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• How to Check Website Traffic As Accurately As Possible

  18 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  If you want to learn about the health of your website and the success of your digital marketing initiatives, there are few better ways than checking your website traffic. 

  It’s a great way to get a quick dopamine hit when things are up, but you can also use traffic levels to identify issues, learn more about your users or benchmark your performance. That means you need a reliable and easy way to check your website traffic over time — as well as a way to check out your competitors’ traffic levels, too. 

  In this article, we’ll show you how to do just that. You’ll learn how to check website traffic for both your and your competitor’s sites and discover why some methods of checking website traffic are better than others. 

  Why check website traffic ? 

  Dopamine hits aside, it’s important to constantly monitor your website’s traffic for several reasons.

  

  Benchmark site performance

  Keeping regular tabs on your traffic levels is a great way to track your website’s performance over time. It can help you plan for the future or identify problems. 

  For instance, growing traffic levels may mean expanding your business’s offering or investing in more inventory. On the flip side, decreasing traffic levels may suggest it’s time to revamp your marketing strategies or look into issues impacting your SEO. 

  Analyse user behaviour

  Checking website traffic and user behaviour lets marketing managers understand how users interact with your website. Which pages are they visiting ? Which CTAs do they click on ? What can you do to encourage users to take the actions you want ? You can also identify issues that lead to high bounce rates and other problems. 

  The better you understand user behaviour, the easier it will be to give them what they want. For example, you may find that users spend more time on your landing pages than they do your blog pages. You could use that information to revise how you create blog posts or focus on creating more landing pages. 

  Improve the user experience

  Once you understand how users behave on your website, you can use that information to fix errors, update your content and improve the user experience for the site. 

  You can even personalise the experience for customers, leading to significant growth. Research shows companies that grow faster derive 40% more of their revenue from personalisation. 

  That could come in the form of sweeping personalisations — like rearranging your website’s navigation bar based on user behaviour — or individual personalisation that uses analytics to transform sections or entire pages of your site based on user behaviour. 

  Optimise marketing strategies

  You can use website traffic reports to understand where users are coming from and optimise your marketing plan accordingly. You may want to double down on organic traffic, for instance, or invest more in PPC advertising. Knowing current traffic estimates and how these traffic levels have trended over time can help you benchmark your campaigns and prioritise your efforts. 

  Increasing traffic levels from other countries can also help you identify new marketing opportunities. If you start seeing significant traffic levels from a neighbouring country or a large market, it could be time to take your business international and launch a cross-border campaign. 

  Filter unwanted traffic

  A not-insignificant portion of your site’s traffic may be coming from bots and other unwanted sources. These can compromise the quality of your analytics and make it harder to draw insights. You may not be able to get rid of this traffic, but you can use analytics tools to remove it from your stats. 

  How to check website traffic on Matomo

  If you want to check your website’s traffic, you’d be forgiven for heading to Google Analytics first. It’s the most popular analytics tool on the market, after all. But if you want a more reliable assessment of your website’s traffic, then we recommend using Matomo alongside Google Analytics. 

  The Matomo web analytics platform is an open-source solution that helps you collect accurate data about your website’s traffic and make more informed decisions as a result — all while enhancing the customer experience and ensuring GDPR compliance and user privacy. 

  Matomo also offers multiple ways to check website traffic :

  • Visits log report
  • Real-time visitor map
  • Visits in real-time report

  Let’s look at all of them one by one. 

  The visits log report is a unique rundown of all of the individual visitors to your site. This offers a much more granular view than other tools that just show the total number of visitors for a given period. 

  

  You can access the visits log report by clicking on the reporting menu, then clicking Visitor and Visits Log. From there, you’ll be able to scroll through every user session and see the following information :

  • The location of the user
  • The total number of actions they took
  • The length of time on site
  • How they arrived at your site
  • And the device they used to access your site 

  This may be overwhelming if your site receives thousands of visitors at a time. But it’s a great way to understand users at an individual level and appreciate the lifetime activity of specific users. 

  The Real-time visitor map is a visual display of users’ location for a given timeframe. If you have an international website, it’s a fantastic way to see exactly where in the world your traffic comes from.

