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• LGPD : Demystifying Brazil’s New Data Protection Law

  31 août 2023, par Erin — Privacy

  The General Personal Data Protection Law (LGPD or Lei Geral de Proteção de Dados Pessoais) is a relatively new legislation passed by the Brazilian government in 2018. The law officially took effect on September 18, 2020, but was not enforced until August 1, 2021, due to complications from the COVID-19 pandemic.

  For organisations that do business in Brazil and collect personal data, the LGPD has far-reaching implications, with 65 separate articles that outline how organisations must collect, process, disclose and erase personal data.

  In this article, you’ll learn what the LGPD is, including its contents and how a legal entity can be compliant.

  What is the LGPD ?

  The LGPD is a new data protection and privacy law passed by the Federal Brazilian Government on May 29, 2018. The purpose of the law is to unify the 40 previous Brazilian laws that regulated the processing of personal data.

  

  Many of the older laws have been either updated or removed to accommodate this change. The LGPD comprises 65 separate articles, and each covers a different area of the legislation, such as the rights of data subjects and the legal bases on which personal data may be collected. It also sets out the responsibilities of the National Data Protection Authority (ANPD), a newly created agency responsible for the guidance, supervision and enforcement of the LGPD.

  LGPD compliance is essential for organisations wishing to operate in Brazil and collect personal data for commercial purposes, whether online or offline. However, understanding the different rules and regulations and even figuring out if the LGPD applies to you can be challenging.

  Fortunately, the LGPD is relatively easy to understand and shares many similarities with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the data protection law implemented on May 25, 2018, by the European Union. This may help you better understand why the LGPD was enacted, the policies it contains and the goals it hopes to achieve. Both laws are very similar, but some items are unique to Brazil, such as what qualifies as a legal basis for collecting personal data.

  For these reasons, organisations should not apply a one-size-fits-all approach to GDPR and LGPD compliance, for they are different laws with different guiding principles and requirements.

  Who does the LGPD apply to, and who is exempt ?

  The LGPD applies to any natural person, public entity and private entity that collects, processes and stores personal data for commercial purposes within the national territory of Brazil. The same also applies to those who process the personal data of Brazilian and non-Brazilian citizens within the national territory of Brazil, even if the data processor is outside of Brazil. It also applies to those who process personal data collected from the national territory of Brazil.

  So, what does this all mean ? 

  Regardless of your location, if you conduct any personal data processing activities in Brazil or you process data that was collected from Brazil, then there is a high possibility that the LGPD applies to you. This is especially true if the data processing is for commercial purposes ; or, to be more precise, for the offering or provision of goods or services. It also means that subjects whose personal data is collected under these conditions are protected by the nine data subject rights.

  There are exceptions where the LGPD does not apply to data processors. These include if you process personal data for private or non-commercial reasons ; for artistic, journalistic and select academic purposes ; and for the purpose of state security, public safety, national defence and activities related to the investigation and prosecution of criminal offenders. Also, if the processed data originates from a country with similar data protection laws to Brazil, such as any country in the European Union (where the GDPR applies), then the LGPD will not apply to that individual or organisation.

  For these reasons, it is vital that you are familiar with the LGPD so that your data processing activities comply with the new standards. This is also important for the future, as an estimated 75% of the global population’s personal data will be protected by a privacy regulation. Getting things right now will make life easier moving forward.

  What are the nine LGPD data subject rights ?

  The LGPD has nine data subject rights. These protect the rights and freedoms of subjects, regardless of their political opinion and religious belief.

  

  These rights, listed under Article 19 of the LGPD, confirm that a data subject has the right to :

  1. Confirm the processing of their data.
  2. Access their data.
  3. Correct data that is incomplete, not accurate and out of date.
  4. Anonymize, block and delete data that is excessive, unnecessary and was not processed in compliance with the law.
  5. Move their data to a different service provider or product provider by special request.
  6. Delete or stop using personal data under certain circumstances.
  7. Gain information about who the data processor has shared the processed data with, including private and public entities.
  8. Be informed as to what the consequences may be for denying consent to the collection of personal data.
  9. Revoke consent to have their personal data processed under certain conditions.

