As the days pass by, privacy concerns are growing in your visitor’s minds. And they aren’t wrong because new scandals surface every now and then. Recently, I woke up to this headline where some famous personalities’ Twitter account was hacked. Zoom had some flaws, websites are infiltrated, and not even Google and Facebook are spared from online attacks. What’s the consequence, you ask? A huge number of user data is getting exposed! So, give me one reason why should visitors trust your website blindly with their personal data? No questions asked! This is the reason why modern businesses are focusing on privacy and now aim to implement cookieless analytics architecture instead of Google Analytics. Did a spark a debate here? I know Google Analytics reigns in the world of web analytics, but it is a bit invasive and difficult to use. Despite being FREE, widespread, and powering around 55% of the total websites on the web, Google has various pitfalls such as:
Needs a far-fetched privacy policy
Google needs to make a far-fetched policy for Google Analytics users. It’s because their tracking practices are unruly, and may not respect user privacy. Google collects huge personal data and uses behavioral and personal insights to sell targeted ads. It gathers data such as:
Details about your computer and browser making requests including the browser type, hostname, language, country, and referrerSystem information such as Flash and Java support, screen resolution, etc.The amount of time a user spends on a page and advertisement campaign insights
and, a lot more…
Uses cookies you need to consent for
Google Analytics uses cookies, and in order to use it, you will have to consent to it. It has set multiple cookies to recognize unique visitors across different browsing sessions. The problem is that there must be a choice before the visitors whether they want to accept them or otherwise.
Liability in terms of privacy regulations
Collecting personal data of users in addition to other information belongings to advertisements like re-marketing, interest reporting, demographics reports, etc. can be a liability to your website. Data and privacy regulatory bodies like GDPR, PECR, and CCPA are taking brilliant steps to reform the web, and the way surveillance capitalism works.
Bulky scripts affecting site speed
Every byte counts when it comes to your website page loading speed. Web analytics adds extra weight to pages. Google’s scripts such as Universal Analytics and Global Site Tag bloat your website, and the latter adds up additional JavaScript files as well. As a result, these extra weights affect your site speed to annoy your visitors, and you might risk losing them if the issue continues to persist.
Overkill for site owners
Many website owners find the collection of huge amounts of user data by Google Analytics as overkill. It’s because they find a small fraction of these metrics in regular use. Google Analytics includes 125+ different reports as well as 290+ different metrics to gather insights from. So, analyzing this vast amount of information requires time, a lot of time, plus effort and expertise to do a fine job at it. So, what’s the solution to all these nuisances that Google Analytics may invite? There are some ways to tackle it, and one of them is by using a privacy-focused website analytics tool, and that’s what I’m going to discuss more in this article and also introduce you to some services that you can leverage for the matter.
How does it help businesses?
Privacy-focused analytics following a cookieless architecture is a respite to SaaS companies and startups of all sizes. It involves no user data tracking, sharing, or selling to third-party companies. Hence, it protects users’ privacy. In addition, they comply with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, PECR, etc. If you go for a privacy-focused solution, as explained in the subsequent section, you have another advantage. Since these solution providers are mostly software firms, not advertising companies, they never collect or share your data for advertising or for any other purpose. They will charge you a fair amount for their services only to make profits and sustain their business, not capitalizing on your data. So, without any more delay, let’s look at some of the privacy-focused analytics software right away that are great alternatives to Google Analytics.
Fathom
One of the best alternatives to Google Analytics is Fathom. Make better decisions, as you can find your website stats on its blazing-fast dashboard with a clear and concise presentation. You can see top content on your site, referrers, and other useful metrics on one screen. All the plans they offer include analytics for unlimited websites along with unlimited email reports and custom domains. It implies that you can easily track your site, personal blog, weekend projects, and more using the same account. The software of Fathom is designed to tackle a huge surge in site traffic. It can handle page views in billions and also utilizes enterprise-level architecture. As a result, your website doesn’t slow down even during peak seasons. Main features:
Leverage a custom tracker and custom domain to collect anonymous stats even if visitors have an ad-blocking extension.Auto-scale your servers on demand. They serve their tracker file through a super-fast CDN having endpoints located across the globe.Real-time insights.Track top goals like the number of people who signed up for your email list, product/service sales, specific pages or clicks, and more.Compliant to GDPR as well as Cookie Directive.Shareable dashboards and password-protected links.
The pricing for Fathom analytics starts at $14/month. Not satisfied with the service? Cancel at any time.
