Digital Marketing David and Goliath: Comparing analytics and tag management suites

Digital Marketing David and
Goliath:
A comparison of analytics and tag
management suites by Piwik PRO and
Google

Digital Marketing David and Goliath
Marek Juszczynski
• Head of marketing at Piwik PRO
• Areas of expertise: conversion
optimization in e-commerce and
B2B, startup marketing
A few words about me

What we’re going to cover:
• Introducing Piwik PRO Tag Manager
• Why other tools may be better for certain tasks than
Google Analytics - global bank case study
• Data accuracy in the age of adblocks
• Segmentation for conversion paths
• Comparison of tag management systems: Piwik PRO
vs. Google
• Support of tags: tools for A/B tests
• Content personalization using Piwik PRO Tag
Manager

Brieﬂy about Piwik PRO Tag Manager
Piwik PRO expanded its analytics suite with Tag Manager in
summer 2016
One of the few Tag Managers in the world with self-hosting capability 
Project support plus expanding the capabilities of Piwik PRO On-
Premises & Piwik PRO Cloud product oﬀerings

Piwik PRO Tag Manager:
Templates and support for tags
Tracking codes Advertising pixels UX and CRO tools
*Piwik PRO Tag Manager also lends itself to more advanced groups
of reports, such as event and content tracking, custom dimensions
and variables, as well as virtual page views and cross-domain
tracking.

Piwik PRO  
vs 
Google Analytics 
Case Study

Take Piwik PRO Analytics for a test drive

Why is Rand Fishkin right?

Based on real success stories
of Piwik PRO clients
Case Study:
Global Bank

Client requirements
At the level of collecting and storing data
100% ownership of
data stored on own
infrastructure
Secure data
transmission and
storage
Compliance with
strict data privacy and
storage laws
At the business level
No limits on collection
and storage of data and
sampling
Collecting and
reporting user-level
data
Reporting data on
employee activity on
the company intranet

Optional client-side requirements
Optional, yet frequent requirements for web analytics
Whitelabel - capacity
to brand tool and
reports with own
logo and color
scheme
User-level data
integration with
company CRM
Possibility to expand
tool with in-house
functionalities and
reports

When isn’t Google Analytics 
an option? 
Why do banks and government agencies choose 
Piwik PRO instead?

Data ownership and storage

Data ownership and storage
• Data can be stored in the cloud,
by a hosting company, or on a
physical server on the
company’s premises.
• Regardless of the form of data
storage users retain 100% data
ownership.
• Terms of use allow Google to
make GA data available to
advertisers in Google AdWords
and Double Click.
• Data is sent to Google servers,
and users lose control over
their data. Full data ownership
only with premium plans.
“Google and its subsidies, in which it has a 100% stake may, pursuant to the
terms of the Privacy Policy (located at: http://www.google.com/intl/en/
policies/privacy/) keep and use collected information concerning the use of
the Service by the User.”

Data collection and storage

Data collection and storage
• Data can be collected using
both JavaScript and server logs
• Data collection using server
logs does not require changes
in the webpage source code
• Data can only be collected
using JavaScript code
• Adding tracking or changes in
tracking code requires changes
in the webpage source code

Compliance with data privacy regulations

Compliance with data privacy regulations
• Possesses built-in functionality
supporting Opt-out, IP masking
and cookie duration settings
• Requires a level of
customization concerning
cookie storage length, Opt-out
and IP masking
+ + +

Why is Piwik PRO an option but 
Google Analytics is not?
• Piwik and data are hosted
on the bank’s servers
• The bank has 100%
ownership of collected
data
• This allows for
collecting data on
protected pages
where GA can’t be
implemented
• This allows for collecting
data on company
intranet pages where GA
can’t be implemented
• Limits on collected
data are only imposed
by the bank’s own
infrastructure
• No institution or
government oﬃce can
accuse the bank of
mishandling data or
compliance issues
• The bank can optimize
pages which were
previously blacked out in
reports

Eﬀects of Piwik PRO implementation
• The bank’s marketing
department continues to use
GA for tracking marketing
campaigns
• Piwik tracks and reports data
where GA can’t be used
• It’s now possible to
track client activity
on internal bank
web pages and
optimize them
• It’s now possible to track
employee activity on
bank intranet pages
• The bank uses Piwik for
optimizing navigation
and conversion paths on
internal bank pages
• The bank uses Piwik for
optimizing registration
forms and product
application forms
• The bank maps data from
Piwik to the company
CRM

Mapping user proﬁles from Piwik PRO 
to the bank’s CRM

Institutions and governments 
implementing Piwik

Read more…
Whitepaper “Web Analytics w for
Data-Sensitive Industries”
50-page whitepaper “Piwik vs
Google Analytics”

Diﬀerences and accuracy in
data collection in the age of
AdBlockers 
What does the growing popularity of AdBlockers
mean for Piwik and GA?

Piwik and GA vs in-browser blockers
A list of extensions and browser blockers preventing user
data collection based on Filippo Valsorda’s tests.
Ghostery Yes No
Adblock Plus No No
uBlock Origin Yes No
Disconnect Yes No
Privacy Badger No No

What are the consequences
of adblocks?
Unsurprisingly, ad blockers are even more widespread amongst
HN readers. Over two days, GA logged 10.403 pageviews, PIWIK
16.110 - 55% more.
Source: https://blog.filippo.io/self-host-analytics/

Segmentation for conversion
paths in Piwik PRO

Case Study: Online shop with a large 
number of abandoned carts
Implementation of Piwik
PRO in a home and garden
shop with 62% cart
abandonment rate.