  Many of these data subject rights are like the GDPR. For example, both the GDPR and LGPD give data subjects the right to be informed, the right to access, the right to data portability and the right to rectify false data. However, while the LGPD has nine data subject rights, the GDPR has only eight. What is the extra data subject right ? The right to gain information on who a data processor has shared your data with.

  There are other slight differences between the GDPR and LGPD with regard to data subject rights. For instance, the GDPR has a clear right to restrict certain data processing activities, such as those related to automation. The LGPD has this, too. But the subject of data collection automation is under Article 20, separate from all the data subject rights listed under Article 19.

  Under what conditions can personal data in Brazil be processed ?

  There are various conditions under which organisations can legally conduct personal data processing in Brazil. The aim of these conditions is to give data subjects confidence — that their personal data is processed for only safe, legal and ethical reasons. Also, the conditions help data processors, both individuals and organisations, determine if they have a legal basis for processing personal data in or in relation to Brazil.

  

  According to Article 7 of the LGPD, data processing may only be carried out if done :

  1. With consent by the data subject.
  2. To comply with a legal or regulatory obligation.
  3. By public authorities to assist with the execution of a public policy, one established by law or regulation.
  4. To help research entities carry out studies ; granted, when possible, subjects can anonymize their data.
  5. To carry out a contract or preliminary procedure, in particular, one related to a contract where the data subject is a party.
  6. To exercise the right of an arbitration, administration or judicial procedure.
  7. To protect the physical safety or life of someone
  8. To protect the health of someone about to undergo a procedure performed by health entities
  9. To fulfill the legitimate interests of a data processor, unless doing so would compromise a data subject’s fundamental rights and liberties.
  10. To protect one’s credit score.

  Much like the nine data subject rights, there are key differences between the LGPD and GDPR. The GDPR has six lawful bases for data processing, while the LGPD has ten. One notable addition to the LGPD is for the protection of one’s credit score, which is not covered by the GDPR. Another reason to ensure compliance with both data protection laws separately.

  LGPD vs. GDPR : How do they differ ?

  The LGPD was modeled closely on the GDPR, so it’s no surprise the two are similar. 

  Both laws ensure a high level of protection for the rights and freedoms of data subjects. They outline the legal justifications for data processing, establish the responsibilities of a data protection authority and lay out the penalties for non-compliance. That said, there are key differences between them.

  First, data subject rights ; the LGPD has nine, while the GDPR has eight. The GDPR gives data subjects the right to request a human review of automated decision-making, while the LGPD does not. Second, the legal bases for processing ; the LGPD has ten, while the GDPR has six. The four legal bases unique to the LGPD are : for protection of credit, for protection of health, for protection of life and for research entities carrying out studies.

  Both the LGPD and GDPR have different non-compliance penalties. The maximum fine for an infraction under the GDPR is up to €20 million (or 4% of the offender’s annual global revenue, whichever is higher). The maximum fine for an LGPD infraction is up to 50 million reais (around €9.2 million), or up to 2% of an offender’s revenue in Brazil, whichever is higher.

  6 steps to LGPD compliance with Matomo

  Below are steps you can follow to ensure your organisation is LGPD compliant. You’ll also learn how Matomo can help you comply quickly and easily.

  

  Let’s dive in.

  1. Appoint a DPO

  A DPO is a person, group, or organisation that communicates with data processors, data subjects, and the ANDP.

  Curiously, the LGPD lets you appoint your own DPO — even if they reside out of Brazil. So if the LGPD applies to you, you can appoint someone in your organisation to be a DPO. Just make sure that the nominated person has the understanding and capacity to perform the role’s duties.

  2. Assess your data

  Once you’re familiar with the LGPD and confirm your eligibility for LGPD compliance, take the time to assess your data. If you plan to collect data within the territory of Brazil, you’ll need to confirm the exact location of your data subjects. 

  To do this in Matomo, simply go to the previous year’s calendar. Then click on visitors, go to locations, and look for Brazil under the “Region” section. This will tell you how many of your web visitors are located in Brazil.

  

  3. Review privacy practices

  Review your existing privacy policies and practices, as there’s a good chance they’ll need to be updated to comply with the LGPD. Also, review your data sharing and third-party agreements, as you may need to communicate these new policies to partners that you rely on to deliver your services. 