  

  You can access the Real-time Visitor Map by clicking Visitor in the main navigation menu and then Real-time Map. The map itself is colour-coded. Larger orange bubbles represent recent visits, and smaller dark orange and grey bubbles represent older visits. The map will refresh every five seconds, and new users appear with a flashing effect. 

  If you run TV or radio adverts, Matomo’s Real-time Map provides an immediate read on the effectiveness of your campaign. If your map lights up in the minutes following your ad, you know it’s been effective. It can also help you identify the source of bot attacks, too. 

  Finally, the Visits in Real-time report provides a snapshot of who is browsing your website. You can access this report under Visitors > Real-time and add it to your custom dashboards as a widget. 

  Open the report, and you’ll see the real-time flow of your site’s users and counters for visits and pageviews over the last 30 minutes and 24 hours. The report refreshes every five seconds with new users added to the top of the report with a fade-in effect.

  

  The report provides a snapshot of each visitor, including :

  • Whether they are new or a returning 
  • Their country
  • Their browser
  • Their operating system
  • The number of actions they took
  • The time they spent on the site
  • The channel they came in from
  • Whether the visitor converted a goal

  3 other ways to check website traffic

  You don’t need to use Matomo to check your website traffic. Here are three other tools you can use instead. 

  How to check website traffic on Google Analytics

  Google Analytics is usually the first starting point for anyone looking to check their website traffic. It’s free to use, incredibly popular and offers a wide range of traffic reports. 

  Google Analytics lets you break down historical traffic data almost any way you wish. You can split traffic by acquisition channel (organic, social media, direct, etc.) by country, device or demographic.

  

  It also provides real-time traffic reports that give you a snapshot of users on your site right now and over the last 30 minutes. 

  

  Google Analytics may be one of the most popular ways to check website traffic, but it could be better. Google Analytics 4 is difficult to use compared to its predecessor, and it also limits the amount of data you can track in accordance with privacy laws. If users refuse your cookie consent, Google Analytics won’t record these visits. In other words, you aren’t getting a complete view of your traffic by using Google Analytics alone. 

  That’s why it’s important to use Google Analytics alongside other web analytics tools (like Matomo) that don’t suffer from the same privacy issues. That way, you can make sure you track every single user who visits your site. 

  How to check website traffic on Google Search Console

  Google Search Console is a free tool from Google that lets you analyse the search traffic that your site gets from Google. 

  The top-line report shows you how many times your website has appeared in Google Search, how many clicks it has received, the average clickthrough rate and the average position of your website in the search results. 

  

  Google Search Console is a great way to understand what you rank for and how much traffic your organic rankings generate. It will also show you which pages are indexed in Google and whether there are any crawling errors. 

  Unfortunately, Google Search Console is limited if you want to get a complete view of your traffic. While you can analyse search traffic in a huge amount of detail, it will not tell you how users who access your website directly or via social media behave. 

  How to check website traffic on Similarweb

  Similarweb is a website analysis tool that estimates the total traffic of any site on the internet. It is one of the best tools for estimating how much traffic your competitors receive. 

  What’s great about Similarweb is that it estimates total traffic, not just traffic from search engines like many SEO tools. It even breaks down traffic by different channels, allowing you to see how your website compares against your competitors. 

  

  As you can see from the image above, Similarweb provides an estimate of total visits, bounce rate, the average number of pages users view per visit and the average duration on the site. The company also has a free browser extension that lets you check website traffic estimates as you browse the web. 

  You can use Similarweb for free to a point. But to really get the most out of this tool, you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan which starts at $125 per user per month. 

  The price isn’t the only downside of using Similarweb to check the traffic of your own and your competitor’s websites. Ultimately, Similarweb is only an estimate — even if it’s a reasonably accurate one — and it’s no match for a comprehensive analytics tool. 

  7 website traffic metrics to track

  Now that you know how to check your website’s traffic, you can start to analyse it. You can use plenty of metrics to assess the quality of your website traffic, but here are some of the most important metrics to track. 

