data on device usage. 
  • The same year, Google was taken to court for failing to provide full disclosures on tracking performed in Google Chrome incognito mode. A $5 billion lawsuit is still pending.
  • As of 2022, Google Analytics 4 is considered GDPR non-compliant and was branded “illegal” by several European countries. 

  If you are curious, learn more about Google Analytics privacy issues. 

  The bigger issue ? Big Tech companies make the businesses that use their technologies (unknowingly) complicit in consumer data violations.

  In 2022, the Belgian data regulator found the official IAB Europe framework for user consent gathering in breach of GDPR. The framework was used by all major AdTech platforms to issue pop-ups for user consent to tracking. Now ad platforms must delete all data gathered through these. Biggest advertisers such as Procter & Gamble, Unilever, IBM and Mastercard among others, also received a notice about data removal and a regulatory warning on further repercussions if they fail to comply. 

  Big Tech firms have given brands unprecedented access to granular consumer data. Unrestricted access, however, also opened the door to data abuse and unethical use. 

  Examples of Unethical Data Usage by Businesses 

  • Data hoarding means excessively harvesting all available consumer data because a possibility to do so exists, often using murky consent mechanisms. Yet, 85% of collected Big Data is either dark or redundant, obsolete or trivial (ROT).
  • Invasive personalisation based on sensitive user information (or second-guesses), like a recent US marketing campaign, congratulating women on pregnancy (even if they weren’t expecting). Overall, 75% of consumers find most forms of personalisation somewhat creepy. 22% also said they’d leave for another brand due to creepy experiences.
  • Hyper-targeted advertising campaigns based on data consumers would prefer not to share. A recent investigation found that advertising platforms often assign sensitive labels to users (as part of their ad profiles), indicative of their religion, mental issues, history with abuse and so on. This allows advertisers to target such consumers with dubious ads. 

  Ultimately, excessive data collection, paired with poor data protection in business settings, results in major data breaches and costly damage control. Given that cyber attacks are on the rise, every business is vulnerable. 

  Why Should a Business Be Concerned About Protecting the Privacy of Its Customers ?

  Businesses must prioritise customer privacy because that’s what is expected of them. Globally, 89% of consumers say they care about their privacy. 

  As frequent stories about unethical data usage, excessive tracking and data breaches surface online, even more grow more concerned about protecting their data. Many publicly urge companies to take action. Others curtail their relationships with brands privately. 

  

  On average, 45% of consumers feel uncomfortable about sharing personal data. According to KPMG, 78% of American consumers have fears about the amount of data being collected. 40% of them also don’t trust companies to use their data ethically. Among Europeans, 41% are unwilling to share any personal data with businesses. 

  Because the demand for online privacy is rising, progressive companies now treat privacy as a competitive advantage. 

  For example, the encrypted messaging app Signal gained over 42 million active users in a year because it offers better data security and privacy protection. 

  ProtonMail, a privacy-centred email client, also amassed a 50 million user base in several years thanks to a “fundamentally stronger definition of privacy”.

  The growth of privacy-mindful businesses speaks volumes. And even more good things happen to privacy-mindful businesses : 

  • Higher consumer trust and loyalty 
  • Improved attractiveness to investors
  • Less complex compliance
  • Minimum cybersecurity exposure 
  • Better agility and innovation

  It’s time to start pursuing them ! Learn how to embed privacy and security into your operations.

• Privacy-friendly analytics : The benefits of an ethical, GDPR-compliant platform

  13 juin, par Joe

  Your visitors shouldn’t feel like you’re spying on them — even if you’re just trying to improve the user experience or track your marketing efforts. 

  While many analytics platforms make customers feel that way thanks to intrusive cookie consent banners and highly personalised ads, there is a growing movement towards ethical, privacy-friendly analytics.

  In this article, you’ll learn what privacy-friendly analytics is, why it matters, what to look for in a solution and which of the leading providers is right for you. 

  What is privacy-friendly analytics ? 

  Privacy-friendly analytics is a form of website analytics that collects and analyses data in a way that respects the user’s privacy. It’s a type of ethical web analytics.

  Privacy-friendly platforms limit personal data collection and anonymise individual user data while being transparent about collection and tracking methods. They help companies adhere to data protection laws (like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA) and new privacy laws (like OCPA, FDBR, and TDPSA) without configuring custom settings. 

