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• 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.

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• Is Google Analytics Accurate ? 6 Important Caveats

  8 novembre 2022, par Erin

  It’s no secret that accurate website analytics is crucial for growing your online business — and Google Analytics is often the go-to source for insights. 

  But is Google Analytics data accurate ? Can you fully trust the provided numbers ? Here’s a detailed explainer.

  How Accurate is Google Analytics ? A Data-Backed Answer 

  When properly configured, Google Analytics (Universal Analytics and Google Analytics 4) is moderately accurate for global traffic collection. That said : Google Analytics doesn’t accurately report European traffic. 

  According to GDPR provisions, sites using GA products must display a cookie consent banner. This consent is required to collect third-party cookies — a tracking mechanism for identifying users across web properties.

  Google Analytics (GA) cannot process data about the user’s visit if they rejected cookies. In such cases, your analytics reports will be incomplete.

  Cookie rejection refers to visitors declining or blocking cookies from ever being collected by a specific website (or within their browser). It immediately affects the accuracy of all metrics in Google Analytics.

  Google Analytics is not accurate in locations where cookie consent to tracking is legally required. Most consumers don’t like disruptive cookie banners or harbour concerns about their privacy — and chose to reject tracking. 

  This leaves businesses with incomplete data, which, in turn, results in : 

  • Lower traffic counts as you’re not collecting 100% of the visitor data. 
  • Loss of website optimisation capabilities. You can’t make data-backed decisions due to inconsistent reporting

  For the above reasons, many companies now consider cookieless website tracking apps that don’t require consent screen displays. 

  Why is Google Analytics Not Accurate ? 6 Causes and Solutions 

  A high rejection rate of cookie banners is the main reason for inaccurate Google Analytics reporting. In addition, your account settings can also hinder Google Analytics’ accuracy.

  If your analytics data looks wonky, check for these six Google Analytics accuracy problems. 

  You Need to Secure Consent to Cookies Collection 

  To be GDPR-compliant, you must display a cookie consent screen to all European users. Likewise, other jurisdictions and industries require similar measures for user data collection. 

  This is a nuisance for many businesses since cookie rejection undermines their remarketing capabilities. Hence, some try to maximise cookie acceptance rates with dark patterns. For example : hide the option to decline tracking or make the texts too small. 

  

  Sadly, not everyone’s treating users with respect. A joint study by German and American researchers found that only 11% of US websites (from a sample of 5,000+) use GDPR-compliant cookie banners.

  As a result, many users aren’t aware of the background data collection to which they have (or have not) given consent. Another analysis of 200,000 cookies discovered that 70% of third-party marketing cookies transfer user data outside of the EU — a practice in breach of GDPR.

  Naturally, data regulators and activities are after this issue. In April 2022, Google was pressured to introduce a ‘reject all’ cookies button to all of its products (a €150 million compliance fine likely helped with that). Whereas, noyb has lodged over 220 complaints against individual websites with deceptive cookie consent banners.

  The takeaway ? Messing up with the cookie consent mechanism can get you in legal trouble. Don’t use sneaky banners as there are better ways to collect website traffic statistics. 

  Solution : Try Matomo GDPR-Friendly Analytics 

  Fill in the gaps in your traffic analytics with Matomo – a fully GDPR-compliant product that doesn’t rely on third-party cookies for tracking web visitors. Because of how it is designed, the French data protection authority (CNIL) confirmed that Matomo can be used to collect data without tracking consent.

  With Matomo, you can track website users without asking for cookie consent. And when you do, we supply you with a compact, compliant, non-disruptive cookie banner design. 

  Your Google Tag Isn’t Embedded Correctly 

  Google Tag (gtag.js) is a web tracking script that sends data to your Google Analytics, Google Ads and Google Marketing Platform.

  A corrupted gtag.js installation can create two accuracy issues : 

  • Duplicate page tracking 
  • Missing script installation 

  Is there a way to tell if you’re affected ?