  • New visitors : These are users who have never visited your website before. They are a great sign that your marketing efforts are working and your site is reaching more people. But it’s also important to track how they behave on the website to ensure your site caters effectively to new visitors. 
  • Returning visitors : Returning visitors are coming back to your site for a reason : either they like the content you’re creating or they want to make a purchase. Both instances are great. The more returning visitors, the better. 
  • Bounce rate : This is a measure of how many users leave your website without taking action. Different analytics tools measure this metric differently.
  • Session duration : This is the length of time users spend on your website, and it can be a great gauge of whether they find your site engaging. Especially when combined with the metric below. 
  • Pages per session : This measures how many different pages users visit on average. The more pages they visit and the longer users spend on your website, the more engaging it is. 
  • Traffic source : Traffic can come from a variety of sources (organic, direct, social media, referral, etc.) Tracking which sources generate the most traffic can help you analyse and prioritise your marketing efforts. 
  • User demographics : This broad metric tells you more about who the users are that visit your website, what device they use, what country they come from, etc. While the bulk of your website traffic will come from the countries you target, an influx of new users from other countries can open the door to new opportunities.

  Why do my traffic reports differ ?

  If you use more than one of the methods above to check your website traffic, you’ll quickly realise that every traffic report differs. In some cases, the reasons are obvious. Any tool that estimates your traffic without adding code to your website is just that : an estimate. Tools like Similarweb will never offer the accuracy of analytics platforms like Matomo and Google Analytics. 

  But what about the differences between these analytics platforms themselves ? While each platform has a different way of recording user behaviour, significant differences in website traffic reports between analytics platforms are usually a result of how each platform handles user privacy. 

  A platform like Google Analytics requires users to accept a cookie consent banner to track them. If they accept, great. Google collects all of the data that any other analytics platform does. It may even collect more. If users reject cookie consent banners, however, then Google Analytics can’t track these visitors at all. They simply won’t show up in your traffic reports. 

  That doesn’t happen with all analytics platforms, however. A privacy-focused alternative like Matomo doesn’t require cookie consent banners (apart from in the United Kingdom and Germany) and can therefore continue to track visitors even after they have rejected a cookie consent screen from Google Analytics. This means that virtually all of your website traffic will be tracked regardless of whether users accept a cookie consent banner or not. And it’s why traffic reports in Matomo are often much higher than they are in Google Analytics.

  

  Given that around half (47.32%) of adults in the European Union refuse to allow the use of personal data tracking for advertising purposes and that 95% of people will reject additional cookies when it is easy to do so, this means you could have vastly different traffic reports — and be missing out on a significant amount of user data. 

  If you’re serious about using web analytics to improve your website and optimise your marketing campaigns, then it is essential to use another analytics platform alongside Google Analytics. 

  Get more accurate traffic reports with Matomo

  There are several methods to check website traffic. Some, like Similarweb, can provide estimates on your competitors’ traffic levels. Others, like Google Analytics, are free. But data doesn’t lie. Only privacy-focused analytics solutions like Matomo can provide accurate reports that account for every visitor. 

  Join over one million organisations using Matomo to accurately check their website traffic. Try it for free alongside GA today. No credit card required. 

• Meta Receives a Record GDPR Fine from The Irish Data Protection Commission

  29 mai 2023, par Erin — GDPR

  The Irish Data Protection Commission (the DPC) issued a €1.2 billion fine to Meta on May, 22nd 2023 for violating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

  The regulator ruled that Meta was unlawfully transferring European users’ data to its US-based servers and taking no sufficient measures for ensuring users’ privacy. 

  Meta must now suspend data transfer within five months and delete EU/EEA users’ personal data that was illegally transferred across the border. Or they risk facing another round of repercussions. 

  Meta continued to transfer personal user data to the USA following an earlier ruling of The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), which already address problematic EU-U.S. data flows. Meta continued those transfers on the basis of the updated Standard Contractual Clauses (“SCCs”), adopted by the European Commission in 2021. 

  The Irish regulator successfully proved that these arrangements had not sufficiently addressed the “fundamental rights and freedoms” of the European data subjects, outlined in the CJEU ruling. Meta was not doing enough to protect EU users’ data against possible surveillance and unconsented usage by US authorities or other authorised entities.

  Why European Regulators Are After The US Big Tech Firms ? 

  GDPR regulations have been a sore area of compliance for US-based big tech companies. 

  Effectively, they had to adopt a host of new measures for collecting user consent, ensuring compliant data storage and the right to request data removal for a substantial part of their user bases. 

