Marketing today comes with a unique set of challenges.
On one hand, you need actionable insights to optimize user experiences and drive campaigns that deliver results. On the other, regulations like General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), ePrivacy, and Google’s updated EU user consent policy set strict demands for compliance.
This leaves marketers walking a fine line between performance and compliance.
On top of that, the modern MarTech stack is also rather complex: even small to mid-sized companies still have 100+ SaaS subscriptions on average. But, despite the high number of tools, only about a third of them are actually utilized.
Many marketing teams and organizations at large rely on separate tools, often from multiple vendors, for different tasks. And more often than not, that leads to inefficiencies, data silos, and compliance gaps. Because of this you might have a lot to gain from simplifying or consolidating your stack as much as possible – both in terms of cost and effective utilization.
One way to do this is by switching from point solutions to modular or integrated platforms.
The integrated analytics platform explained
With the merger of Cookie Information and Piwik PRO, you now have access to an integrated analytics platform with modules covering every stage of the marketing data lifecycle: data collection, processing, analysis, and activation.
Modules are the individual tools that make up the integrated platform, which include a Consent Management Platform (CMP), Tag Manager, Analytics, and Customer Data Platform (CDP). By merging all these modules into a coherent system, the integrated platform:
- Removes data silos: Consolidates data from multiple sources, ensuring consistent and accurate data sets that can be managed in one place.
- Reduces costs and complexity: Minimizes the need to juggle multiple vendors and tools, cutting implementation and maintenance efforts.
- Streamlines workflows: Saves time and resources by creating an efficient, unified system for data management, enabling better use of your data while reducing administrative overhead.
Data collection: CMP and Tag Manager
The first step in any data-driven marketing strategy is collecting data. Cookie Information’s Consent Management Platform ensures that your data collection complies with privacy regulations, giving users full control over their consent preferences – both on your websites and in your mobile apps.
Piwik PRO Tag Manager complements this by ensuring that all tags, such as tracking scripts or marketing pixels, fire only after user consent has been granted.
The dedicated Cookie Information tag automatically maps cookie categories from your CMP to consent types in Piwik PRO. This allows you to trigger tags in Piwik PRO Tag Manager based on consents collected via your cookie banner.
Together, these tools create a robust foundation for compliant and reliable data collection.
Data processing and analysis: Analytics
While collecting data lays the foundation, it doesn’t help you much if you don’t transform it into a structured format and analyze it, visualize it, and so on.
Piwik PRO Analytics offers everything you need to get insights into user interactions, campaign performance, and conversion trends. Flexible dashboards make it easy to get a grand overview of and report on performance.
Data activation: Customer Data Platform
The final step is turning insights into action. Piwik PRO’s Customer Data Platform allows you to consolidate data from multiple sources into a single platform. By integrating user data across touchpoints, you can create comprehensive customer profiles that provide a holistic view of user behavior.
With advanced segmentation capabilities, you can group customers based on behaviors, preferences, or demographics. This enables you to create highly targeted and relevant campaigns that resonate with your audience.
What are the benefits of combining Cookie Information and Piwik PRO?
The integrated platform from Cookie Information and Piwik PRO offers a range of unique benefits, especially if you’re already using Cookie Information’s CMP. Whether you’re relying on tools like Google Analytics or currently operating without an analytics solution, introducing Piwik PRO to your stack can unlock new possibilities.
1. Easy and efficient setup
Cookie Information’s CMP is designed to be user-friendly and requires minimal technical expertise to set up.
While implementing and getting started with a new analytics platform is a slightly more resource-intensive task, Piwik PRO is also comparatively quick to set up. With a user-friendly interface and flat learning curve it’s easy to get started with for technical and non-technical users alike – regardless of whether you’re starting from scratch or migrating from another platform.
2. Cross-platform compliance
One of the major benefits of Cookie Information and Piwik PRO’s integrated platform, is the unrivaled focus on data privacy and security.