  Yes. You may have duplicate scripts installed if you have a very low bounce rate on most website pages (below 15% – 20%). The above can happen if you’re using a WordPress GA plugin and additionally embed gtag.js straight in your website code. 

  A tell-tale sign of a missing script on some pages is low/no traffic stats. Google alerts you about this with a banner : 

  

  Solution : Use Available Troubleshooting Tools 

  Use Google Analytics Debugger extension to analyse pages with low bounce rates. Use the search bar to locate duplicate code-tracking elements. 

  Alternatively, you can use Google Tag Assistant for diagnosing snippet install and troubleshooting issues on individual pages. 

  If the above didn’t work, re-install your analytics script. 

  Machine Learning and Blended Data Are Applied

  Google Analytics 4 (GA4) relies a lot on machine learning and algorithmic predictions.

  By applying Google’s advanced machine learning models, the new Analytics can automatically alert you to significant trends in your data. [...] For example, it calculates churn probability so you can more efficiently invest in retaining customers.

  Vidhya Srinivasan, VP of Measurement, Analytics and Buying Platforms at Google

  On the surface, the above sounds exciting. In practice, Google’s application of predictive algorithms means you’re not seeing actual data. 

  To offer a variation of cookieless tracking, Google algorithms close the gaps in reporting by creating models (i.e., data-backed predictions) instead of reporting on actual user behaviours. Therefore, your GA4 numbers may not be accurate.

  For bigger web properties (think websites with 1+ million users), Google also relies on data sampling — a practice of extrapolating data analytics, based on a data subset, rather than the entire dataset. Once again, this can lead to inconsistencies in reporting with some numbers (e.g., average conversion rates) being inflated or downplayed. 

  Solution : Try an Alternative Website Analytics App 

  Unlike GA4, Matomo reports consist of 100% unsampled data. All the aggregated reporting you see is based on real user data (not guesstimation). 

  Moreover, you can migrate from Universal Analytics (UA) to Matomo without losing access to your historical records. GA4 doesn’t yet have any backward compatibility.

  Spam and Bot Traffic Isn’t Filtered Out 

  Surprise ! 42% of all Internet traffic is generated by bots, of which 27.7% are bad ones.

  Good bots (aka crawlers) do essential web “housekeeping” tasks like indexing web pages. Bad bots distribute malware, spam contact forms, hack user accounts and do other nasty stuff. 

  A lot of such spam bots are designed specifically for web analytics apps. The goal ? Flood your dashboard with bogus data in hopes of getting some return action from your side. 

  Types of Google Analytics Spam :

  • Referral spam. Spambots hijack the referrer, displayed in your GA referral traffic report to indicate a page visit from some random website (which didn’t actually occur). 
  • Event spam. Bots generate fake events with free language entries enticing you to visit their website. 
  • Ghost traffic spam. Malicious parties can also inject fake pageviews, containing URLs that they want you to click. 

  Obviously, such spammy entities distort the real website analytics numbers. 

  Solution : Set Up Bot/Spam Filters 

  Google Analytics 4 has automatic filtering of bot traffic enabled for all tracked Web and App properties. 

  But if you’re using Universal Analytics, you’ll have to manually configure spam filtering. First, create a new view and then set up a custom filter. Program it to exclude :

  • Filter Field : Request URI
  • Filter Pattern : Bot traffic URL

  Once you’ve configured everything, validate the results using Verify this filter feature. Then repeat the process for other fishy URLs, hostnames and IP addresses. 

  You Don’t Filter Internal Traffic 

  Your team(s) spend a lot of time on your website — and their sporadic behaviours can impair your traffic counts and other website metrics.

  To keep your data “employee-free”, exclude traffic from : 

  • Your corporate IPs addresses 
  • Known personal IPs of employees (for remote workers) 

  If you also have a separate stage version of your website, you should also filter out all traffic coming from it. Your developers, contractors and marketing people spend a lot of time fiddling with your website. This can cause a big discrepancy in average time on page and engagement rates. 