  The wrinkle, however, is that companies like Google and Meta among others, don’t have separate data processing infrastructure for different markets. Instead, all the user data gets commingled on the companies’ servers, which are located in the US. 

  Data storage facilities’ location is an issue. In 2020, the CJEU made a historical ruling, called the invalidation of the Privacy Shield. Originally, international companies were allowed to transfer data between the EU and the US if they adhered to seven data protection principles. This arrangement was called the Privacy Shield. 

  However, the continuous investigation found that the Privacy Shield scheme was not GDPR compliant and therefore companies could no longer use it to justify cross-border data transfers.

  The invalidation of the Privacy Shield gave ground for further investigations of the big tech companies’ compliance statuses. 

  In March 2022, the Irish DPC issued the first €17 million fine to Meta for “insufficient technical and organisational measures to ensure information security of European users”. In September 2022, Meta was again hit with a €405 million fine for Instagram breaching GDPR principles. 

  2023 began with another series of rulings, with the DPC concluding that Meta had breaches of the GDPR relating to its Facebook service (€210 million fine) and breaches related to Instagram (€180 million fine). 

  Clearly, Meta already knew they weren’t doing enough for GDPR compliance and yet they refused to take privacy-focused action. 

  Is Google GDPR Compliant ?

  Google has a similar “track record” as Meta when it comes to ensuring full compliance with the GDPR. Although Google has said to provide users with more controls for managing their data privacy, the proposed solutions are just scratching the surface. 

  In the background, Google continues to leverage its ample reserves of user browsing, behavioural and device data in product development and advertising. 

  In 2022, the Irish Council for Civil Liberties (ICCL) found that Google used web users’ information in its real-time bidding ad system without their knowledge or consent. The French data regulator (CNIL), in turn, fined Google for €150 million because of poor cookie consent banners the same year. 

  Google Analytics GDPR compliance status is, however, the bigger concern.

  Neither Google Univeral Analytics (UA) nor Google Analytics 4 are GDPR compliant, following the Privacy Shield framework invalidation in 2020. 

  Fines from individual regulators in Sweden, France, Austria, Italy, Denmark, Finland and Norway ruled that Google Analytics is non-GDPR compliant and is therefore illegal to use. 

  The regulatory rulings not just affect Google, but also GA users. Because the product is in breach of European privacy laws, people using it are complacent. Privacy groups like noyb, for example, are exercising their right to sue individual websites, using Google Analytics.

  How to Stay GDPR Compliant With Website Analytics 

  To avoid any potential risk exposure, selectively investigate each website analytics provider’s data storage and management practices. 

  Inquire about the company’s data storage locations among the first things. For example, Matomo Cloud keeps all the data in the EU, while Matomo On-Premise edition gives you the option to store data in any country of your choice. 

  Secondly, ask about their process for consent tracking and subsequent data analysis. Our website analytics product is fully GDPR compliant as we have first-party cookies enabled by default, offer a convenient option of tracking out-outs, provide a data removal mechanism and practice safe data storage. In fact, Matomo was approved by the French Data Protection Authority (CNIL) as one of the few web analytics apps that can be used to collect data without tracking consent. 

  Using an in-built GDPR Manager, Matomo users can implement the right set of controls for their market and their industry. For example, you can implement extra data or IP anonymization ; disable visitor logs and profiles. 

  Thanks to our privacy-by-design architecture and native controls, users can make their Matomo analytics compliant even with the strictest privacy laws like HIPAA, CCPA, LGPD and PECR. 

  Learn more about GDPR-friendly website analytics.

  Final Thoughts

  Since the GDPR came into effect in 2018, over 1,400 fines have been given to various companies in breach of the regulations. Meta and Google have been initially lax in response to European regulatory demands. But as new fines follow and the consumer pressure mounts, Big Tech companies are forced to take more proactive measures : add opt-outs for personalised ads and introduce an alternative mechanism to third-party cookies. 

  Companies, using non-GDPR-compliant tools risk finding themselves in the crossfire of consumer angst and regulatory criticism. To operate an ethical, compliant business consider privacy-focused alternatives to Google products, especially in the area of website analytics. 

• The 7 GDPR Principles : A Guide to Compliance

  11 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips, GDPR

  We all knew it was coming. It’s all anyone could talk about — the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) took effect on 25 May 2018. 

