Recherche avancée

Sur d’autres sites (9612)

• A Comprehensive Guide to Robust Digital Marketing Analytics

  30 octobre 2023, par Erin

  First impressions are everything. This is not only true for dating and job interviews but also for your digital marketing strategy. Like a poorly planned resume getting tossed in the “no thank you” pile, 38% of visitors to your website will stop engaging with your content if they find the layout unpleasant. Thankfully, digital marketers can access data that can be harnessed to optimise websites and turn those “no thank you’s” into “absolutely’s.”

  So, how can we transform raw data into valuable insights that pay off ? The key is web analytics tools that can help you make sense of it all while collecting data ethically. In this article, we’ll equip you with ways to take your digital marketing strategy to the next level with the power of web analytics.

  What are the different types of digital marketing analytics ?

  Digital marketing analytics are like a cipher into the complex behaviour of your buyers. Digital marketing analytics help collect, analyse and interpret data from any touchpoint you interact with your buyers online. Whether you’re trying to gauge the effectiveness of a new email marketing campaign or improve your mobile app layout, there’s a way for you to make use of the insights you gain. 

  As we go through the eight commonly known types of digital marketing analytics, please note we’ll primarily focus on what falls under the umbrella of web analytics. 

  1. Web analytics help you better understand how users interact with your website. Good web analytics tools will help you understand user behaviour while securely handling user data. 
  2. Learn more about the effectiveness of your organisation’s social media platforms with social media analytics. Social media analytics include user engagement, post reach and audience demographics. 
  3. Email marketing analytics help you see how email campaigns are being engaged with.
  4. Search engine optimisation (SEO) analytics help you understand your website’s visibility in search engine results pages (SERPs). 
  5. Pay-per-click (PPC) analytics measure the performance of paid advertising campaigns.
  6. Content marketing analytics focus on how your content is performing with your audience. 
  7. Customer analytics helps organisations identify and examine buyer behaviour to retain the biggest spenders. 
  8. Mobile app analytics track user interactions within mobile applications. 

  Choosing which digital marketing analytics tools are the best fit for your organisation is not an easy task. When making these decisions, it’s critical to remember the ethical implications of data collection. Although data insights can be invaluable to your organisation, they won’t be of much use if you lose the trust of your users. 

  Tips and best practices for developing robust digital marketing analytics 

  So, what separates top-notch, robust digital marketing analytics from the rest ? We’ve already touched on it, but a big part involves respecting user privacy and ethically handling data. Data security should be on your list of priorities, alongside conversion rate optimisation when developing a digital marketing strategy. In this section, we will examine best practices for using digital marketing analytics while retaining user trust.

  

  Clear objectives

  Before comparing digital marketing analytics tools, you should define clear and measurable goals. Try asking yourself what you need your digital marketing analytics strategy to accomplish. Do you want to improve conversion rates while remaining data compliant ? Maybe you’ve noticed users are not engaging with your platform and want to fix that. Save yourself time and energy by focusing on the most relevant pain points and areas of improvement.

  Choose the right tools for the job

  Don’t just base your decision on what other people tell you. Take the tool for a test drive — free trials allow you to test features and user interfaces and learn more about the platform before committing. When choosing digital marketing analytics tools, look for ones that ensure compliance with privacy laws like GDPR.

  Don’t overlook data compliance

  GDPR ensures organisations prioritise data protection and privacy. You could be fined up to €20 million, or 4% of the previous year’s revenue for violations. Without data compliance practices, you can say goodbye to the time and money spent on digital marketing strategies. 

  Don’t sacrifice data quality and accuracy

  Inaccurate and low-quality data can taint your analysis, making it hard to glean valuable insights from your digital marketing analytics efforts. Regularly audit and clean your data to remove inaccuracies and inconsistencies. Address data discrepancies promptly to maintain the integrity of your analytics. Data validation measures also help to filter out inaccurate data.