  Lastly, review your procedures for tracking personal data and Personally Identifiable Information (PII). You may need to modify the type of data that you track to comply with the LGPD. You may even be tracking this data without your knowledge.

  4. Anonymize tracking data

  Data subjects under the LGPD have the right to request data anonymity. Therefore, to be LGPD compliant, your organisation must be able to accommodate for such a request.

  Fortunately, Matomo has various data anonymization techniques that help you protect your data subject’s privacy and comply with the LGPD. These techniques include the ability to anonymize previously tracked raw data, anonymize visitor IP addresses, and anonymize relevant geo-location data such as regions, cities and countries.

  

  You can find these features and more under the Anonymize data tab within the Privacy menu on the Matomo Settings page. Learn more about how to configure privacy settings in Matomo.

  5. Comply with LGPD consent laws without cookies

  By using Matomo to anonymize the data of your data subjects, this enables you to comply with LGPD consent laws and remove the need to display cookie consent banners on your website. This is made possible by the fact that Matomo is a cookieless tracking web analytics platform.

  Unlike other web analytics platforms like Google Analytics, which collect and use third-party cookies (persistent data that remains on your device, until that data expires or until you manually delete it) for their “own purposes,” Matomo is different. We use alternative means to identify web visitors, such as count the number of unique IP addresses and perform browser fingerprinting, neither of which involve the collection of personal data.

  As a result, you don’t have to display cookie consent banners on your website, and you can track your web visitors even if they disable cookies.

  6. Give users the right to opt-out

  Under the LGPD, data subjects have the right to opt-out of your data collection procedures. For this reason, make sure that your web visitors can do this on your website.

  

  You can do this in Matomo by adding an opt-out from tracking form to your website. To do this, click on the cog icon in the top menu, load the settings page, and click on the Users opt-out menu item in the Privacy section. Then follow the instructions to customise and publish the Matomo opt-out form.

  Achieve LGPD compliance with Matomo

  Like GDPR for Europe, the LGPD will impact organisations doing business in Brazil. And while they both share much of the same definitions and data subject rights, they differ on what qualifies as a legal basis for processing sensitive data. Complying with the GDPR and LGPD separately is non-negotiable and essential to avoiding maximum fines of €20 million and €9.2 million, respectively.

  

  As a web analytics platform with LGPD compliance, Matomo prioritises data privacy without compromising performance. Switch to a powerful LGPD-compliant web analytics platform that respects users’ privacy. 

  Get a 21-day free trial of Matomo today. 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 LGPD. We encourage every business and website to take data privacy seriously and discuss these issues with your lawyer if you have any concerns.

• Increasing Website Traffic : 11 Tips To Attract Visitors

  25 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips, Marketing

  For your website and business to succeed, you need to focus on building traffic.

  However, you aren’t the only one with that goal in mind.

  There are millions of other websites trying to increase their traffic as well. With that much competition, it’s important to make sure your website stands out. Accomplishing that can require a great deal of strategy.

  We’ve compiled a list of tips to help you develop a solid plan for increasing website traffic, to expand your reach, grow your audience and boost customer engagement levels — creating more opportunities for your business.Using these tips, more visitors will find their way to your website — meaning more customers for your business.

  Why is website traffic important ?

  Website traffic is essentially the number of people visiting your website. When someone lands on your site, they’re considered a visitor and increase your website traffic. 

  When your website traffic is high, you’ll get more clicks, customer interactions and brand engagement. As a result, search engines will have a positive impression of your website and send more people there, meaning even more people will see your content and have the opportunity to buy your product.

  When using a website for your business or any other venture, tracking your website traffic using a web analytics solution like Matomo is critical.

  

  With over 200 million actively maintained and visited websites in 2023, it’s important to make sure yours stands out if you want to increase your website traffic and grow your online presence. 

  11 tips for increasing website traffic

  Here are 11 tips to increase your organic traffic and elevate your business.

  1. Perfect your SEO

  Optimising your website to show up in search engine results shouldn’t be overlooked, as 63% of consumers start researching a product by using a search engine. Search engine optimisation, or SEO, increases the visibility and discoverability of your website on search engine results pages (SERPs). SEO targets organic searches, which means it doesn’t add to social media traffic, direct traffic or referrals, and it isn’t paid traffic.