  Solution : Set Internal Traffic Filters 

  Google provides instructions for excluding internal traffic from your reports using IPv4/IPv6 address filters. 

  

  Session Timeouts After 30 Minutes 

  After 30 minutes of inactivity, Google Analytics tracking sessions start over. Inactivity means no recorded interaction hits during this time. 

  Session timeouts can be a problem for some websites as users often pin a tab to check it back later. Because of this, you can count the same user twice or more — and this leads to skewed reporting. 

  Solution : Programme Custom Timeout Sessions

  You can codify custom cookie timeout sessions with the following code snippets : 

  • _setSessionCookieTimeout. Set a custom new session cookie timeout in milliseconds.
  • _setVisitorCookieTimeout. Sets a custom Google Analytics visitor cookie expiration time frame in milliseconds.

  Final Thoughts 

  Thanks to its scale and longevity, Google Analytics has some strong sides, but its data accuracy isn’t 100% perfect.

  The inability to capture analytics data from users who don’t consent to cookie tracking and data sampling applied to bigger web properties may be a deal-breaker for your business. 

  If that’s the case, try Matomo — a GDPR-compliant, accurate web analytics solution. Start your 21-day free trial now. No credit card required.

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• Google Analytics Privacy Issues : Is It Really That Bad ?

  2 juin 2022, par Erin

  If you find yourself asking : “What’s the deal with Google Analytics privacy ?”, you probably have some second thoughts. 

  Your hunch is right. Google Analytics (GA) is a popular web analytics tool, but it’s far from being perfect when it comes to respecting users’ privacy. 

  This post helps you understand tremendous Google Analytics privacy concerns users, consumers and regulators expressed over the years.

  In this blog, we’ll cover :

  What Does Google Analytics Collect About Users ? 

  To understand Google Analytics privacy issues, you need to know how Google treats web users’ data. 

  By default, Google Analytics collects the following information : 

  • Session statistics — duration, page(s) viewed, etc. 
  • Referring website details — a link you came through or keyword used. 
  • Approximate geolocation — country, city. 
  • Browser and device information — mobile vs desktop, OS usage, etc. 

  Google obtains web analytics data about users via two means : an on-site Google Analytics tracking code and cookies.

  A cookie is a unique identifier (ID) assigned to each user visiting a web property. Each cookie stores two data items : unique user ID and website name. 

  With the help of cookies, web analytics solutions can recognise returning visitors and track their actions across the website(s).

  

  • First party cookies are generated by one website and collect user behaviour data from said website only. 
  • Third-party cookies are generated by a third-party website object (for example, an ad) and can track user behaviour data across multiple websites. 

  As it’s easy to imagine, third-party cookies are a goldmine for companies selling online ads. Essentially, they allow ad platforms to continue watching how the user navigates the web after clicking a certain link. 

  Yet, people have little clue as to which data they are sharing and how it is being used. Also, user consent to tracking across websites is only marginally guaranteed by existing Google Analytics controls. 

  Why Third-Party Cookie Data Collection By GA Is Problematic 

  Cookies can transmit personally identifiable information (PII) such as name, log in details, IP address, saved payment method and so on. Some of these details can end up with advertisers without consumers’ direct knowledge or consent.

  Regulatory frameworks such as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) emerged as a response to uncontrolled user behaviour tracking.

  Under regulatory pressure, Big Tech companies had to adapt their data collection process.

  Apple was the first to implement by-default third-party blocking in the Safari browser. Then added a tracking consent mechanism for iPhone users starting from iOS 15.2 and later. 

  Google, too, said it would drop third-party cookie usage after The European Commission and UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) launched antitrust investigations into its activity. 

  To shake off the data watchdogs, Google released a Privacy Sandbox — a set of progressive tech, operational and compliance changes for ensuring greater consumer privacy. 