Step 1: Segmentation of the conversion 
path - ﬁnding deviations from the average
In the analyzed store, we observed significant
deviations from the average number of abandonments
across provinces of Poland

Step 2: Comparing conversion paths 
between similar segments
*Useful feature: Piwik PRO Comparison dashboards

Data-driven changes and decisions
• Offering discounts and free
shipping to problematic
customer segments
abandoning carts
• Reducing rates in campaigns
targeting problematic
segments or eliminating
them completely -
increasing rates of
prospering segments

Results of optimization
Conversion path and
shopping cart effectiveness
before optimization
+11%
Path effectiveness
+9%
Cart effectiveness
Conversion path and
shopping cart effectiveness
following optimization

Another example of comparative analysis 
of segments for a conversion path
*Mobile and desktop users in the conversion path

Another example of comparative analysis 
of segments for a conversion path

Piwik PRO Tag Manager  
vs. 
Google Tag Manager 
Comparison of tag management systems

• Data security and ownership
• Independent hosting vs cloud
• Supporting data privacy
• Support for synchronized tags

Data security and ownership
• 100% data ownership.
• Piwik PRO Tag Manager is
hosted on-premises
• All collected data belongs to
the user
• Google does not share your
data with advertisers
• But it will be able to look into
your data and use it
“We may collect information such as how the Service is used, and how and
what tags are deployed. We may use this data to improve, maintain, protect
and develop the Service as described in our privacy policy, but we will not
share this data with any other Google product without Your consent.”
GTM user policy

Independent Hosting vs Cloud
• Hosting: shared, VPS,
dedicated, in the cloud or on a
physical server
• Additional access limitations
and security features can be
added to PP Tag Manager
• Hosted on cloud / Google’s
servers
• Users have no impact on their
data security
• Users have no control over
where their data is stored, nor
what is really happening to it

Supporting data privacy
• Every tag and tool can be made
privacy-friendly
• Can force respecting Do Not
Track in tags
• Oﬀers an Opt-Out option to
stop tracking on a page
• No functionalities supporting
privacy

Support for synchronized tags
• Supports both asynchronous
and synchronous HTML tags
implemented in the <head> and
<body> segment
• Possesses built-in template for
popular tools in A/B tests -
Optimizely and VWO
• Supports only custom
asynchronous HTML tags
loaded from <body>
• Without templates for popular
A/B testing tools such as
Optimizely and VWO

Support of tags, tools 
for A/B tests 
How to manage tags in Optimizely and VWO
using Piwik PRO Tag Manager

Case Study - Simple A/B test with CTA 
change on main page
Version A of CTA encouraging
visitors to watch a promotional
video
Hypothesis: We can increase leads by placing a CTA to a contact form on the
main page of Piwik.pro
Version B of CTA directing users to
a contact form

Step 1 - Implementation of a container for
servicing synchronous tags
• We implemented a
container just before closing
of the </head> section 
• For pages based on
Wordpress there is a free
plugin that will do this for
us

Step 2 - Implementation of an Optimizely or
VWO tag using a Piwik PRO Tag Manager
template
• It’s enough to have an
Optimizely or VWO
Account IT
• All you need is a simple
trigger setting the tag oﬀ
on each sub-page of the
website

Step 3 - Debugging and checking
implementation
*Debugging options are not only more robust than in GTM, but also
available in the mobile version.

Step 4 - Activating the test and waiting for
results
*For the next 17 days the test runs, the Optimizely tag is executed
without problem, and data is gathered without interruption

Content personalization
using Piwik PRO Tag Manager 
Personalisation of content on a webpage using
campaign parameters in a URL

Case study - Personalization of a pop-up 
based on campaign URL parameters
Version A: Pop-up encouraging user
to download a whitepaper on RTB
and Programmatic Advertising
Purpose: Show diﬀerent pop-ups depending on the campaign tags (UTM or
PK) that appear in the URL clicked by the user
Version B: Pop-up encouraging user
to download a whitepaper on
building and expanding a SaaS
platform

Step 1 - Implementation of tags responsible 
for displaying Pop-ups
*Adding custom HTML tag in Piwik PRO Tag Manager

Step 2 - Implementation of tag reading the
parameters of the campaign URL
*Script reading PK and Gclid parameters

Step 3 - Setting the variable collecting data 
from cookies on campaign parameters

Step 4 - Creating a trigger based on the
variable collecting data about campaign
parameters from cookies

Step 5 - Setting campaign parameters
in utm tags
• Parameters in URL triggering Pop-up A:
(utm_campaign=Programmatic_Whitepaper)
http://clearcode.cc/2016/04/difference-between-rtb-
programmatic/?utm_campaign=Programmatic_Whitepaper
• Parameters in URL triggering Pop-up B:
(utm_campaign=SaaS_Whitepaper)
http://clearcode.cc/2016/04/difference-between-rtb-
programmatic/?utm_campaign=SaaS_Whitepaper

Step 6 - Debugging and veriﬁcation of
implementation

Step 7 - Implementation test on a living
organism
http://goo.gl/4Gomu6
Version A: Pop-up encouraging user
to download a whitepaper about
RTB and Programmatic
http://goo.gl/mLGKvS
Version B: Pop-up encouraging user
to download a whitepaper about
building and expanding an SaaS
platform

Thank You
@piwikPRO
If you want to learn more or see Piwik PRO
Analytics & Tag Manager Suite in action,
our team is here to help:
/PiwikPro /piwik-pro /piwik-pro

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