  SEO is number one on this list for a reason — most of these tips will directly, or indirectly, improve your SEO efforts. 

  Steps to improve your search engine optimisation can include :

  • Using relevant keywords that are incorporated naturally throughout your content
  • Using a web analytics tool like Matomo, with its search keyword feature, to gain insights and identify opportunities for improvement
  • Using descriptive meta titles and meta descriptions
  • Link to your own content internally with descriptive anchor tags, and make sure unused pages are removed 
  • Keeping your target audience in mind and marketing your content toward them
  • Making sure your website’s structure is optimised to be mobile-friendly, fast and responsive — such as with Matomo’s SEO Web Vitals feature, which monitors key metrics like your website’s page speed and loading performance, pivotal for optimising search engine results

  2. Research the competition

  It’s important to remember that while your business might be unique, it’s likely not the only one in its field. Thousands of other websites from other companies are also looking to improve their website traffic and increase sales, and you have to outcompete them.

  Looking at what your competitors are doing is vital from a strategic perspective. You can see what their content looks like, how they’re framing their specific use cases and what target audience they’re marketing toward.

  Knowing what your competitors are doing can help you find ways to improve your content and make it unique. Are your competitors missing a specific use case or neglecting a particular audience ? Fill in their content gaps on your website, and pick up the traffic they’re missing.

  3. Create high-quality, evergreen content

  If your content is high-quality, visitors will read more of it and stay longer on your site. This obviously increases the likelihood they will purchase your product or service, and it tells search engines that your website is a good answer for a search query.

  High-quality content will also be shared more often, leading to even more website traffic. You should aim to develop content that doesn’t lose relevance over time (aka “evergreen content”). If you include time-sensitive data, statistics or content in your website, blog posts or articles, it’ll be relevant only around that time frame. 

  While this month’s viral content is highly popular, it likely won’t be relevant in a few months. Instead, if you ensure your content is evergreen, it will continue to get engagement long after it’s published.

  4. Implement creative visuals

  It’s important to have engaging, fun and interactive media on your website to keep visitors on your site longer. Like good content, interesting visuals (and the resulting longer visits) can translate to more purchases (and favourable assessments by search engines).

  

  Media can take the form of videos, infographics, images or web graphics. 

  With Matomo’s Media Analytics feature, you can automatically gain even deeper insights into how your visitors engage with your media content, enhancing your understanding of their preferences and behaviours.

  If you have interesting, captivating visuals, visitors will be more likely to stay on your website longer and see what you have to offer. Without captivating visuals to break up walls of text, you’ll likely find visitors will tend to leave your site in favour of something more engaging.

  Just make sure you design your visuals with your target audience in mind. Flashy, fun graphics might not be a good fit for a professional audience, but they’re great for younger audiences. If you get your audience correct, they may also share the images with others. Depending on your business, that might be a useful infographic shared across LinkedIn, or a picture of a clever use case shared on Pinterest. 

  As a bonus, if other companies use your graphics on their websites, that earns you some backlinks — more on those in a bit.

  5. Create a comprehensive knowledge base

  Having a knowledge base is critical to making sure your service or product is well understood and well documented, especially in the tech industry. If a visitor or potential customer is interested in your product or service, they need to know exactly what it will do for them and that they have a good foundation of support in case they need help. A knowledge base is also a good place for internal links (more on those in a bit).

  Visitors can also use your knowledge base as a source of information, and if they cite you as a source, that’ll lead right back to more website traffic for you (see our backlinks section for more about this). If your website is a good source of information, visitors will come back to it again and again.

  6. Use social media often and consistently

  Digital marketing nowadays heavily relies on social media platforms. Having an online presence no longer means just having a website — if you’re not using social media sites, you’re missing out on a huge portion of potential visitors and customers.

  A strong social media presence with profiles on platforms like Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), Instagram or LinkedIn can be invaluable for increasing your website traffic. Visitors to your social media profiles will click on regularly shared content, read your blog posts and possibly become customers.

  Participating in relevant communities and networking with other companies in groups in your industry can also be invaluable. If you participate in online communities and forums for your niche, you can offer insight, answer questions and plug your website. All of this will increase your clicks, which will increase your website traffic.