  Google’s biggest promise : deprecate third-party cookies usage for all web and mobile products. 

  Originally, Google promised to drop third-party cookies by 2022, but that didn’t happen. Instead, Google delayed cookie tracking depreciation for Chrome until the second half of 2023. 

  Why did they push back on this despite hefty fines from regulators ?

  Because online ads make Google a lot of money.

  In 2021, Alphabet Inc (parent company of Google), made $256.7 billion in revenue, of which $209.49 billion came from selling advertising. 

  Lax Google Analytics privacy enforcement — and its wide usage by website owners — help Google make those billions from collecting and selling user data. 

  How Google Uses Collected Google Analytics Data for Advertising 

  Over 28 million websites (or roughly 85% of the Internet) have Google Analytics tracking codes installed. 

  Even if one day we get a Google Analytics version without cookies, it still won’t address all the privacy concerns regulators and consumers have. 

  Over the years, Google has accumulated an extensive collection of user data. The company’s engineers used it to build state-of-the-art deep learning models, now employed to build advanced user profiles. 

  Deep learning is the process of training a machine to recognise data patterns. Then this “knowledge” is used to produce highly-accurate predictive insights. The more data you have for model training — the better its future accuracy will be. 

  Google has amassed huge deposits of data from its collection of products — GA, YouTube, Gmail, Google Docs and Google Maps among others. Now they are using this data to build a third-party cookies-less alternative mechanism for modelling people’s preferences, habits, lifestyles, etc. 

  Their latest model is called Google Topics. 

  This comes only after Google’s failed attempt to replace cookie-based training with Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC) model. But the solution wasn’t offering enough user transparency and user controls among other issues.

  

  Google Topics promises to limit the granularity of data advertisers get about users. 

  But it’s still a web user surveillance method. With Google Topics, the company will continue collecting user data via Chrome (and likely other Google products) — and share it with advertisers. 

  Because as we said before : Google is in the business of profiting off consumers’ data. 

  Two Major Ways Google Takes Advantage of Customer Data

  Every bit of data Google collects across its ecosystem of products can be used in two ways :

  • For ad targeting and personalisation 
  • To improve Google’s products 

  The latter also helps the former. 

  Advanced Ad Personalisation and Targeting

  GA provides the company with ample data on users’ 

  • Recent and frequent searches 
  • Location history
  • Visited websites
  • Used apps 
  • Videos and ads viewed 
  • Personal data like age or gender 

  The company’s privacy policy explicitly states that :
  

  

  Google also admits to using collected data to “measure the effectiveness of advertising” and “personalise content and ads you see on Google.” 

  But there are no further elaborations on how exactly customers’ data is used — and what you can do to prevent it from being shared with third parties. 

  In some cases, Google also “forgets” to inform users about its in-product tracking.

  Journalists from CNBC and The New York Times independently concluded that Google monitors users’ Gmail activity. In particular, the company scans your inbox for recent purchases, trips, flights and bills notifications. 

  While Google says that this information isn’t sold to advertisers (directly), they still may use the “saved information about your orders in other Google services”. 

  Once again, this means you have little control or knowledge of subsequent data usage. 

  Improving Product Usability 

  Google has many “arms” to collect different data points — from user’s search history to frequently-travelled physical routes. 

  They also reserve the right to use these insights for improving existing products. 

  Here’s what it means : by combining different types of data points obtained from various products, Google can pierce a detailed picture of a person’s life. Even if such user profile data is anonymised, it is still alarmingly accurate. 

  Douglas Schmidt, a computer science researcher at Vanderbilt University, well summarised the matter : 

  “[Google’s] business model is to collect as much data about you as possible and cross-correlate it so they can try to link your online persona with your offline persona. This tracking is just absolutely essential to their business. ‘Surveillance capitalism’ is a perfect phrase for it.”

