Hopkins has been Piwik PRO’s partner since 2020, and their story appears as part of our Partner Spotlight series.
Hopkins was founded in 2016 and has grown into one of Finland’s largest digital marketing agencies. They focus on their key competencies, which include digital advertising, search engine optimization, web analytics, and marketing automation. Since Hopkins partnered with Piwik PRO, they have been at the forefront of implementing innovative analytics solutions, mainly focusing on the nuances and challenges of anonymous data collection.
The challenge of bulletproof data
As Hopkins’ experts have seen, many marketing managers and stakeholders demand what they refer to as “bulletproof numbers.” They seek precise metrics on sessions and conversions without acknowledging the inherent complexities of data collection.
For instance, some clients initially struggled to grasp their data consent rates, leaving them unaware of the significant volumes of data they were missing. When faced with reports of declining performance, they could not determine whether these changes were due to shifts in data concentration, the rise of ad blockers, or potential missteps from their marketing teams. In addition, the lack of a unified source of truth in reporting often resulted in conflicting data pulled from various advertising platforms and analytics sources.
As analytics professionals, we understand that achieving absolute certainty in these figures with a standard analytics implementation is virtually impossible in 2024. This gap in understanding often leads to frustration when clients receive reports indicating declining metrics without context. The difficulty here is that they lack a single source of truth and misunderstand consent rates.
Mikko Piippo
Consultant at Hopkins
Piwik PRO’s anonymous tracking
One of Hopkins’ case studies focuses on a prominent B2B services company specializing in lead and demand generation campaigns. Piwik PRO’s anonymous tracking has been implemented for this client. This approach ensures the client can track user interactions in a manner that complies with relevant privacy regulations.
In practice, Hopkins used Piwik PRO anonymous tracking for all visitors, regardless of consent status. They opted not to use cookies – crucial for maintaining anonymity – and instead utilized session hashes to consolidate hits into sessions. This method enabled the collection of valuable data about user interactions without compromising individual privacy. Also, removing identifiable URL parameters such as GCLID and Facebook Click ID from the tracking setup supported the company’s commitment to anonymous data collection.
Data insights and GDPR compliance
The critical insights obtained through Piwik PRO include session data, geolocation at the country level, and last-click conversion attribution. This approach aligns well with the client’s focus on direct response advertising to generate new leads and webinar registrations.
A key concern for many clients is ensuring GDPR compliance. With Piwik PRO’s support, Hopkins meticulously outlined the data collection processes – detailing what information is gathered, what is excluded, and how it is stored. This comprehensive framework received approval from the company’s data protection officer and was presented to senior management for endorsement.
User-friendly implementation
Setting up anonymous tracking with Piwik PRO was straightforward. The user-friendly interface allowed Hopkins to configure options such as disabling visitor keys while ensuring compliance with CNIL guidelines. Hopkins also introduced an option to refrain from collecting device-specific data without consent, further enhancing user privacy.
Remarkable results
The results from implementing Piwik PRO’s anonymous setup were striking, starting from one of the B2B clients’ large ad campaigns. After transitioning to this approach, the client saw a dramatic increase in traffic. Piwik PRO captured traffic numbers much larger than those reported by Google Analytics.
For example, while Google Analytics 4 recorded approximately 40,000 visits during a campaign period, Piwik PRO revealed actual traffic levels of roughly 180,000 visits, which is over four times larger. In addition, after introducing anonymous tracking, Piwik PRO reported almost three times more sessions than GA4.
These discrepancies occur because many people don’t consent to tracking, and GA4 does not capture that data. However, you can gather all these figures using Piwik PRO anonymous tracking.
Not only does this benefit our understanding of traffic size, but also the traffic sources. It’s also good to realize that cookie consent varies significantly between different traffic sources. In this particular case, thanks to Piwik PRO, we discovered that most of the traffic was coming to the site from PPC, organic, and then direct. However, the GA4 analytics numbers showed that only 5% came from PPC. As a result, depending on the analytics data you obtain, paid advertising and campaigns have varying effects. While this specific example relates to a B2B client, each company’s experience may differ. Still, relying solely on the regular analytics setup that only uses the consent mode can leave you navigating in the dark.
Lotta Holm
Consultant at Hopkins
The discrepancies in data analysis between these two platforms highlighted the limitations of traditional analytics setups that rely on user consent for tracking. Thanks to Piwik PRO’s anonymous tracking capabilities, Hopkins obtained a comprehensive view of user engagement and traffic sources, which allows it to act on data effectively.
Conclusion
Thanks to its partnership with Piwik PRO, Hopkins can navigate the complexities of anonymous analytics effectively by prioritizing privacy while delivering actionable insights. The company has equipped their clients with the tools to make informed decisions based on complete data sets. As a leader in the industry, Hopkins experts remain committed to helping businesses harness the power of anonymous analytics to increase their performance and growth.
With Piwik PRO anonymous tracking, we got more traffic and more accurate data on where people are coming from. For example, before implementing anonymous tracking, Piwik PRO reported a similar number of sessions to GA4. After the change, Piwik PRO reports almost three times as many! For the first time in five years, our client has numbers and metrics they understand and can report. Our B2B client is happy with how everything was collected and implemented, where the data is being stored, and how it’s stored.
Mikko Piippo
Consultant at Hopkins
About our partner:
Hopkins is a digital marketing and analytics agency helping ambitious organizations optimize their digital marketing and digital presence at every stage of the customer path.
The company’s clients are B2C and B2B businesses in retail, healthcare and social services, energy, hospitality, IT consulting, real estate, and construction. In addition, Hopkins delivers analytics and marketing services for the public sector.
Market:
EMEA
Industry:
Digital analytics