  Why use privacy-friendly analytics ? 

  Millions of businesses choose privacy-friendly analytics platforms like Matomo. Here are a few reasons why : 

  Build trust with customers

  Research shows that the vast majority of consumers don’t trust companies with their data, believing that they prioritise profits over data protection. 

  Privacy-friendly analytics can help businesses prove they aren’t out to profit from consumer data and regain customer trust. This can ultimately boost revenue. According to Cisco’s Data Privacy Benchmark Study, organisations gain $180 for every $100 spent on privacy. 

  Comply with privacy regulations

  Data privacy regulations, such as GDPR, protect consumer privacy and establish strict rules governing how businesses can collect and use personal data.

  The cost of non-compliance is high. Under GDPR, fines can be up to €20 million, or 4% of worldwide annual revenue.

  Thanks to features like data anonymisation and the default use of first-party cookies, privacy-friendly analytics platforms can support and strengthen compliance efforts. 

  In fact, the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) approved Matomo as one of the only web analytics tools to collect data without tracking consent.

  Minimise the impact of a breach

  According to IBM’s Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach is nearly $4.5 million. The more personally identifiable information (PII) is involved, the higher the fines and penalties. 

  A privacy-friendly analytics tool can reduce the potential impact of a breach by minimising the amount of personal information you hold. 

  Is Google Analytics privacy-friendly ?

  Google may be the best-known analytics platform, but it’s not the best choice for businesses that want to collect data responsibly and ethically. 

  Here are just a few of Google Analytics’s privacy issues :

  • It uses analytics data to run its advertising business.
  • It may train large language models like Gemini with analytics data.
  • It requires a specific setup to be GDPR compliant that isn’t available out of the box.

  Google Analytics’s ongoing issues with privacy laws like GDPR also raise doubt. The French and Austrian Data Protection Authorities have banned Google Analytics in the past, and there is no guarantee they won’t do so again. 

  What to look for in privacy-friendly analytics ?

  Several privacy-friendly analytics tools are available. To find the right one for your brand, look for the following features.

  Data ownership

  Choose a provider that gives you as much control over your users’ data as possible. Ideally, this will be via an on-site solution where you store data on your servers. For cloud-based options, ensure your analytics provider can’t access, use or sell it.

  With 100% data ownership, you have the power to protect your users’ privacy. You know where your customer data is stored and what’s happening to it without external influence.

  Open source

  The only genuinely privacy-friendly software is open-source software. Open-source software means anyone can review the code to ensure it does what it promises — in this case, maximising privacy. 

  Matomo is an open-source software company. Our source code is on GitHub, where everyone can see precisely how our platform tracks and stores user data. A community of developers also regularly examines and reviews our code to further strengthen security. 

  Data anonymisation 

  Privacy-friendly analytics should allow marketers to completely anonymise the data they collect. They achieve this through several techniques like IP anonymisation and pseudonymised user IDs that modify or remove personally identifiable data so it can’t be linked to individuals.

  

  Matomo’s data anonymisation settings 

  In Matomo, for example, you can anonymise the following things in the platform’s Privacy settings :

  • IP address
  • Location
  • User ID

  IP address anonymisation is enabled by default in Matomo.

  No data sampling 

  Data sampling involves extrapolating analytics reports from an incomplete data set. Google Analytics uses this practice and relies on estimates, leading to incomplete and potentially inaccurate results.

  Privacy-friendly analytics should provide 100% accurate insights without making assumptions about your users’ data.

  GDPR compliance

  Privacy-friendly web analytics platforms adhere to even the strictest privacy laws, including GDPR, HIPAA and CCPA, thanks to the following features :

  • Data anonymisation
  • Cookieless tracking
  • EU data storage
  • First-party cookies by default

  

  Matomo data subject access request settings
  (Image Source)

  Privacy-first platforms also make it easy for companies to fulfil data subject access requests. In Matomo, for example, a dedicated feature lets you find, download and delete all of the data you hold about specific individuals. 

  Cookieless tracking

  Cookieless tracking is a form of visitor tracking that uses methods other than cookies to identify individual users. It is more privacy-friendly because no personal data is collected, and users can withhold consent from cookie banners.