  Communicate your findings

  Having insights is one thing ; effectively communicating complex data findings is just as important. Customise dashboards to display key metrics aligned with your objectives. Make sure to automate reports, allowing stakeholders to stay updated without manual intervention. 

  Understand the user journey

  To optimise your conversion rates, you need to understand the user journey. Start by analysing visitors interactions with your website — this will help you identify conversion bottlenecks in your sales or lead generation processes. Implement A/B testing for landing page optimisation, refining elements like call-to-action buttons or copy, and leverage Form Analytics to make informed, data-driven improvements to your forms.

  Continuous improvement

  Learn from the data insights you gain, and iterate your marketing strategies based on the findings. Stay updated with evolving web analytics trends and technologies to leverage new growth opportunities.

  Why you need web analytics to support your digital marketing analytics toolbox

  You wouldn’t set out on a roadtrip without a map, right ? Digital marketing analytics without insights into how users interact with your website are just as useless. Used ethically, web analytics tools can be an invaluable addition to your digital marketing analytics toolbox. 

  The data collected via web analytics reveals user interactions with your website. These could include anything from how long visitors stay on your page to their actions while browsing your website. Web analytics tools help you gather and understand this data so you can better understand buyer preferences. It’s like a domino effect : the more you understand your buyers and user behaviour, the better you can assess the effectiveness of your digital content and campaigns. 

  Web analytics reveal user behaviour, highlighting navigation patterns and drop-off points. Understanding these patterns helps you refine website layout and content, improving engagement and conversions for a seamless user experience.

  

  Concrete CMS harnessed the power of web analytics, specifically Form Analytics, to uncover a crucial insight within their user onboarding process. Their data revealed a significant issue : the “address” input field was causing visitors to drop off and not complete the form, severely impacting the overall onboarding experience and conversion rate.

  Armed with these insights, Concrete CMS made targeted optimisations to the form, resulting in a substantial transformation. By addressing the specific issue identified through Form Analytics, they achieved an impressive outcome – a threefold increase in lead generation.

  This case is a great example of how web analytics can uncover customer needs and preferences and positively impact conversion rates. 

  Ethical implications of digital marketing analytics

  As we’ve touched on, digital marketing analytics are a powerful tool to help better understand online user behaviour. With great power comes great responsibility, however, and it’s a legal and ethical obligation for organisations to protect individual privacy rights. Let’s get into the benefits of practising ethical digital marketing analytics and the potential risks of not respecting user privacy : 

  • If someone uses your digital platform and then opens their email one day to find it filled with random targeted ad campaigns, they won’t be happy. Avoid losing user trust — and facing a potential lawsuit — by informing users what their data will be used for. Give them the option to consent to opt-in or opt-out of letting you use their personal information. If users are also assured you’ll safeguard personal information against unauthorised access, they’ll be more likely to trust you to handle their data securely.
  • Protecting data against breaches means investing in technology that will let you end-to-end encrypt and securely store data. Other important data-security best practices include access control, backing up data regularly and network and physical security of assets.
  • A fine line separates digital marketing analytics and misusing user data — many companies have gotten into big trouble for crossing it. (By big trouble, we mean millions of dollars in fines.) When it comes to digital marketing analytics, you should never cut corners when it comes to user privacy and data security. This balance involves understanding what data can be collected and what should be collected and respecting user boundaries and preferences.

  

  Learn more 

  We discussed a lot of facets of digital marketing analytics, namely how to develop a robust digital marketing strategy while prioritising data compliance. With Matomo, you can protect user data and respect user privacy while gaining invaluable insights into user behaviour. Save your organisation time and money by investing in a web analytics solution that gives you the best of both worlds. 

  If you’re ready to begin using ethical and robust digital marketing analytics on your website, try Matomo. Start your 21-day free trial now — no credit card required.