  If you’ve managed to build your own community on social media, make sure to keep them engaged ! Implementing your own forum, hosting live chats and Q&As, offering helpful and engaging content will make sure visitors keep coming back and spreading the word. 

  7. Use email marketing or newsletters

  Having an email list and sending marketing emails or newsletters is a great way to increase website traffic. You can offer exclusive content, and promise discounts or resources to your subscribers for when they return to your website. This will help keep your loyal audience engaged, entice new customers to subscribe to your newsletter, give you a chance to upsell to people who have already expressed an interest in your product and potentially convert curious subscribers into customers.

  8. Make sure your content can earn backlinks

  A backlink is when a website links to a different website — ideally using relevant anchor text — and it’s an effective strategy for increasing referral traffic, that is, visitors who get to your website via a link on another website. The more backlinks you have, the more your referral traffic will increase. Social share buttons make it easy for people to cite you on social platforms, too. 

  We’ve already talked about making expert content that’s link-worthy, but also make sure that you’re creating linkable assets (like those interesting visuals mentioned earlier), building relationships with other sites that will link to you (like by inviting an expert or influencer to write on your page and promote it from their platform, or by writing your own guest content for their sites) and sharing your own content. All of this can help increase your referral traffic, particularly when you’re linked from websites with a higher domain authority than you have.

  You can also make sure your website is listed in online directories. Some sites will do interviews and roundups, as well — these are great opportunities to increase your backlinks.

  9. Optimise your CTR

  Click-through rate, or CTR, is the percentage of users who click on specific links to your website. A high CTR means your visitors are following a link — whether in an advertisement, a search result or a social media post — and a low CTR means they’re passing it by. Optimising your CTR can greatly improve your website traffic.

  To improve CTR, identify successful elements such as copy, imagery, and offers in your ads, enabling you to amplify effective elements and minimise less impactful ones.

  10. Ensure your website is responsive and mobile-friendly

  If a visitor is frustrated by your site being slow, laggy, clunky or not mobile-friendly, they won’t stay long. That doesn’t look good to search engines if that’s how your visitors got there. Your website needs to be clean, responsive, user-friendly and accessible.

  If your website is slow, try increasing your website’s performance by :

  • Optimising images : Reduce the size of images and compress them for faster load times. Opt for JPEG format for photos and PNG format for graphics. 
  • Limit the use of plugins : If you are using a CMS like WordPress, consider removing plugins that are unnecessary or not essential.
  • Embrace lazy loading : To further enhance site speed and reduce initial load times, set up your site to load images and content only as visitors scroll down. Prioritising the content and images at the top of the page makes the site feel faster. Some CMS platforms will offer this option, but others may require a bit of coding to set this up. 

  Many people rely on their phones to research services or products, especially if they’re doing a quick search. Make sure your website is friendly to mobile users. It should scale vertically and scroll smoothly so users aren’t frustrated when using your site. They should be able to find the info they need immediately without any technical issues.

  11. Track your website’s metrics

  As you test out each of these strategies to increase your web traffic, don’t forget to closely analyse the performance of your site. To truly understand the impact of your efforts, you’ll need a reliable web analytics solution. Think of a dependable web analytics solution as your website’s GPS. Without it, you’d be lost, unsure of your direction and missing out on valuable insights to steer your growth.

  Matomo is a powerful web analytics tool that can help you do just that by providing information on your site visitors and campaign performance, complemented by an array of behavioural analytics features that delve into user interactions. Among these, our heatmap feature stands out, enabling greater insights into user interactions and optimisation of your site’s effectiveness.

  

  Google Analytics is another powerful analytics option, though it has challenges with data accuracy ; there are multiple other web analytics solutions as well.

  Regardless of what web analytics solution you choose, the process of analysing your website metrics is incredibly important for identifying areas of improvement to increase website traffic.

  Increasing your web traffic is a process

  Increasing website traffic isn’t something you accomplish overnight. It’s a comprehensive, ongoing endeavour that requires constant analysis and fine-tuning. 

  By applying these tips to create consistent, high-quality content that gets spotlighted on search engines, shared on social media and returned to again and again, you’ll see a steady stream of increased traffic. 

  With Matomo, you can understand your visitor behaviour to see what works and what doesn’t as you work to increase your website traffic. Get your free 21-day trial now. No credit card required.