  Matomo uses the most privacy-friendly industry-leading cookieless tracking method, config_id, to anonymously track visitors without fingerprinting them. 

  Top 3 privacy-friendly analytics platforms

  We’ve shortlisted three of the leading privacy-friendly analytics platforms. Learn what they offer, what makes them different and how much they cost.

  Matomo

  Matomo is an open-source web analytics tool and privacy-focused Google Analytics alternative trusted by over one million sites in over 190 countries and over 50 languages. 

  

  Matomo dashboard

  Matomo prioritises privacy and keeping businesses compliant with global privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA. The data you collect is 100% accurate and yours alone. We don’t share it or use it for other purposes. 

  Benefits

  • Matomo’s all-in-one solution offers traditional web and behavioural analytics, such as heatmaps and session recordings. It also includes a free, open-source tag manager. 
  • Matomo gives you the choice of where to store your user’s data. With Matomo Cloud, that’s in our European servers. With Matomo On-Premise, that’s on your servers.
  • Matomo is open-source. Hundreds of independent developers have reviewed our code, and you can view it yourself on GitHub.

  Pricing 

  Hosting Matomo On-Premise is free, while Matomo Cloud costs $26 per month. 

  Fathom

  Fathom Analytics is a simple, easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics that puts a premium on privacy. 

  

  Fathom dashboard
  (Image Source)

  Fathom has made its platform as easy to use as possible. You can install Fathom on any website or CMS using a single line of code. It also means the platform won’t massively impact your site’s speed or SEO performance. 

  Benefits

  • Fathom complies with all major privacy regulations, including GDPR and CCPA.
  • Fathom doesn’t sample data. It also blocks bots and scrapers, so you only see human visitors.
  • Fathom anonymises IP addresses, so you don’t have to show cookie banners.

  Drawbacks

  • Fathom doesn’t offer many of Matomo’s advanced features like e-commerce tracking, heatmaps, and session recordings.
  • The premium version of Fathom is not open-source. 

  Pricing 

  From $15 per month.

  Plausible

  Plausible Analytics is an open-source, privacy-friendly analytics tool built and hosted in the EU.

  

  Plausible dashboard
  (Image Source)

  The platform launched in 2019 as a lightweight, easy-to-use alternative to Google Analytics. Its simplicity is a big selling point. Instead of dozens of menus, it presents the information you need on a single page.

  Benefits

  • Plausible boasts an ultra-lightweight script, which means it has a minimal impact on page loading times. 
  • Plausible is GDPR and CCPA-compliant by design, so there’s no need for cookie banners.
  • Plausible is an open-source software with the source code available on GitHub.

  Drawbacks

  • Plausible lacks advanced privacy controls like a GDPR manager.
  • It has none of Matomo’s advanced features like A/B testing, session recordings or heatmaps. 

  Pricing 

  From $9 per month

  Try Matomo for free

  Ready to try a privacy-friendly analytics solution ? Making the switch is easy with Matomo, as it’s one of the only platforms to import historical Google Analytics data. You can also try Matomo for free for 21 days — no credit card required. 

• Top Conversion Metrics to Track in 2024

  22 janvier 2024, par Erin

  2023 boasts  2.64 billion online shoppers worldwide ; that’s more than a third of the global population. With these numbers on an upward trajectory in 2024, conversion metrics are more important than ever to help marketers optimise the online shopping experience. 

  In this article, we’ll provide predictions for the most important conversion metrics you should keep track of in 2024. We’ll also examine how social media can make or break your brand engagement strategy. Keep reading to stay ahead of the competition for 2024 and gain tips and tricks for improving conversion performance.

  What are conversion metrics ?

  In technical terms, conversion metrics are the quantifiable measurements used to track the success of specific outcomes on a website or marketing campaign. Conversion metrics demonstrate how well your website prompts visitors to take desirable actions, like signing up for a newsletter, making a purchase, or filling out a form, for instance.

  Let’s say you’re running a lemonade stand, and you want to compare the number of cups sold to the number of people who approached your stand (your conversion rate). This ratio of cups sold to the total number of people can help you reassess your sales approach. If the ratio is low, you might reconsider your approach ; if it’s high, you can analyse what makes your technique successful and double down.