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

  Your email address
  

  Your website address
  

  Your Analytics subdomain will be .matomo.cloud (change)

  Choose your analytics subdomain
  

  .matomo.cloud

  I accept the terms and conditions and data processing agreement (DPA)

  
  Your information will be used to create an account on our cloud service. For more information please consult our privacy policy.
  
  
  

  Start improving your websites now

  

• Web Analytics : The Quick Start Guide

  25 janvier 2024, par Erin

  You’ve spent ages carefully designing your website, crafting copy to encourage as many users as possible to purchase your product. 

  But they aren’t. And you don’t know why. 

  The good news is you don’t have to remain in the dark. Collecting and analysing web analytics lets you understand how your users behave on your site and why they aren’t converting. 

  But before you can do that, you need to know what those metrics and KPIs mean. That’s why this article is taking things back to basics. Below, we’ll show you which metrics to track, what they mean and how to choose the best web analytics platform. 

  What is web analytics ?

  Web analytics is the process of collecting, analysing and reporting website data to understand how users behave on your website. Web analytics platforms like Matomo collect this data by adding a code line to every site page. 

  Why is it important to track web analytics ?

  There are plenty of reasons you should start tracking web analytics, including the following :

  

  Analyse user behaviour

  Being able to analyse user behaviour is the most important reason to track website analytics. After all, you can’t improve your website’s conversion rate if you don’t know what users do on your site.

  A web analytics platform can show you how users move around your site, the links they click on and the forms they fill in. 

  Improve site experience

  Web analytics is a fantastic way to identify issues and find areas where your site could improve. You could look at your site’s exit pages, for example, and see why so many users leave your site when viewing one of these pages and what you can do to fix it.

  It can also teach you about your user’s preferences so you can improve the user experience in the future. Maybe they always click a certain type of button or prefer one page’s design over another. Whatever the case, you can use the data to make your site more user-friendly and increase conversions.

  Boost marketing efforts

  Web analytics is one of the best ways to understand your marketing efforts and learn how to improve them.

  A good platform can collect valuable data about your marketing campaigns, including :

  • Where users came from
  • What actions these users take on your site
  • Which traffic sources create the most conversions

  This information can help you decide which marketing campaigns send the best users to your site and generate the highest ROI. 

  Make informed decisions

  Ultimately, web analytics simplifies decision-making for your website and marketing efforts by relying on concrete data instead of guesswork.

  Rather than wonder why users aren’t adding products to their shopping cart or signing up for your newsletter, you can analyse how they behave and use that information to hypothesise how you can improve conversions. Web analytics will even give you the data to confirm whether you were right or wrong. 

  What are the key metrics you should track ?

  Getting your head around web analytics means knowing the most important metrics to track. Below are seven key metrics and how to track them using Matomo. 

  Traffic

  Traffic is the number of people visiting your website over a period of time. It is the lifeblood of your website since the more visits your site receives, the more revenue it stands to generate.

  However, simply having a high volume of visitors does not guarantee substantial revenue. To maximise your success, focus on attracting your ideal customers and generating quality traffic from those who are most likely to engage with your offerings.

  Ideally, you should be seeing an upward trend in traffic over time though. The longer your website has been published and the more quality and targeted content you create, the more traffic you should receive. 

  Matomo offers multiple ways to check your website’s traffic :

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

  The visits log report in Matomo is perfect if you want a granular view of your visitors.

  

  It shows you each user session and get a detailed picture of each user, including :

  • Their geographic location
  • The number of actions they took
  • How they found your site
  • The length of time they stayed
  • Their device type
  • What browser they are using
  • The keyword they used to find your site

  Traffic sources

  Traffic sources show how users access your website. They can enter via a range of traffic sources, including search engines, email and direct visits, for instance.

  Matomo has five default traffic source types :

  • Search engine – visitors from search platforms (like Google, Bing, etc.)
  • Direct traffic – individuals who directly type your website’s URL into their browser or have it bookmarked, bypassing search engines or external links
  • Websites – visits from other external sites
  • Campaigns – traffic resulting from specific marketing initiatives (like a newsletter or ad campaign, for instance)
  • Social networks  – visitors who access your website through various social media platforms (such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram. etc.)