  You might think five years would have been plenty of time for organisations to achieve compliance, yet many have failed to do so. As of 2022, 81% of French businesses and 95% of American companies were still not compliant.

  If you’re one of these organisations still working on compliance, this blog will provide valuable information about the seven GDPR principles and guide you on your way to compliance. It will also explore how web analytics tools can help organisations improve transparency, ensure data security and achieve GDPR compliance.

  What is GDPR ?

  The European Union (EU) created the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) to grant individuals greater control over their data and promote transparency in data processing. 

  Known by many other names across Europe (e.g., RGPD, DSGVO, etc.), the GDPR created a set of rules surrounding the handling of personal data of EU citizens and residents, to make sure organisations aren’t being irresponsible with user names, locations, IP addresses, information gleaned from cookies, and so on. 

  Organisations must assume several responsibilities to achieve GDPR compliance, regardless of their physical location. These obligations include :

  • Respecting user rights
  • Implementing documentation and document retention policies
  • Ensuring data security 

  Why is GDPR compliance important ?

  Data has become a valuable asset for businesses worldwide. The collection and use of data is a feature of almost every sector. However, with increased data usage comes a greater responsibility to protect individuals’ privacy and rights. 

  A YouGov study conducted in 17 key markets found that two in three adults worldwide believe tech corporations across all markets have too much control over their data.

  

  GDPR is the most extensive government framework aiming to tackle the increasing concern over data collection and handling. GDPR safeguards personal data from misuse, unauthorised access and data breaches. It ensures that businesses handle information responsibly and with respect for individual privacy. It also provided a foundation for similar laws to be created in other countries, including China, which is among the least concerned regions (56%), along with Sweden (54%) and Indonesia (56%).

  GDPR has been pivotal in safeguarding personal data and empowering individuals with more control over their information. Compliance with GDPR builds trust between businesses and their customers. Currently, 71% of the countries in the world are covered by data protection and privacy legislation.

  What are the risks of non-compliance ?

  We’ve established the siginficance of GDPR, but what about the implications — what does it mean for your business ? The consequences of non-compliance can be severe and are not worth being lax about. 

  According to Article 83 of the GDPR, you can be penalised up to 4% of your annual global revenue or €20 million, whichever is higher, for violations. For smaller businesses, such substantial fines could be devastating. Non-compliance could even result in legal action from individuals or data protection authorities, leading to further financial losses.

  Potential outcomes are not just legal and financial. GDPR violations can significantly damage your reputation as a company. Non-compliance could also cost you business opportunities if your policies and processes do not comply and, therefore, do not align with potential partners. Customers trust businesses that take data protection seriously over those that do not.

  

  Finally, and perhaps the most timid outcome on the surface, individuals have the right to complain to data protection authorities if they believe you violate their data rights. These complaints can trigger an investigation, and if your business is found to be breaking the rules, you could face all of the consequences mentioned above. 

  You may think it couldn’t happen to you, but GDPR fines have collectively reached over €4 billion and are growing at a notable rate. Fines grew 92% from H1 2021 compared with H1 2022. A record-breaking €1.2 billion fine to Meta in 2023 is the biggest we’ve seen, so far. But smaller businesses can be fined, too. A bank in Hungary was fined €1,560 for not erasing and correcting data when the subject requested it. (Individuals can also be fined in flagrant cases, like a police officer fined €1,400 for using police info for private purposes.)

  

  The 7 GDPR principles and how to comply

  You should now have a good understanding of GDPR, why it’s important and the consequences of not being compliant. 

  Your first step to compliance is to identify the personal data your organisation processes and determine the legal basis for processing each type. You then need to review your data processing activities to ensure they align with the GDPR’s purpose and principles.

  There are seven key principles in Article 5 of the GDPR that govern the lawful processing of personal data :

  Lawfulness, fairness and transparency

  This principle ensures you collect and use data in a legal and transparent way. It must be collected with consent, and you must tell your customers why you need their data. Data processing must be conducted fairly and transparently. 