With ISO 27001, SOC 2, and HIPAA certifications, the platform upholds the highest standards of data privacy and security at every stage of the data lifecycle. You have full granular control over your data processing methods and you can manage compliance of all the marketing tools installed on your website.
On top of this, no data is shared with any third parties, meaning you are the sole data processor, deciding what happens with your data and where it is stored. In other words, you maintain complete ownership of your data.
This vastly reduces any legal risks related to data collection, but it also comes with a major business advantage.
3. Enable collection and use of first-party data
First-party data is the information you collect directly from users via your own channels, such as your website, mobile app, or CRM platform. However, collecting first-party data requires adhering to privacy regulations, obtaining proper user consent, and maintaining strict control over data collection and processing.
First-party data is often regarded as the most valuable and accurate type of data because it’s based on direct interactions with your users and explicit consent. And it gives you the option to activate your data with the CDP, which mainly relies on first-party data.
4. Connect and activate your data
Research shows that in most organizations, only 32% of collected data is put to work. In other words, they struggle to leverage their data effectively. This highlights the need for platforms that allow users to connect disparate data sources and to activate the data they collect and store.
Cookie Information and Piwik PRO’s integrated platform has a vendor-agnostic and open connection to the broader digital marketing ecosystem, and gives you the freedom to connect and integrate all your data sources.
The CDP solves the problem of dormant data by providing an integrated environment for collecting, unifying, and activating your data:
- Consolidate data from multiple sources to create a single, unified view of the customer.
- Group audiences based on behavior, demographics, and preferences for precise targeting.
- Trigger audiences across multiple touchpoints, including real-time customer interactions.
In the drop-down below, you’ll find examples of specific use cases for the CDP.
Data activation examples
Use case #1: Personalized marketing campaigns
Piwik PRO’s CDP allows you to unify customer data and create highly targeted campaigns. By segmenting customers based on their browsing behavior you could, for example, deliver tailored email offers to those who abandoned their carts, increasing conversion rates.
Use case #2: Cross-channel customer experiences
With unified data you can create consistent and personalized experiences across multiple channels. Using customer profiles to tailor website content, email campaigns, and app notifications, you can ensure users encounter relevant messaging at every touchpoint.
Use case #3: Smarter product recommendations
With CDP insights you can deliver personalized product suggestions to your users. By analyzing purchase history and recommending complementary products, you could boost average order value and customer satisfaction.
Use case #4: Retargeting high-intent customers
Segmenting users who interacted with key pages (e.g., pricing or demo request pages) but didn’t convert, allows you to re-engage them with personalized ads. For example, you could retarget users with a special discount offer tailored to the products they viewed, increasing the likelihood of conversion.
5. Advanced consent analytics and reporting
Cookie Information already includes the Compliance Dashboard, which gives you an overview of cookies on your domain, unclassified cookies, cookies lifespans, data transfers, and consent rates.
Integrating your CMP with Piwik PRO lets you use the analytics capabilities to get even more detailed consent data via the Consent report. The Consent report contains three subreports:
- Decisions about consent: Breaks down the choices people made on your site regarding consent.
- Consents by type: Provides statistics for each consent option on your cookie banner and helps you quickly see the impact of changes in your consent collection strategy and understand overall user consent behavior.
- Consent form interactions: Displays the number of times each button on your cookie banner was clicked.
In addition, you can also customize default reports or create custom reports from scratch by:
- Adding or removing dimensions.
- Including or excluding metrics.
- Setting default sort options and apply filters as needed.
This allows you to make granular reports that are tailored to your specific needs.
You can find examples of specific use cases for advanced consent analytics in the drop-down below.
Advanced consent reporting examples
Use case #1: Track effects of changes to your cookie banner design
You’ve implemented a new cookie banner design, and want to measure the effects on consent rates. By creating a dashboard that tracks consents by type and date, you can see how many of your website visitors have consented to specific purposes, and the decrease/increase in consent rates after the date on which you implemented the changes to your cookie banner.