  But each of these can be broken into more granular sources. Take organic traffic from search engines, for example :

  

  Matomo tracks visits from each search engine, showing you how many visits you had in total, how many actions those visitors took, and the average amount of time those visitors spent on your site. 

  You can even integrate Google, Bing and Yahoo search consoles to monitor keyword performance and enhance your search engine optimisation efforts.

  Pageviews

  Whenever a browser loads a page, your web analytics tool records a pageview. This term, pageview, represents the count of unique times a page on your website is loaded.

  You can track pageviews in Matomo by opening the Pages tab in the Behaviour section of the main navigation. 

  

  You can quickly see your site’s most visited pages in this report in Matomo. 

  Be careful of deriving too much meaning from pageviews. Just because a page has lots of views, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s quality or valuable. There are a couple of reasons for this. First, the page might be confusing, so users have to keep revisiting it to understand the content. Second, it could be the default page most visitors land on when they enter your site, like the homepage. 

  While pageviews offer insights, it’s important to dig deeper into user behaviour and other metrics to truly gauge a page’s importance and impact.

  Average time on page

  Time on page is the amount of time users spend on the page on average. You can see average time on page in Matomo’s page analytics report.

  A low time on page score isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Users will naturally spend less time on gateway pages and checkout pages. A short time spent on checkout pages, especially if users are successfully completing their transactions, indicates that the checkout process is easy and seamless.

  Conversely, a longer time on blog posts is a positive indicator. It suggests that readers are genuinely engaged with the content.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Returning visitors

  Returning visitors measures the number of people who visit your site more than once. It can be expressed as a number or a percentage. 

  While some analytics tools only show returning visitors as a percentage, Matomo lets you learn more about each of them in the Visitor profile report. 

  

  This report offers a full summary of a user’s previous actions, including :

  • How many times they’ve visited your site
  • The pages they viewed on each visit
  • Where they visited from
  • The devices they used
  • How quickly pages loaded

  When people keep coming back to a website, it’s usually a positive sign and means they like the service, content or products. But, it depends on the type of website. If it’s the kind of site where people make one-off purchases, the focus might not be on getting visitors to return. For a site like this, a high number of returning visitors could indicate that the website is confusing or difficult to use. 

  It’s all about the context – different websites have different goals, and it’s important to keep this in mind when analysing your site.

  Conversions

  A conversion is when a user takes a desired action on your website. This could be :

  • Making a purchase
  • Subscribing to your newsletter
  • Signing up for a webinar

  You can track virtually any action as a conversion in Matomo by setting goals and analysing the goals report.

  

  As you can see in the screenshot above, Matomo shows your conversions plotted over time. You can also see your conversion rate to get a complete picture and assign a value to each conversion to calculate how much revenue each conversion generates. 

  Bounce rate

  A visitor bounces when they leave your website without taking an action or visiting another page. 

  Typically, you want bounce rate to be low because it means people are engaged with your site and more likely to convert. However, in some cases, a high bounce rate isn’t necessarily bad. It might mean that visitors found what they needed on the first page and didn’t feel the need to look further. 

  The impact of bounce rate depends on your website’s purpose and goals.

  You can view your website’s bounce rate using Matomo’s page analytics report — the same report that shows pageviews.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  Web analytics best practices

  You should follow several best practices to get the most from website analytics data. 

  Choose metrics that align with your goals

  Only some metrics your analytics platform tracks will be relevant to your business. So don’t waste time analysing all of them.

  Instead, focus on the ones that matter most to your business. A marketer for an e-commerce store, for example, might focus on conversion-related metrics like conversion rate and total number of transactions. They might also want to look at campaign-related metrics, like traffic sources and bounce rates, so they can optimise paid ad campaigns accordingly. 