  Google Data Collection Obsession Is Backed Into Its Business Model 

  OK, but Google offers some privacy controls to users ? Yes. Google only sees and uses the information you voluntarily enter or permit them to access. 

  But as the Washington Post correspondent points out :

  “[Big Tech] companies get to set all the rules, as long as they run those rules by consumers in convoluted terms of service that even those capable of decoding the legalistic language rarely bother to read. Other mechanisms for notice and consent, such as opt-outs and opt-ins, create similar problems. Control for the consumer is mostly an illusion.”

  Google openly claims to be “one of many ad networks that personalise ads based on your activity online”. 

  The wrinkle is that they have more data than all other advertising networks (arguably combined). This helps Google sell high-precision targeting and contextually personalised ads for billions of dollars annually.

  Given that Google has stakes in so many products — it’s really hard to de-Google your business and minimise tracking and data collection from the company.
  

  They are also creating a monopoly on data collection and ownership. This fact makes regulators concerned. The 2021 antitrust lawsuit from the European Commission says : 

  “The formal investigation will notably examine whether Google is distorting competition by restricting access by third parties to user data for advertising purposes on websites and apps while reserving such data for its own use.”

  In other words : By using consumer data to its unfair advantage, Google allegedly shuts off competition.

  But that’s not the only matter worrying regulators and consumers alike. Over the years, Google also received numerous other lawsuits for breaching people’s privacy, over and over again. 

  Here’s a timeline : 

  • 2019 : UK citizens issued a class action suit against Google for imposing cookies to override users’ privacy settings in the Safari browser. 
  • 2020 : US citizens pushed for a $5 billion class-action suit for tracking their activity through browsers set in “private” mode.
  • 2022 : Another class-action lawsuit in the US for deceptive privacy controls and unconsented location data tracking by Google mobile apps. 
  • 2022 : Google reached a $100 million class-action settlement for breaching Illinois biometrics privacy laws in Google Photos. 

  Separately, Google has a very complex history with GDPR compliance. 

  How Google Analytics Contributes to the Web Privacy Problem 

  Google Analytics is the key puzzle piece that supports Google’s data-driven business model. 

  If Google was to release a privacy-focused Google Analytics alternative, it’d lose access to valuable web users’ data and a big portion of digital ad revenues. 

  Remember : Google collects more data than it shares with web analytics users and advertisers. But they keep a lot of it for personal usage — and keep looking for ways to share this intel with advertisers (in a way that keeps regulators off their tail).

  For Google Analytics to become truly ethical and privacy-focused, Google would need to change their entire revenue model — which is something they are unlikely to do.

  Where does this leave Google Analytics users ? 

  In a slippery territory. By proxy, companies using GA are complicit with Google’s shady data collection and usage practice. They become part of the problem.

  In fact, Google Analytics usage opens a business to two types of risks : 

  • Reputational. 77% of global consumers say that transparency around how data is collected and used is important to them when interacting with different brands. That’s why data breaches and data misuse by brands lead to major public outrages on social media and boycotts in some cases. 
  • Legal. EU regulators are on a continuous crusade against Google Analytics 4 (GA4) as it is in breach of GDPR. French and Austrian watchdogs ruled the “service” illegal. Since Google Analytics is not GDPR compliant, it opens any business using it to lawsuits (which is already happening).

  But there’s a way out.

  Choose a Privacy-Friendly Google Analytics Alternative 

  Google Analytics is a popular web analytics service, but not the only one available. You have alternatives such as Matomo. 

  Our guiding principle is : respecting privacy.

  Unlike Google Analytics, we leave data ownership 100% in users’ hands. Matomo lets you implement privacy-centred controls for user data collection.

  Plus, you can self-host Matomo On-Premise or choose Matomo Cloud with data securely stored in the EU and in compliance with GDPR.

  The best part ? You can try our ethical alternative to Google Analytics for free. No credit card required ! Start your free 21-day trial now. 

  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 hereby accept the terms and conditions and the data processing agreeement (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