  

  In 2023, we saw the average conversion rate for online shopping grow by 5.53% compared to the previous year. An increase in conversion rate typically indicates a higher percentage of website visitors converting to buyers. It can also be a good sign for marketing teams that marketing campaigns are more effective, and website experiences are more user-friendly than the previous year. 

  Conversion metrics are a marketers’ bread and butter. Whether it’s through measuring the efficacy of campaigns, honing in on the most effective marketing channels or understanding customer behaviour — don’t underestimate the power of conversion metrics. 

  Conversion rate vs. conversion value 

  Before we dive into the top conversion metrics to track in 2024, let’s clear up any confusion about the difference between conversion rate and conversion value. Conversion rate is a metric that measures the ratio of website visitors/users who complete a conversion action to the total number of website visitors/users. Conversion rates are communicated as percentages.

  A conversion action can mean many different things depending on your product or service. Some examples of conversion actions that website visitors can take include : 

  • Making a purchase
  • Filling out a form
  • Subscribing to a newsletter
  • Any other predefined goal

  Conversion rate is arguably one of the most valuable conversion metrics if you want to pinpoint areas for improvement in your marketing strategy and user experience (UX).

  A good conversion rate completely depends on the type of conversion being measured. Shopify has reported that the average e-commerce conversion rate will be 2.5%-3% in 2023, so if you fall anywhere in this range, you’re in good shape. Below is a visual aid for how you can calculate conversion rate depending on which conversion actions you decide to track :

  

  Conversion value is also a quantifiable metric, but there’s a key difference : conversion value assigns a numerical value to each conversion based on the monetary value of the completed conversion action. Conversion value is not calculated with a formula but is assigned based on revenue generated from the conversion. Conversion value is important for calculating marketing efforts’ return on investment (ROI) and is often used to allocate marketing budgets better. 

  Both conversion rate and conversion value are vital metrics in digital marketing. When used in tandem, they can provide a holistic perspective on your marketing efforts’ financial impact and success. 

  9 important conversion metrics to track in 2024

  Based on research and results from 2023, we have compiled this list of predictions for the most important metrics to track in 2024. 

  

  1. Conversion rate 

  To start things out strong, we’ve got the timeless and indispensable conversion rate. As we discussed in the previous section, conversion rate measures how successfully your website convinces visitors to take important actions, like making purchases or signing up for newsletters. 

  An easy-to-use web analytics solution like Matomo can help in tracking conversion rates. Matomo automatically calculates conversion rates of individual pages, overall website and on a goal-by-goal basis. So you can compare the conversion rate of your newsletter sign up goal vs a form submission goal on your site and see what is underperforming and requires improvement.

  

  In the example above in Matomo, it’s clear that our goal of getting users to comment is not doing well, with only a 0.03% conversion rate. To improve our website’s overall conversion rate, we should focus our efforts on improving the user commenting experience.

  For 2024, we predict that the conversion rate will be just as important to track as in 2023. 

  2. Average visit duration

  This key metric tracks how long users spend on your website. A session typically starts when a user lands on your website and ends when they close the browser or have been inactive for some time ( 30 minutes). Tracking the average visit duration can help you determine how well your content captures users’ attention or how engaged users are when navigating your website. 

  Average Visit Duration = Total Time Spent / Number of Visits

  

  Web analytics tools like Matomo help in monitoring conversion rate metrics like average visit duration. Timestamps are assigned to each interaction within a visit, so that average visit duration can be calculated. Analysing website visit information like average visit duration allows you to evaluate the relevance of your content with your target audience. 

  3. Starter rate

  If your business relies on getting leads through forms, paying attention to Form Analytics is crucial for improving conversion rates. The “starter rate” metric is particularly important—it indicates the number of who people start filling out the form, after seeing it. 

  When you’re working to increase conversion rates and capture more leads, keeping an eye on the starter rate helps you understand where users might encounter issues or lose interest early in the form-filling process. Addressing these issues can simplify the form-filling experience and increase the likelihood of successful lead captures.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

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  Concrete CMS tripled their leads using Form Analytics in Matomo—see how in their case study.

  4. Bounce rate

  Bounce rate reflects the percentage of visitors who exit your site after interacting with a single page. Bounce rate is an important metric for understanding how relevant your content is to visitors or how optimised your user experience is. A high bounce rate can indicate that visitors are having trouble navigating your website or not finding what they’re looking for. 