An overview like this would help you see the impact of changes in your consent collection strategy and understand overall user consent behavior.
Use case #2: Track consent rates by region
Global businesses often face challenges with low consent rates in certain regions. By creating a dashboard that tracks consents by region, you might for example be able to see that more visitors from the United States consented to cookies compared to visitors from Germany.
By identifying trends like this you could tailor your consent banner designs to regional preferences or implement localized messaging.
Use case #3: Geo-target your cookie banner
If you have a global audience or user-base, you might have to comply with region-specific privacy laws, depending on where your user is located.
By creating custom segments you could easily choose to display a CCPA-compliant cookie banner to users based in California, or a GDPR-compliant banner to users based in the EU.
6. Data anonymization: Get data from 100% of your traffic
It’s estimated that many organizations collect only 56% of data available through their operations.
One common issue in this regard is that you’re dependent on user consent for data collection. This means that when users opt out from cookies and similar technologies you can’t necessarily track all sessions and interactions, impacting results and the conclusions you draw.
Piwik PRO Analytics mitigates this by allowing you to collect anonymous data from non-consenting visitors through either visitor cookies and/or session hash:
- Session hash: Creates a session based on the visitor’s IP address, operating system, browser name, browser version, browser language, enabled browser plugins and site/app ID. This hash will help you recognize events that belong to the same session.
- Visitor cookies: Recognizes events that belong to the same session. They will expire 30 minutes after the last event.
This gives you a better understanding of your traffic sources and true performance of your marketing efforts, in turn allowing you to adjust your budgets and efforts accordingly.
Data anonymization case study
How HOPKINS quadrupled campaign traffic data with anonymous analytics
Using Piwik PRO’s anonymous tracking, digital marketing and analytics agency Hopkins resolved tracking challenges for one of its clients specializing in lead and demand generation campaigns.
Hopkins employed Piwik PRO’s anonymous tracking for all website visitors, regardless of their consent status. This approach avoided using cookies, instead utilizing session hashes to consolidate hits into sessions while maintaining anonymity. Identifiable URL parameters, such as GCLID and Facebook Click ID, were also removed from the tracking setup to further ensure compliance with privacy regulations.
The results of implementing Piwik PRO’s anonymous setup were remarkable, particularly during one of the client’s large ad campaigns:
- Increased traffic data: While Google Analytics 4 reported approximately 40,000 visits during the campaign, Piwik PRO revealed the actual traffic levels were closer to 180,000 visits.
- Enhanced session reporting: After introducing anonymous tracking, Piwik PRO reported almost three times more sessions than Google Analytics 4.
This dramatic improvement in data accuracy allowed the client to make more informed decisions, optimize campaign performance, and regain confidence in their marketing efforts – all while adhering to stringent privacy standards.
Achieve marketing success with an integrated platform
Managing multiple vendors for consent management, tag management, analytics, and data activation is time-consuming and costly. Balancing marketing performance with compliance requires tools that work seamlessly together.
With Cookie Information and Piwik PRO, you get a unified solution covering all four capabilities under a single contract. This means fewer redundant tools, lower SaaS spend, and reduced administrative overhead, freeing up time and resources for strategic initiatives.
The integrated analytics platform gives you everything you need to deliver great results while staying compliant with privacy laws. From understanding your audience to optimizing their journeys and activating data responsibly, this platform empowers smarter, more effective marketing.
Take the next step
Discover how Cookie Information and Piwik PRO can help you collect and utilize more data, all while ensuring your compliance and your users’ privacy. Get started for free and experience the potential of a smarter data strategy.
Take the next step
Discover how Cookie Information and Piwik PRO can help you collect and utilize more data, all while ensuring your compliance and your users’ privacy. Get started for free and experience the potential of a smarter data strategy.