  A marketer looking to improve their site’s SEO, on the other hand, will want to track SEO web analytics like bounce rate and broken links.

  Add context to your data

  Don’t take your data at face value. There could be dozens of factors that impact how visitors access and use your site — many of which are outside your control. 

  For example, you may think an update to your site has sent your conversions crashing when, in reality, a Google algorithm update has negatively impacted your search traffic.

  Adding annotations within Matomo can provide invaluable context to your data. These annotations can be used to highlight specific events, changes or external factors that might influence your website metrics.

  

  By documenting significant occurrences, such as website updates, marketing campaigns or algorithm changes, you create a timeline that helps explain fluctuations in your data.

  Go further with advanced web analytics features

  It’s clear that a web analytics platform is a necessary tool to understand your website’s performance.

  However, if you want greater confidence in decision-making, quicker insights and better use of budget and resources, you need an advanced solution with behavioural analytics features like heatmaps, A/B testing and session recordings. 

  Most web analytics solutions don’t offer these advanced features, but Matomo does, so we’ll be showcasing Matomo’s behavioural analytics features.

  Now, if you don’t have a Matomo account, you can try it free for 21-days to see if it’s the right tool for you.

  

  A heatmap, like the example above, makes it easy to discover where your users pay attention, which part of your site they have problems with, and how they convert. It adds a layer of qualitative data to the facts offered by your web analytics tool.

  Similarly, session recordings will offer you real-time playbacks of user interactions, helping you understand their navigation patterns, identify pain points and gain insights into the user experience.

  Then you can run experiments bu using A/B testing to compare different versions of your website or specific elements, allowing you to make informed decisions based on actual user preferences and behaviour. For instance, you can compare different headlines, images, page layouts or call-to-action buttons to see which resonates better with your audience. 

  Together, these advanced features will give you the confidence to optimise your website, improve user satisfaction and make data-driven decisions that positively impact your business.

  Try Matomo for Free

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

  Start for free

  No credit card required

  How to choose a web analytics tool

  A web analytics tool is the best way to track the above metrics. Choose the best one for your company by following the steps below. 

  Look for the right features

  Most popular web analytics platforms, like Google Analytics, will offer the same core features like tracking website traffic, monitoring conversions and generating reports. 

  But it’s the added features that set great tools apart. Do you need specific tools to measure the performance of your e-commerce store, for example ? What about paid ad performance, A/B testing or form analytics ?

  By understanding exactly what you need from an analytics platform, you can make an informed choice. 

  Think about data accuracy

  Data accuracy is one of the biggest issues with analytics tools. Many users block cookies or opt out of tracking, making it difficult to get a clear picture of user behaviour — and meaning that you have to think about how your user data will be collected with your chosen platform.

  Google Analytics, for instance, uses data sampling to make assumptions about traffic levels rather than relying on accurate data. This can lead to inaccurate reports and false conclusions. 

  It’s why Matomo doesn’t use data sampling and provides 100% accurate data. 

  Understand how you’ll deal with data privacy

  Data privacy is another big concern for analytics users. Several major analytics platforms aren’t compatible with regional data privacy laws like GDPR, which can impact your ability to collect data in these regions. 

  It’s why many companies trust privacy-focused analytics tools that abide by regulations without impacting your ability to collect data. Matomo is a market leader in this respect and is one of the few web analytics tools that the Centre for Data Privacy Protection in France has said is exempt from tracking consent requirements.

  Many government agencies across Europe, Asia, Africa and North America, including organisations like the United Nations and European Commission, rely on Matomo for web analytics.

  Conclusion

  Web analytics is a powerful tool that helps you better understand your users, improve your site’s performance and boost your marketing efforts. 

  If you want a platform that offers advanced features, 100% accurate data and protects your users’ privacy, then look no further than Matomo. 

  Try Matomo free for 21 days, no credit card required. 