• Top 5 Web Analytics Tools for Your Site

  11 août 2023, par Erin — Analytics Tips

  At the start of July 2023, Universal Analytics (UA) users had to say goodbye to their preferred web analytics tool as Google discontinued it. While some find Google Analytics 4 (GA4) can do what they need, many GA4 users are starting to realise GA4 doesn’t meet all the needs UA once fulfilled. Consequently, they are actively seeking another web analytics tool to complement GA4 and address those unmet requirements effectively.

  In this article, we’ll break down five of the top web analytics tools on the market. You’ll find details about their core capabilities, pricing structures and some noteworthy pros and cons to help you decide which tool is the right fit for you. We’ve also included some key features a good web analytics tool should have to give you a baseline for comparison.

  Whether you’re a marketing manager focused on ROI of campaigns, a web analyst focused on conversions or simply interested in learning more about web analytics, there’s something for you on this list.

  What is a web analytics tool ?

  Web analytics tools collect and analyse information about your website’s visitors, their behaviour and the technical performance of your site. A web analytics tool compiles, measures and analyses website data to give you the information you need to improve site performance, boost conversions and increase your ROI.

  What makes a web analytics tool good ?

  Before we get into tool specifics, let’s go over some of the core features you can expect from a web analytics tool.

  For a web analytics tool to be worth your time (and money), it needs to cover the basics. For example :

  • Visitor reports : The number of visitors, whether they were unique or repeat visitors, the source of traffic (where they found your website), device information (if they’re using a desktop or mobile device) and demographic information like geographic location

  • Behaviour reports : What your visitors did while on your site, conversion rates (e.g., if they signed up for or purchased something), the pages they entered and exited from, average session duration, total time spent on a page and bounce rates (if they left without interacting with anything)

  • Technical information : Page loading speed and event tracking — where users are clicking, what they’re downloading or sharing from your site, if they’re engaging with the media on it and how far down the page they’re scrolling

  • Marketing campaign information : Breakdowns of ad campaigns by provider, showing if ads resulted in traffic to your site and lead to an eventual sale or conversion

  • Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) information : Which keywords on which pages are driving traffic to your site, and what search engines are they coming from

  • Real-time data tracking : Visitor, behaviour and technical information available in real-time, or close to it — allowing you to address to issues as they occur

  • Data visualisation : Charts and graphs illustrating the above information in an easily-readable format — helping identify opportunities and providing valuable insights you can leverage to improve site performance, conversion rates and the amount of time visitors spend on a page

  • Custom reporting : Create custom reports detailing the desired metrics and time frame you’re interested in

  • Security : User access controls and management tools to limit who can see and interact with user data

  • Resources : Official user guides, technical documentation, troubleshooting materials, customer support and community forums

  

  Pros and Cons of Google Analytics 4

  Despite many users’ dissatisfaction, GA4 isn’t going away anytime soon. It’s still a powerful tool with all the standard features you’d expect. It’s the most popular choice for web analytics for a few other reasons, too, including :

  • It’s free to use
  • It’s easy to set up
  • It has a convenient mobile app
  • It has a wealth of user documentation and technical resources online
  • Its machine-learning capabilities help predict user behaviour and offer insights on how to grow your site
  • It integrates easily with other Google tools, like Google Search Console, Google Ads and Google Cloud

  That said, it comes with some serious drawbacks. Many users accustomed to UA have reported being unhappy with the differences between it and GA4. Their reasons range from changes to the user interface and bounce rate calculations, as well as Google’s switch from pageview-focused metrics to event-based ones. 

  Let’s take a look at some of the other cons :

  • Lack of privacy, as Google uses data from Google Analytics for advertising purposes.
  • Cookie consent banners can frustrate visitors, and with 40-60% of web visitors rejecting consent, relying on them can lead to inaccurate data and an incomplete view of your web traffic and campaign outcomes.
  • Can’t import data from UA to GA4 
  • Missing features like heatmaps and session recording
  • Google Analytics 360, the GA for enterprises, costs $150,000/year

  Now that you know GA4’s strengths and weaknesses, it’s time to explore other tools that can help fill in GA4’s gaps.

  Top 5 web analytics tools (that aren’t Google)

  Below is a list of popular web analytics tools that, unless otherwise stated, have all the features a good tool should have.

