How Terveystalo increased online appointment bookings by 16% with privacy-first analytics and cookie management platform

Terveystalo is Finland’s largest private healthcare company, serving millions of customers with 14,000 healthcare professionals. The company is committed to making healthcare accessible through digital solutions while maintaining strict data privacy standards. Their digital development team includes 120 people, with 15-20 specialists dedicated to analytics and data-driven optimization.

The challenge: Analytics that protects patient privacy

For healthcare providers like Terveystalo, finding the right analytics tool comes with strict requirements that go way beyond what most businesses deal with.

Before switching to Piwik PRO, Terveystalo was using a self-hosted version of Matomo. However, self-hosting analytics was consuming valuable technical resources while preventing them from using modern analytics features that help healthcare organizations improve patient experiences. They needed a solution that could deliver powerful analytics while maintaining their strict privacy standards.

When looking at alternatives, Terveystalo compared major providers like Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics. But these platforms couldn’t meet their basic requirement that healthcare data remain within EU borders at all times.

Strategic migration: From self-hosted to enterprise privacy

The migration to Piwik PRO represented a logical evolution from their Matomo foundation. The platforms’ architectural similarities enabled a seamless transition, allowing Terveystalo to maintain their existing data layer structure while gaining access to essential analytics capabilities.

For consent management, Terveystalo selected Cookie Information based on specific requirements, including pricing and scalability. A critical feature was multi-site consent capability, enabling users to opt in to tracking once across multiple websites without repeatedly encountering cookie banners.

Anonymous analytics: Maximum insights with zero compromise

Terveystalo has been using Piwik PRO for around five years, developing a complete privacy-focused analytics foundation. Their privacy measures go beyond industry standards, including masking IP addresses through their own proxy server, sanitizing sensitive URL parameters, and ensuring complete data isolation once users authenticate.

This anonymous approach allows Terveystalo to analyze user journeys across multiple sessions while maintaining complete privacy protection. As Finland’s largest healthcare provider, serving three million customers in a nation of 5.6 million people, they leverage statistical analysis on aggregated data to measure the effectiveness of optimization without tracking individual patients.

Transforming healthcare access: The 96% self-service success

The impact of data-driven optimization has been transformative for Terveystalo’s core service: online appointment booking. Through systematic analysis and optimization of their booking flow, the company achieved remarkable improvements in self-service adoption.

Self-service booking rates increased from 80% to 96% – a 16-percentage-point improvement that directly translates to reduced call center volume and enhanced customer satisfaction. This optimization enables customer service teams to focus on addressing more complex patient needs, while patients benefit from faster and more convenient access to healthcare services.

Discovering hidden user behavior

Analytics revealed surprising insights about patient behavior that challenged internal assumptions. Analysis showed that more than 40% of private customers actively reviewed doctor information before booking appointments – a discovery that fundamentally changed how Terveystalo approached physician profiles.

This insight led to an initiative encouraging doctors to create more detailed descriptions of their specialties. The results were immediate: physicians who provided comprehensive information about their specialties experienced significantly higher booking rates compared to those with minimal or no profile information.

Optimization through testing: Small changes, significant impact

Terveystalo’s testing program has revealed insights that drive continuous improvement. Two notable examples demonstrate the power of data-driven decision-making:

Interface optimization: Converting a standard booking button to a floating call-to-action increased clicks by 8%. This seemingly minor UI change had a measurable impact across their high-traffic.

Pricing transparency: Against expectations, showing prices earlier in the booking process actually increased conversions by building trust with patients who prefer upfront pricing information.

Real-time ad optimization and continuous innovations

With data available within hours, Piwik PRO Analytics Suite enables Terveystalo’s marketing team to optimize campaigns in real-time. Teams can quickly identify better-performing ad variations and allocate budget accordingly. This agility is particularly valuable in healthcare marketing, where timing and relevance are crucial.

Empowering teams through user-friendly analytics

One of Terveystalo’s most significant achievements has been democratizing data access across their organization. The marketing team now operates independently, building custom dashboards and reports without requiring assistance from the data team.

Advanced analytics: beyond standard reporting

Terveystalo leverages Piwik PRO’s raw data access for sophisticated analytical applications that extend far beyond standard web analytics. Their advanced use cases include:

Process mining: The team uses raw data for process mining applications, mapping user flows graphically to identify non-obvious behavior patterns. This approach reveals insights such as why 5-10% of users follow unexpected pathways, enabling targeted optimizations.

Machine learning applications: Recent projects include using Piwik PRO data to train machine learning models for bot detection and traffic pattern analysis. 

Demand forecasting: Analytics help identify high-demand services in specific locations, enabling data-driven scheduling decisions. When analysis reveals high demand for specialists, such as eye doctors, in particular cities, Terveystalo can advise physicians to increase their availability, creating win-win scenarios for both patients and providers.

GDPR excellence: Setting the standard for healthcare analytics

Terveystalo’s implementation demonstrates how organizations can achieve comprehensive analytics while exceeding GDPR requirements. Their approach includes complete IP anonymization, elimination of advertising network data sharing post-authentication, and minimal data collection principles that prioritize patient privacy above all else.

This privacy-by-design approach enables statistical analysis at scale without compromising individual privacy. With millions of data points available, Terveystalo can identify trends and measure the effectiveness of optimization, rather than focusing on tracking individual users.