  Try Matomo for Free

  21 day free trial. No credit card required.

  
  

  Your email address
  

  Your website address
  

  Your Analytics subdomain will be .matomo.cloud (change)

• Why Matomo is the top Google Analytics alternative

  17 juin, par Joe

  You probably made the switch to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) when Google stopped collecting Universal Analytics (UA) data in July 2023. Up to that point, UA had long been the default analytics platform, despite its many limitations. 

  This was mostly because everyone loved its free nature and simple setup. A Google account was all you needed — even a free legacy G-Suite account worked perfectly. Looking at the analytics for just about any website was easy.

  That all changed with GA4, which addressed many of UA’s shortcomings by introducing a completely new way to model website data. Unfortunately, this also meant you couldn’t transfer historical data from UA into GA4, leading to more criticism. 

  Then there’s the added cost. GA4 is still free, but its limited functionality encourages you to upgrade to the enterprise version, Google Analytics 360 (GA360). Sure, you get lots of great functionality, less data sampling, and longer data retention periods, but it comes at a hefty price — $50,000 per year, to be exact.

  There are other options, though, and Matomo Analytics is one of the best. It’s an open-source, privacy-centric platform that offers advanced features of GA360 and more. 

  In this article, we’ll compare GA4, GA360, and Matomo and give you what you need to make an informed decision.

  Google Analytics 4 in a nutshell

  Google Analytics 4 is a great tool to use to start learning about web analytics. But soon enough, you’ll likely find that GA4 doesn’t quite cover all of your needs. 

  For example, it can’t provide a detailed view of user experiences, and Google doesn’t offer dedicated support or onboarding. There are other shortcomings, too.

  Data sampling

  Google only processes a selected sample of website activity rather than every individual data point. Rather than looking at the whole picture, it sets a threshold and selects a [hopefully] representative sample for analysis. 

  This inevitably creates gaps in data. Google attempts to fill them in using AI and machine learning, inferring the rest from data patterns. Since the results rely on assumptions and estimates, they aren’t always precise.

  In practical terms, this means that the accuracy of GA4 analysis will likely decline as website traffic increases.

  

  (Image source)

  Data collection limits

  GA4’s 25 million monthly events limit seems like a lot, but they add up quickly. 

  All user interactions are recorded as events, including :

  • Session start : User visits the site.
  • Page view : User loads a page (tracked automatically).
  • First visit : User accesses the site for the first time.
  • User engagement : User stays on a page for a set time period.
  • Scroll : User scrolls past 90% of the page (enhanced measurement).
  • Click : User clicks on any element (links, buttons, etc.).
  • Video start/complete : User starts or completes a video (enhanced measurement).
  • File download : User downloads a file (enhanced measurement).

  For context, consider a website averaging 50 events per session per user. If every user logs on every third day, on average, you’ll need 10,000 individual visitors a month to reach that 25 million. But that’s not the problem. 

  The problem is that collection limits in GA4 affect your ability to capture, secure, and analyse customer data effectively.

  Customisation

  GA4 users also face configuration limits that restrict their customisation options. For example : 

  • Audience limits : Since only 100 audiences are allowed, it’s necessary to combine or optimise segments rather than track too many small groups. 
  • Retention limits : Data retention is limited to only 14 months, so external storage solutions may be necessary in situations where historical data needs to be preserved.
  • Conversion events : GA4 will only track up to 30 conversion events, so it’s best to focus on high-value interactions (e.g., purchases and lead form submissions). 
  • Event-scoped dimensions : Since e-commerce operations are limited to 50 event-scoped dimensions, they need to carefully consider custom dimensions and key metrics. This makes it important to be selective about which product details to track (color, size, discount code, etc.).

  Data privacy

  GA4 isn’t GDPR-compliant out of the box. In fact, Google Analytics 4 is banned in seven EU countries because they believe the way it collects and transfers data violates GDPR.