  Adobe Analytics

  

  Adobe is a trusted name in software, with tools that have shaped the technological landscape for decades, like Photoshop and Illustrator. With web design and UX tools Dreamweaver and XD, it makes sense that they’d offer a web analytics platform as well.

  Adobe Analytics provides not just web analytics but marketing analytics that tell you about customer acquisition and retention, ROI and ad campaign performance metrics. Its machine learning (ML) and AI-powered analytics predict future customer behaviour based on previously collected data.

  Key features : 

  • Multichannel data collection that covers computers, mobile devices and IoT devices
  • Adobe Sensei (AI/ML) for marketing attribution and anomaly detection
  • Tag management through Adobe Experience Platform Launch simplifies the tag creation and maintenance process to help you track how users interact with your site

  Pros :

  • User-friendly and simple to learn with a drag-and-drop interface
  • When integrated with other Adobe software, it becomes a powerful solution for enterprises
  • Saves your team a lot of time with the recommendations and insights automatically generated by Adobe’s AI/ML

  Cons :

  • No free version
  • Adobe Sensei and tag manager limited to premium version
  • Expensive, especially when combined with the company’s other software
  • Steep learning curve for both setup and use

  Mobile app : Yes

  Integrations : Integrates with Adobe Experience Manager Sites, the company’s CMS. Adobe Target, a CRO tool and part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud subscription, integrates with Analytics.

  Pricing : Available upon request

  Matomo

  

  Matomo is the leading open-source web analytics solution designed to help you make more informed decisions and enhance your customer experience while ensuring GDPR compliance and user privacy. With Matomo Cloud, your data is stored in Europe, while Matomo On-Premise allows you to host your data on your own servers.

  Matomo is used on over 1 million websites, in over 190 countries, and in over 50 languages. Additionally, Matomo is an all-in-one solution, with traditional web analytics (visits, acquisition, etc.) alongside behavioural analytics (heatmaps, session recordings and more), plus a tag manager. No more inefficiently jumping back and forth between tabs in a huge tech stack. It’s all in Matomo, for one consistent, seamless and efficient experience. 

  Key features : 

  • Heatmaps and session recording to display what users are clicking on and how individual users interacted with your site 
  • A/B testing to compare different versions of the same content and see which gets better results
  • Robust API that lets you get insights by connecting your data to other platforms, like data visualisation or business intelligence tools

  Pros : 

  • Open-source, reviewed by experts to ensure that it’s secure
  • Offers On-Premise or Cloud-hosted options
  • Fully compliant with GDPR, so you can be data-driven without worrying. 
  • Option to run without cookies, meaning in most countries you can use Matomo without annoying cookie consent banners and while getting more accurate data
  • You retain complete ownership of your data, with no third parties using it for advertising or unspecified “own purposes”

  Cons : 

  • On-Premise is free, but that means an additional cost for advanced features (A/B testing, heatmaps, etc.) that are included by default on Matomo Cloud
  • Matomo On-Premise requires servers and technical expertise to setup and manage

  Mobile app : Matomo offers a free mobile app (iOS and Android) so you can access your analytics on the go. 

  Integrations : Matomo integrates easily with many other tools and platforms, including WordPress, Looker Studio, Magento, Jira, Drupal, Joomla and Cloudflare.

  Pricing : 

  • Varies based on monthly hits
  • Matomo On-Premise : free
  • Matomo Cloud : starting at €19/month

  Mixpanel

  

  Mixpanel’s features are heavily geared toward e-commerce companies. From the moment a visitor lands on your website to the moment they enter their payment details and complete a transaction, Mixpanel tracks these events.

  Similar to GA4, Mixpanel is an event-focused analytics platform. While you can still track pageviews with Mixpanel, its main focus is on the specific actions users take that lead them to purchases. Putting your attention on this information allows you to find out which events on your site are going through the sales funnel.

  They’re currently developing a Warehouse Events feature to simplify the process of importing data lakes and data warehouses.

