Noise or Music?
25 Years of Digital Analytics
From Urchin and log files, to Universal Analytics, GA4 and everything in between. A four part interview series about the past, present and future of the industry. Professionally edited by the Piwik Pro team into easy to digest 5 minute videos.
The myth of Enhanced Conversions and Advanced Matching
Google et al are trying desperately to get advertisers to use Enhanced Conversions due to the deprecation of 3P cookies. My personal pov is that this approach is an even bigger invasion of privacy than before - I call it "cookies on steroids".
Is There a Future for Web Analytics?
In 2008 as I was walking out of the door at Google, I predicted the next big thing in web analytics was privacy. Of course I was wrong, but it did come eventually in the form of the GDPR. And thank God for that. The wild west surveillance economy was getting out of hand.
3P Cookies v Benign Data v Cookies on Steroids
Google are pushing hard for website owners to adopt Enhanced Conversions - also referred to as "hashed first-party data". This post outlines the implications of using this, its impact on customer trust, and the alternatives for data collection.
Why I Am Joining the Piwik PRO Advisory Board
In my role, I will be advising the leadership team with their long term strategic development. It comes at a pivotal time in our industry, with so much at stake - user concerns about privacy, adtech regulation, the demise of 3rd-party cookies, and the switch-off of Universal Analytics.
Sayonara Universal Analytics
My first Google Analytics data point was 15th May 2005. In this post I look back at what Universal Analytics did for the industry, including my own career, where GA4 fits in (or not), and what I think the future holds.
11 years ago and a guy called Max Schrems
11 years ago a guy called Max Schrems burst on to the scene. I thought then "At last, online privacy will be taken seriously. The industry I have worked in is at a tipping point"...
European Google Analytics Alternatives – #2 Jigsaws and Device Fingerprints
All collected data contains potential device identifiers – and by extension, user identifiers. The visitor’s IP address is an obvious one. However, there are many others that may seem benign at first, but when enough of them are stitched together, can be used like a jigsaw to build up a picture of the visitor.
European Google Analytics Alternatives – #1 Private Clouds
Like most data professionals in the EU, I have been looking at alternatives to Google Analytics that have “better” privacy compliance. In this post I am defining an alternative to Google Analytics as being an EU based analytics company.