  Data privacy regulations may or may not be a big concern, depending on where your customers are. However, if some are in the UK or any of the 30 countries that make up the European Economic Area (EEA), you must comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). 

  It tells your customers that you don’t respect their data if you don’t. It can also get very expensive.

  Limited attribution models

  Attribution models track how different marketing touchpoints lead to a conversion (such as a purchase, sign-up, or lead generation). They help businesses understand which marketing channels and strategies are most effective in driving results.

  GA4 supports only two of the six standard attribution models previously supported in Universal Analytics. Organisations wanting data-driven or last-click attribution models will find them in Google Analytics. But they’ll need to look elsewhere if they’re going to use any of these models :

  • First click attribution
  • Linear attribution
  • Time decay attribution
  • Position-based attribution (u-shaped)

  GA360 isn’t a solution either

  Fundamentally, GA360 is the same product as GA4, without the above limits and restrictions. For companies that pay $50,000 (or more) each year, the only changes involve how much data is collected, how long it stays and data sampling thresholds.

  Above all, the GDPR-compliance issue remains. That can be a real problem for organisations with operations that collect personal data in the EEA or the UK.

  And the problem could soon be much bigger than just those 31 countries. Many countries currently implementing data privacy laws are modelling their efforts on GDPR, which may rule out both GA4 and GA360.

  

  What makes Matomo the top alternative ?

  No data limits

  One way to overcome all these challenges is to switch to Matomo Analytics. 

  There’s no data sampling and no data collection limits whatsoever with on-premise implementation. Matomo also supports all six attribution models, is open source and fully customisable and complies with GDPR out of the box. 

  Imagine trying to change your business strategy or marketing campaigns if you’re not confident that your data is reliable and accurate.

  It’s no secret that data sampling can negatively affect the accuracy of the data, and inaccurate data can lead to poor decision-making.
  

  With Matomo, there are no limits. We don’t restrict the size of containers within the Tag Manager nor the number of containers or tags within each container. You have more control over your customers’ data. 

  And you get to make your decisions based on all that data. That’s important because data quality is critical for high-impact decisions. 

  Open source

  Open-source software allows anyone to inspect, audit, and improve the source code for security and efficiency. That means no hidden data collection, faster bug fixes, and no vendor lock-in. As a bonus, these things make complying with data privacy laws and regulations easier.

  Matomo can also be modified in any way, which provides unlimited customisation possibilities. There’s also a very active developer community around Matomo, so you don’t have to make changes yourself — you can hire someone who has the technical knowledge and expertise. They can : 

  • Modify tracking scripts for advanced analytics
  • Create custom attribution models, tracking methods and dashboards
  • Integrate Matomo with any system (CRM, eCommerce, CMS, etc.)

  Data ownership

  Matomo’s open-source nature also means full data ownership. No third parties can access the data, and there’s no risk of Google using that data for ads or AI training. Furthermore, Matomo follows privacy-first tracking principles, meaning that there’s :

  • No third-party data sharing
  • Full user consent control
  • Support for cookie-less tracking
  • IP Anonymisation, by default
  • Do Not Track (DNT) support

  All of that underlines the fact that Matomo collects, stores, and tracks data 100% ethically.

  On-premise and cloud-based options

  You can use the Matomo On-Premise web analytics solution if local data privacy laws require that you store data locally. Here’s a helpful tip : many of them do. However, this might not be necessary. 

  Due to GDPR, several countries recognise the EEA as an acceptable storage location for their citizens’ data. That means servers hosted in any of those 30 countries are already compliant in terms of data location. 

  Alternatively, you could embrace modernity and choose Matomo Cloud — our servers are also in Europe. While GA4 and GA360 are cloud-based, Google’s servers are in the US, and that’s a big problem for GDPR.

  

  Comprehensive analytics

  If you need a sophisticated web analytics platform that offers full control of your data and you have privacy concerns, Matomo is a solid choice. 