  How to comply

  • Review your data practices and identify if and why you collect personal data from customers.
    • Learn what personally identifiable information (PII) is.
  • Update your website and forms to include a clear and easy-to-understand explanation of why you need their data and what you’ll use it for.
  • Obtain explicit consent from individuals when processing their sensitive data.
  • Add a cookie consent banner to your website, informing users about the cookies you use and why.
    • Website analytics tools like Google Analytics and Matomo offer the ability to create cookie consent banners and integrate with Consent Management Platforms (CMPs) to manage user consent and privacy settings.
    • Matomo also offers a setting without tracking cookies, in which case you would not need to add the cookie consent banner. 
  • Privacy notices must be accessible at all times. 
  • To ensure your cookies are GDPR compliant, you must :
    • Get consent before using any cookies (except strictly necessary cookies). 
    • Clearly explain what each cookie tracks and its purpose.
    • Document and store user consent.
    • Don’t refuse access to services if users do not consent to the use of certain cookies.
    • Make the consent withdrawal process simple. 

  Use tools like Matomo that can be configured to automatically anonymise data so you don’t process any personal data.

  Purpose limitation

  You can only use data for the specific, legitimate purposes you told your visitors, prospects or customers about at the time of collection. You can’t use it for anything else without asking again. 

  How to comply

  • Define the specific purposes for collecting personal data (e.g., processing orders, sending newsletters).
  • Ensure you don’t use the data for any other purposes without getting explicit consent from the individuals.

  Data minimisation

  Data minimisation means you should only collect the data you need, aligned with the stated purpose. You shouldn’t gather or store more data than necessary. Implementing data minimisation practices ensures compliance and protects against data breaches.

  How to comply

  • Identify the minimum data required for each purpose.
  • Conduct a data audit to identify and eliminate unnecessary data collection points.
  • Don’t ask for unnecessary information or store data that’s not essential for your business operations.
  • Implement data retention policies to delete data when it is no longer required.

  Accuracy

  You are responsible for keeping data accurate and up-to-date at all times. You should have processes to promptly erase or correct any data if you have incorrect information for your customers.

  How to comply

  • Implement a process to regularly review and update customer data.
  • Provide an easy way for customers to request corrections to their data if they find any errors.

  Storage limitation

  Data should not be kept longer than necessary. You should only hold onto it for as long as you have a valid reason, which should be the purpose stated and consented to. Securely dispose of data when it is no longer needed. There is no upper time limit on data storage. 

  How to comply

  • Set clear retention periods for the different types of data you collect.
  • Develop data retention policies and adhere to them consistently.
  • Delete data when it’s no longer needed for the purposes you specified.

  Integrity and confidentiality

  You must take measures to protect data from unauthorised or unlawful access, like keeping it locked away and secure.

  How to comply

  • Securely store personal data with encryption and access controls, and keep it either within the EU or somewhere with similar privacy protections. 
  • Train your staff on data protection and restrict access to data only to those who need it for their work.
  • Conduct regular security assessments and address vulnerabilities promptly.

  Accountability

  Accountability means that you are responsible for complying with the other principles. You must demonstrate that you are following the rules and taking data protection seriously.

  How to comply

  • Appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) or someone responsible for data privacy in your company.
  • Maintain detailed records of data processing activities and any data breaches.
  • Data breaches must be reported within 72 hours.

  Compliance with GDPR is an ongoing process, and it’s vital to review and update your practices regularly. 

  What are GDPR rights ?

  Individuals are granted various rights under the GDPR. These rights give them more control over their personal data.

  

  The right to be informed : People can ask why their data is required.

  What to do : Explain why personal data is required and how it will be used.

  The right to access : People can request and access the personal data you hold about them.
  What to do : Provide a copy of the data upon request, free of charge and within one month.

  The right to rectification : If data errors or inaccuracies are found, your customers can ask you to correct them.
  What to do : Promptly update any incorrect information to ensure it is accurate and up-to-date.

  The right to object to processing : Your customers have the right to object to processing their data for certain purposes, like direct marketing.
  What to do : Respect this objection unless you have legitimate reasons for processing the data.

  Rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling : GDPR gives individuals the right not to be subject to decisions based solely on automated processing, including profiling, if it significantly impacts them.
  What to do : Offer individuals the right to human intervention and express their point of view in such cases.

  The right to be forgotten : Individuals can request the deletion of their data under certain circumstances, such as when the data is no longer necessary or when they withdraw consent.
  What to do : Comply with such requests unless you have a legal obligation to keep the data.