  Matomo automatically calculates bounce rate on each page and for your overall website.

  

  Bounce Rate = (# of Single-Page Sessions / Total # of Sessions) * 100

  5. Cost-per-conversion

  This metric quantifies the average cost incurred for each conversion action (i.e., sale, acquired lead, sign-up, etc.). Marketers use cost-per-conversion to assess the cost efficiency of a marketing campaign. You want to aim for a lower cost-per-conversion, meaning your advertising efforts aren’t breaking the bank. A high cost-per-conversion could be acceptable in luxury industries, but it often indicates a low marketing ROI. 

  Cost-per-Conversion = Ad Spend / # of Conversions

  By connecting your Matomo with Google Ads through Advertising Conversion Export feature in Matomo, you can keep tabs on your conversions right within the advertising platform. This feature also works with Microsoft Advertising and Yandex Ads.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

  Start for free

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  6. Average order value (AOV)

  AOV is a conversion metric that calculates the average monetary value of each order. AOV is crucial for helping e-commerce businesses understand the value of their transactions. A high AOV means buyers spend more per transaction and could be more easily influenced by upselling or cross-selling. Low AOV isn’t necessarily bad — you can compensate for a low AOV by boosting transaction volume. 

  

  AOV = Total Revenue / Total # of Orders 

  Matomo automatically tracks important e-commerce metrics such as AOV, the percentage of visits with abandoned carts and the conversion rate for e-commerce orders.

  7. Exit rate

  Exit rate measures the percentage of visitors who leave a specific webpage after viewing it. Exit rate differs from bounce rate in that it focuses on the last page visitors view before leaving the site. A high exit rate should be examined to identify issues with visitors abandoning the specific page. 

  Exit Rate = (# of Exits from a Page / Total # of Pageviews for that Page) * 100

  

  In the Matomo report above, it’s clear that 77% of visits to the diving page ended after viewing it (exit rate), while 23% continued exploring. 

  On the other hand, our products page shows a lower exit rate at 36%, suggesting that more visitors continue navigating through the site after checking out the products.

  How to improve your conversion performance 

  If you’re curious about improving your conversion performance, this section is designed to guide you through that exact process.

  

  Understand your target audience and their behaviour

  You may need to return to the drawing board if you’re noticing high bounce rates or a lack of brand engagement. In-depth audience analysis can unveil user demographics, preferences and behaviours. This type of user data is crucial for building user personas, segmenting your visitors and targeting marketing campaigns accordingly.

  You can segment your website visitors in a number of web analytics solutions, but for the example below, we’ll look at segmenting in Matomo. 

  

  In this instance, we’ve segmented visitors by mobile users. This helps us see how mobile users are doing with our newsletter signup goal and identify the countries where they convert the most. It also shows how well mobile users are doing with our conversion goal over time.

  It’s clear that our mobile users are converting at a very low rate—just 0.01%. This suggests there’s room for improvement in the mobile experience on our site.

  Optimise website design, landing pages, page loading speed and UX

  A slow page loading speed can result in high exit rates, user dissatisfaction and lost revenue. Advanced web analytics solutions like Matomo, which provides heatmaps and session recordings, can help you find problems in your website design and understand how users interact with it.

  Making a website that focuses on users and has an easy-to-follow layout will make the user experience smooth and enjoyable.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Create compelling calls-to-action (CTA)

  Research shows that a strategically placed and relevant CTA can significantly increase your revenue. CTAs guide prospects toward conversion and must have a compelling and clear message. 

  You can optimise CTAs by analysing how users interact with them — this helps you tailor them to better resonate with your target audience. 

  A/B testing

  A/B testing can improve your conversion performance by allowing you to experiment with different versions of a web page. By comparing the impact of different web page elements on conversions, you can optimise your website with confidence. 

  Key conversion metrics takeaways

  Whether understanding user behaviour to develop a more intuitive user experience or guessing which marketing channel is the most effective, conversion metrics can be a marketer’s best friend. Conversion metrics help you save time, money and headaches when making your campaigns and website as effective as possible. 

  Make improving conversion rates easier with Matomo, a user-friendly all-in-one solution. Matomo ensures reliable insights by delivering accurate data while prioritising compliance and privacy.

  Get quality insights from your conversion metrics by trying Matomo free for 21 days. No credit card required.