  It has built-in behavioural analytics features like Heatmaps, Scroll Depth and Session Recording. These tools allow you to collect and analyse data without relying on cookies or resorting to data sampling.

  Those standout features can’t be found in GA4 or GA360. Google also doesn’t offer an on-premise solution.

  The one area where Matomo can’t compete with Google Analytics is in its tight integration with the Google ecosystem : Google Ads, Gemini and Firebase. 

  Key things to consider before switching to Matomo

  There are pros and cons to switching from GA4 (or even GA360) to Matomo. That’s because no software is perfect. There are always tradeoffs somewhere. With Matomo, there are a few things to consider before switching :

  • Learning curve. Matomo is a full-featured analytics platform with many advanced features (session replay, custom event tracking, etc.). That can overwhelm new users and take time to understand well enough to maximise the benefits.
  • Technical resources. Choosing a Matomo On-Premise solution requires technical resources, such as a server and skills.
  • Third-party integration. Matomo provides pre-built integration tools for about a hundred platforms. However, it’s open source, so technical resources are required. On the plus side, it does make it possible to add to the list of APIs and connectors.

  Head-to-head : GA4 vs GA360 vs Matomo

  It’s always helpful to look at how different products stack up in terms of features and capabilities :

  	GA4	GA360	Matomo
  Data ownership			✔
  Event-based data	✔	✔	✔
  Session-based data			✔
  Unsampled data			✔
  Real-time data	✔	✔	✔
  Heatmaps			✔
  Session recordings			✔
  A/B testing			✔
  Open source			✔
  On-premise hosting			✔
  Data privacy	Subject to Google’s data policies	Subject to Google’s data policies	GDPR, CCPA compliant ; full control over data storage
  Custom dimensions	Yes (limited in free version)	Yes (higher limits)	Yes (unlimited in self-hosted)
  Attribution models	Last click, data-driven	Last click, data-driven, advanced Google Ads integration	Last click, first click, linear, time decay, position-based, custom
  Data retention	Up to 14 months (free)	Up to 50 months	Unlimited (self-hosted)
  Integrations	Google Ads, Search Console, BigQuery (limited in free version)	Advanced integrations (Google Ads, BigQuery, Salesforce, etc.)	100+ integrations (Google Ads, WordPress, Shopify, etc.)
  BigQuery export	Free (limited to 1M events/day)	Free (unlimited)	Paid add-on (via plugin)
  Custom reports	Limited customisation	Advanced customisation	Fully customisable
  Scalability	Suitable for small to medium businesses	Designed for large enterprises	Scalable without limits (self-hosted or cloud)
  Ease of use	Simple, requires onboarding	Steeper learning curve	Flexible, setup-intensive.
  Pricing	Free	Premium (starts at $50,000/year)	Free open-source (self-hosted) ; Cloud starts at $29/month

  So, is Matomo the right solution for you ?

  That’d be a ‘yes’ if you want a Google Analytics alternative that ticks all these boxes :

  • Complies natively with privacy laws and regulations
  • Offers real-time data and custom event tracking
  • Enables a deeper understanding of user behaviour
  • Allows you to fine-tune user experiences
  • Provides full control over your customers’ data
  • Offers conversion funnels, session recordings and heatmaps
  • Has session replay to trace user interactions
  • Includes plenty of readily actionable insights

  Find out why millions of websites trust Matomo

  Matomo is an easy-to-use, all-in-one web analytics tool with advanced behavioural analytics functionality.

  It’ll also help you future-proof your business because it supports compliance with global privacy laws in 162 countries. With an ethical alternative like Matomo, you don’t need to risk your business or customers’ private data.

  It’s not just about avoiding fines. It’s also about building trust with your customers. That’s why you need a privacy-focused, ethical solution like Matomo. 

  See for yourself : download Matomo On-Premise today, or start your 21-day free trial of Matomo Cloud (no credit card required).