  The right to data portability : People can request their personal data in a commonly used and machine-readable format.
  What to do : Provide the data to the individual if they want to transfer it to another service provider.

  The right to restrict processing : Customers can ask you to temporarily stop processing their data, for example, while they verify its accuracy or when they object to its usage.
  What to do : Store the data during this period but do not process it further.

  Are all website analytics tools GDPR compliant ?

  Unfortunately, not all web analytics tools are built the same. No matter where you are located in the world, if you are processing the personal data of European citizens or residents, you need to fulfil GDPR obligations.

  While your web analytics tool helps you gain valuable insights from your user base and web traffic, they don’t all comply with GDPR. No matter how hard you work to adhere to the seven principles and GDPR rights, using a non-compliant tool means that you’ll never be fully GDPR compliant.

  When using website analytics tools and handling data, you should consider the following :

  Collection of data

  Aligned with the lawfulness, fairness and transparency principle, you must collect consent from visitors for tracking if you are using website analytics tools to collect visitor behavioural data — unless you anonymise data entirely with Matomo.

  

  To provide transparency, you should also clarify the types of data you collect, such as IP addresses, device information and browsing behaviour. Note that data collection aims to improve your website’s performance and understand your audience better.

  Storage of data

  Assure your visitors that you securely store their data and only keep it for as long as necessary, following GDPR’s storage limitation principle. Clearly state the retention periods for different data types and specify when you’ll delete or anonymise it.

  Usage of data

  Make it clear that to comply with the purpose limitation principle, the data you collect will not be used for other purposes beyond website analytics. You should also promise not to share data with third parties for marketing or unrelated activities without their explicit consent. 

  Anonymisation and pseudonymisation

  Features like IP anonymisation to protect users’ privacy are available with GA4 (Google Analytics) and Matomo. Describe how you use these tools and mention that you may use pseudonyms or unique identifiers instead of real names to safeguard personal data further.

  Cookies and consent

  Inform visitors that your website uses cookies and other tracking technologies for analytics purposes. Matomo offers customisable cookie banners and opt-out options that allow users to choose their preferences regarding cookies and tracking, along with cookieless options that don’t require consent banners. 

  Right to access and correct data

  Inform visitors of their rights and provide instructions on requesting information. Describe how to correct inaccuracies in their data and update their preferences.

  Security measures

  Assure visitors that you take data security seriously and have implemented measures to protect their data from unauthorised access or breaches. You can also use this opportunity to highlight any encryption or access controls you use to safeguard data.

  Contact information

  Provide contact details for your company’s Data Protection Officer (DPO) and encourage users to reach out if they have any questions or concerns about their data and privacy.

  When selecting web analytics tools, consider how well they align with GDPR principles. Look for features like anonymisation, consent management options, data retention controls, security measures and data storage within the EU or a similarly privacy-protecting jurisdiction. 

  Matomo offers an advanced GDPR Manager. This is to make sure websites are fully GDPR compliant by giving users the ability to access, withdraw consent, object or erase their data, in addition to the anonymizing features. 

  And finally, when you use Matomo, you have 100% data ownership — stored with us in the EU if you’re using Matomo Cloud or on your own servers with Matomo On-Premise — so you can be data-driven and still be compliant with worldwide privacy laws. We are also trusted across industries as we provide accurate data (no trying to fill in the gaps with AI), a robust API that lets you connect your data to your other tools and cookieless tracking options so you don’t need a cookie consent banner. What’s more, our open-source nature allows you to explore the inner workings, offering the assurance of security firsthand. 

  Ready to become GDPR compliant ?

  Whether you’re an established business or just starting out, if you work with data from EU citizens or residents, then achieving GDPR compliance is essential. It doesn’t need to cost you a fortune or five years to get to compliant status. With the right tools and processes, you can be on top of the privacy requirements in no time at all, avoiding any of those hefty penalties or the resulting damage to your reputation. 

  You don’t need to sacrifice powerful data insights to be GDPR compliant. While Google Analytics uses data for its ‘own purposes’, Matomo is an ethical alternative. Using our all-in-one web analytics platform means you own 100% of your data 100% of the time. 

  Start a 21-day free trial of Matomo — no credit card required.

  Disclaimer

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