XS4ALL put their customers’ security and privacy first with Piwik PRO Analytics Suite

XS4ALL is one of the oldest internet service providers in the Netherlands, with over 25 years of experience in the market.

“We take your online security seriously” is used as the main headline on their page, and the approach is evident in their actions. Privacy, security and excellent customer service are the pillars of the company.

Looking for a privacy-oriented alternative to Adobe

XS4ALL tracked their e-commerce site with Adobe Omniture for a while, but they weren’t entirely happy with the solution.

First of all, it was a third-party tool hosted externally, so their analytical options were limited. There were use cases they couldn’t implement because they involved sharing their customers’ private data with Adobe to get the results. As privacy and security of their clients were their primary concern, this was a no-go. One of these unachievable use cases was cross-device tracking, which could vastly improve their services and marketing efforts.

What’s more, they had some difficulties using Omniture. Some of the most experienced users of the software had left the company, and it wasn’t user-friendly enough to facilitate quick onboarding of new staff.

They had already been on the lookout for an alternative, when GDPR officially hit the news. This was the last straw, and XS4ALL decided to search for an analytics platform that would be privacy-compliant and make the data they collect more actionable.

They had other goals in mind as well, apart from the cross-device tracking. They wanted to combine their offline and online data, and to better organize marketing and analytics tags they had on their website. Customer satisfaction was a priority, so they wanted to lower the number of calls coming to their call center.

On the road to being GDPR-compliant

XS4ALL got to hear about Piwik PRO from one of their employees, responsible for network maintenance. He recommended looking more closely into the analytics platform, as it was privacy-oriented and allowed on-premises deployment. With the GDPR round the corner, they reached out to a Piwik PRO representative in the Netherlands.

The company wanted to get to know the platform, to have a proof of concept first. They initially deployed it in the cloud, which took about two weeks. The setup allowed easy migration to their servers later on, making the process faster.

With a solution architect from Piwik PRO available to help them with the technical part, the implementation process was very easy. He worked with XS4ALL’s team of developers to determine the right kind of tracking for their e-commerce website. He guided them through the setup, and configured tracking and reporting for all of their domains. Together, they implemented Piwik PRO Analytics, Tag Manager, GDPR Consent Manager and Customer Data Platform.

Piwik PRO Analytics Suite in action

XS4ALL team, which used Piwik PRO Analytics Suite, consisted of analysts, CRO specialists, and external advertising agencies. They all had different goals and tasks, depending on the role that they played within the team – acquisition or service.

The acquisition part of the team was responsible for getting new customers. They reported on marketing campaigns’ performance, and analyzed the paths leading to certain landing pages and conversions. They tracked all of the product combinations in the cart and set up a funnel to measure sales conversions and bottlenecks.

The service part of the team aimed at providing existing customers with the best service possible. Since the whole website is service-oriented, they had plenty of different goals. The main one was to present visitors with all the information they need while they’re browsing the site, without them having to call the call center. Customer satisfaction and a decrease in the number of calls were the most important indicators of success for them.

New possibilities and satisfying results

XS4ALL has been using Piwik PRO as the only resource of data for almost a year so far, and much has changed since they upgraded from Adobe Omniture.

They implemented the Analytics Suite, which made them the sole owner of the data they collected. The data is now stored in the Netherlands, on their own servers. With the help of the GDPR Consent Manager, they easily became privacy-compliant in time for the regulation.

With full control over their data, new possibilities opened up for them. As an e-commerce company, it was vital for them to track transactions, the number of orders, cart abandonment and average cart value. They were finally able to combine this data and take action on it. It was finally possible by connecting their online data with the data from the payment systems in a secure environment.

The significant change came with the possibility to track visitors across devices. XS4ALL weren’t able to do this before, because they would have to share the data with third parties. Now, with the data stored on their servers, they could build this business case internally. The first thing they ask their potential customers for is their zip code, to check what kind of services they can offer in the indicated area. They hashed this data for privacy compliance and used it to establish whether customers begin their journey on a desktop or a mobile device and switch devices along the way. They connected this data with the one coming from their call center. Even if someone became a client via a call, they could see where they came from initially, what path they followed. This gave them insights into their customers’ behavior and more accurate information on the number of prospects.

Their marketing team and the external agencies they cooperated with gained from this change a lot. Piwik PRO Analytics Suite was more intuitive and easier to work with than Adobe Omniture, so more people could actually use it and check the data. It didn’t require extensive training, which was the case with their previous tool. This improved their cooperation with the business intelligence department, which wasn’t possible before.

They performed a lot of A/B tests and used the analytics module to measure the results and optimize their goals. They were able to reduce the number of marketing and analytics scripts on their website thanks to Piwik PRO Tag Manager. All they had on their site now was the Piwik PRO Tag Manager container, which gave them more control over the tags they could implement. This made it easier to monitor the tags and get rid of the unnecessary ones.

They used the data from Piwik PRO to optimize their marketing budget allocation. Thanks to combining their online data and offline data, they knew where the clients came from, so they could estimate which campaigns attracted visitors and had the best conversion rate and ROI. It was easier to evaluate if the money was well spent, and helped to make data-driven decisions when planning the marketing budget.

The last change was the support that XS4ALL was getting from Piwik PRO. There was a technical specialist available to help with the initial implementation process and any changes that they wanted to introduce later on. Piwik PRO’s customer success managers were there to make sure that XS4ALL achieve their analytics goals and make the most out of the platform.