Plausible
Are you a privacy-conscious site owner? Plausible is for you! It is an open-source analytics tool and has a lightweight design that doesn’t add up an extra burden on your site. Plausible is compliant with GDPR, PECR, and CCPA and does not use cookies to irritate your users. This tool is easy to understand and use, even with no prior experience or training. You get the flexibility to select your preferred time range for analyzing data, and the number of visitors is presented automatically on a monthly, daily, or hourly graph. Get insights about your visitors’ location and what pages they viewed on your website to improve and target your offerings. It also shows what operating system and browser they use in an anonymous way. Check out some of its features:
Plausible can grab your attention quickly through its simplicity.It claims that its script is 45x smaller than that of Google Analytics. Hence, it cuts down weight so your website can load faster, plus you can contribute to a greener web by reducing carbon footprints.Gives complete ownership and control of your data and respects your privacy by never tracking your personal data.You need no cookie banners that annoy your visitors.Share your stats with anyone using the custom link to let them view it.Add password protection to safeguard your shareable links.Seamless integration with tools including WordPress, Wix, Weebly, Squarespace, Ghost, Google, and more.
Get Plausible at $4/month, billed yearly. You can also go for a free trial for 30 days to see how it works.
Simple Analytics
The name says it all, isn’t it? Simple Analytics is extending stellar help to business owners, analysts, developers, and marketers through its simple and clean analytics solution. They show you analytics essentials such as top viewed pages, referrers, number of page views, screen sizes, and more so you can better serve your customers. Don’t worry about cookie banners or compliance as Simple Analytics covers them all. Look at its features:
It keeps things ‘simple’ in terms of a user interface and its dashboard so you can see your stats with no complexities around.Get analytics reports straight into your email inbox. You can set a monthly or weekly frequency to get your copy. Besides, you can also send reports to the clients directly.In case you receive frequent referrers from Twitter, Simple Analytics shows actual tweets from where the traffic is coming to your website.Bypass ad-blockers as they do not track visitors. For this, set up your custom sub-domain linking, add DNS settings, and let them handle everything else.If you want to export data and use it in another tool, it’s possible with Simple Analytics. Export data in a CSV file, or you can also opt for aggregates through their JSON API.Give your eyes some rest by using dark mode while working at night. However, they provide both dark and light modes so you can switch anytime you want.
Simple Analytics’ prices start at $19/month.
Insights
Track useful metrics through Insights without invading user privacy. Getting started with this tool is easy and takes a few minutes of your time. Just use their lightweight script to your website page, and you will be given access to a dashboard where you can see various metrics like page views, custom events like scrolling and clicks, etc. To leverage full control of this tool, try adding Insights.js in the form of dependency and use it for tracking. Insights are fully typed and support multiple frameworks, including Angular, React, and Vue. Respect user privacy by avoiding cookie banners with the help of Insights, which is fully compliant with regulatory authorities. If you want, you can also request Insights for a privacy badge for building more trust with your visitors. Main features:
Insights have a customizable script and save you from navigating through multiple reports and pages.Faster performance in terms of page loading speed as compared to Google Analytics, and othersPage statistics like user flow, page visits, bounce rates, page leaves, scrolling, and clicks, without storing IP data, personal information, or cookies.Transparent services. You can find their open-source Insights.js code on GitHub and also can view what data they collect as well.
You can either choose to go with a free version of this tool for up to 3,000 events and 2,000 page views or a paid version starting at $12/month for up to 1000,000 events and 70,000 page views.
Matomo
The powerful analytics tool of Matomo (previously known as Piwik) provides you 100% ownership of your data. Choose the ethical option of web analytics, so you never have to compromise the privacy of your users by using Matomo, where no consent is needed. With Matomo, you will get to know where exactly your data gets stored and what happens to it with no outside influence. It’s open-source, which minimizes your risks by offering a transparent and secure platform tested by 100s of contributors worldwide. You get 100% precise data with accurate reporting. Customize Matomo and extend it to meet your requirements. Don’t sacrifice your precious data on Google Analytics because with Matomo; you can easily export them. Navigate through the friendly and easy-to-use interface of the Matomo dashboard to fetch data faster. Motamo is trusted by over 1 million websites and its enterprise-ready solution. You can either install Motamo on your server or try their cloud version. Alternatively, you can try Kamatera which offers a Motamo server with one click from as low as $4 per month.
Conclusion
The days of cookieless architecture are upon us. As privacy concerns are growing across the globe, privacy-focused analytics can help you garner audience trust through ethical ways and actually respect their privacy. So, get privacy-focused analytics software today and see the difference!