  Key features :

  • Custom alerts and anomaly detection
  • Boards, which allow you to share multiple reports and insights with your team in a range of visual styles 
  • Detailed segmentation reporting that lets you break down your data to the individual user, specific event or geographic level

  Pros :

  • Boards allow for emojis, gifs, images and videos to make collaboration fun
  • Powerful mobile analytics for iOS and Android apps
  • Free promotional credits for eligible startups 

  Cons :

  • Limited features in free plan
  • Best features limited to the Enterprise-tier subscription
  • Complicated set up
  • Steep learning curve

  Mobile app : No

  Integrations : Mixpanel has a load of integrations, including Figma, Google Cloud, Slack, HappyFox, Snowflake, Microsoft Azure, Optimizely, Mailchimp and Tenjin. They also have a WordPress plugin.

  Pricing : 

  • Starter : free plan available
  • Growth : $20/month
  • Enterprise $833/month

  HubSpot Marketing

  

  HubSpot is a customer relationship management (CRM) platform with marketing, sales, customer service, content management system (CMS) and operations tools. This greater ecosystem of HubSpot software allows you to practically run your entire business in one place.

  Even though HubSpot Marketing isn’t a dedicated web analytics tool, it provides comparable standard metrics as the other tools on this list, albeit without the more advanced analytical metrics they offer. If you’re already using HubSpot to host your website, it’s definitely worth consideration.

  Key features :

  • Customer Journey Analytics presents the steps your customers went through in the sales process, step-by-step, in a visual way
  • Dashboards for your reports, including both fully customisable options for power users and pre-made templates for new users

  Pros :

  • Integration with other HubSpot tools, like HubSpot CRM’s free live chat widget 
  • User-friendly interface with many features being drag-and-drop, like the report dashboard
  • 24/7 customer support

  Cons :

  • Can get expensive with upgrades and other HubSpot tool add ons
  • Not a dedicated web analytics tool, so it’s missing some of the features other tools have, like heatmaps
  • Not really worth it as a standalone tool
  • Some users report customer support is unhelpful

  Mobile app : Yes

  Integrations : The larger HubSpot CRM platform can connect with nearly 1,500 other apps through the HubSpot App Marketplace. These include Slack, Microsoft Teams, Salesforce, Make, WordPress, SurveyMonkey, Shopify, monday.com, Stripe, WooCommerce and hundreds of others.

  Pricing : 

  • Starter : $20/month ($18/month with annual plan) 
  • Professional : $890/month ($800/month with annual plan) 
  • Enterprise : $3,600/month ($43,200 billed annually)

  Kissmetrics

  

  Kissmetrics is a web analytics tool that is marketed toward SaaS and ecommerce companies. They label themselves as “person-based” because they combine event-based tracking with detailed user profiles of the visitors to your site, which allows you to gain insights into customer behaviour. 

  With user profiles, you can drill down to see how many times someone has visited your site, if they’ve purchased from you and the steps they took before completing a sale. This allows you to cater more to these users and drive growth.

  Key features : 

  • Person Profiles that give granular information about individual users and their activities on your site
  • Campaigns, an engagement messenger application, allows you to set up email automations that are triggered by specific events
  • Detailed reporting tools 

  Pros : 

  • No third-party cookies
  • No data sampling
  • APIs for Ruby on Rails, JavaScript, Python and PHP

  Cons : 

  • Difficult installation
  • Strongest reporting features only available in the most expensive plan
  • Reports can be slow to generate
  • Requires custom JavaScript code to tack single-page applications
  • Doesn’t track demographic data, bounce rate, exits, session length or time on page

  Mobile app : No

  Integrations : Kissmetrics integrates with HubSpot, Appcues, Slack, Mailchimp, Shopify, WooCommerce, Recurly and a dozen others. There is also a Kissmetrics WordPress plugin.

  Pricing : 

  • Silver : $299/month (small businesses)
  • Gold : $499/month (medium) 
  • Platinum : custom pricing (enterprises)

  Conclusion

  In this article, you learned about popular tools for web analytics to better inform you of your options. Despite all of GA4’s shortcomings, by complementing it with another web analytics tool, teams can gain a more comprehensive understanding of their website traffic and enhance their overall analytics capabilities.

  If you want an option that delivers powerful insights while keeping privacy, security and compliance at the forefront, you should try Matomo. 

  Try Matomo alongside Google Analytics now to see how it compares.

  Start your 21-day free trial now – no credit card required.