Monthly Musings — Website Intelligence News Roundup July 2023

TWIPLA Now Has Over 50,000 Premium Users!

Well, this is obviously the big one, all things considered! Our community of web analysts continues to grow and our website intelligence solution is now consequently helping over 50,000 paying clients to grow their businesses. In other words, that’s more people than can watch a football match at Paris’ Parc de Prince stadium!

As a result, we’re all understandably psyched about this in the office. It’s just another landmark to celebrate in a journey that still has loads of surprises to come! So of course, the CEOs have already got their sights set on 100,000 premium users - not to mention the Analytics-as-a-Service clients that we’re also building custom dashboards and other features for. In sum, watch this space!

New Partner TUM Experiences 500% Increase in Web Traffic Data

There’s also a real buzz in the TWIPLA office around our partnership with the Technical University of Munich. It’s only been a few months since the ink dried, but the acclaimed German institution has seen its volume of collected website traffic data increase by 500% as a result of their choice.

What’s more, they achieved this while using TWIPLA’ maximum privacy mode. In effect, this means that they’re collecting more website data than ever before, with a higher level of accuracy than ever before - and all while also completely respecting the anonymity of their website visitors.

This is all thanks to our platform’s cookieless tracking technology that removed TUM’s need for a cookie consent banner. These ugly popups are more often than not rejected by website visitors, and means that the university can now supercharge its digital growth strategy. Our CEO Tim Hammermann had this to say,

“We are excited to partner with TUM - which is recognized for its excellence in research, teaching, and innovation, and equally ranked as one of the best technical universities in the world - and empower them to unlock the full potential of Website Intelligence. Together, we are driving innovation and enhancing the digital experience for their users.”

Introduction of Dynamic Privacy Center Means More Web Traffic Data

As a privacy-first analytics integration, we’ve long been proud of how easy it is for users to calibrate TWIPLA to their preferred privacy level. However, our development team has this month improved functionality further with the introduction of Custom Country Data (CCD).

This revamp of the privacy center means that it will now automatically calibrate data collection to the data privacy laws that protect your individual website visitors. It’s impressive work by our development gang, supercharging data collection capabilities and further increasing the accuracy of insights.

Discover more about Custom Country Data (CCD).

Unlocking Website Traffic Potential: 10 Digital Channels You Need to Utilize

First up on Facebook, a post about the best digital channels for increasing website traffic really resonated with our audience. It makes sense on balance because increasing website visitor numbers is obviously key to wider digital success, and we all need reminding sometimes about marketing basics.

Learn more about unlocking website traffic potential.

How to Reach Your Ideal Customers with Targeted Marketing Strategies

Next comes our LinkedIn post on targeted marketing that also hit the bullseye in July, and no wonder! Focused marketing strategies are the most effective way to spend your marketing dime, and also makes life so much easier when you switch into sales mode. All in all, we should always be looking for targeted marketing opportunities wherever possible, and hopefully this article will push you in the right direction.

Learn more about targeted marketing.

Overall, it’s been an especially exciting month at TWIPLA. Much of it has been dedicated to migrating data to a sparkly new website backend, and our Typo3 developers have done a fantastic job of soothing any growing pains.

There’s been no rest for the wicked however, and we’ve still found time to publish a swathe of new blogs to keep you occupied on your downtime. As a result, they’re all waiting for you in our Resource Center but you can also find the most popular ones from July below:

Swedish Regulator Cracks Down on Google Analytics, Issues $1M in Privacy Fines

Stockholm’s watchdog became the first data privacy authority to fine businesses for using Google Analytics. This consequently shows that GDPR enforcement agencies are finally growing into their boots and hitting companies that are not keeping the data of EU citizens safe.

Marco Blocher, a data protection lawyer at data privacy action group noyb, had this to say:

"Finally, a DPA has imposed a significant fine for the continued use of a tool that transfers personal data to the United States in violation of the GDPR – and banned the further use of that tool. This is a pleasant change compared to other DPAs simply holding that there has been a violation but creating no incentive to comply in the future. In summary, we hope that other DPAs follow the Swedish DPAs example and put an end to unlawful data transfers."

Learn more about the IMY decision on Tele2 and CDON’s analytics practices.

Is Jotform GDPR Compliant?

Privacy obviously runs to the core of everything we do at TWIPLA. Hell, even our German CEOs keep their clothes on at the beach. And to continue this theme, we’ve started a new series of articles that looks into the GDPR compliance of popular website integrations.

First up this month was Jotform - an online form builder and survey tool for the less geeky gang of businesses out there. Spoiler alert: ease-of-use aside, their data storage practices don’t quite cut the GDPR mustard, and this integration can also put you in a legal pickle as a result if you’re not careful.

Learn more about the GDPR compliance of Jotform.

Is Hotjar GDPR Compliant?

Next up in our digital data detective drive comes Hotjar - a website analytics integration that’s also been around the block for quite some time. The platform’s fire for many digital marketers and we tip our TWIPLA hat to the commitment they’ve shown to data security.

However, their cookie-based technology is old hat compared to the more advanced cookieless tracking model we have under our hood, and we therefore can’t roll out the red carpet for a software that forces businesses to hide their website behind unsightly cookie banners that cause datasets to crumble.

Learn more about the GDPR compliance of Hotjar.

ChatGPT and Data Privacy: Is the OpenAI Tool Secure?

OpenAI’s chatbot has burst onto the scene over the last few months. I for one welcome our new AI overlords, even if the thought of ChatGPT pulling the rug from under my blossoming career as a marketing content writer is giving me night sweats because of this.

But maybe it’ll be ChatGPT barbequing rats over an alleyway oildrum instead of me after all! The platform has had a testing 2023, and this article shines a light on its data privacy practices and how it’s responded to some pretty testing legal issues over the last few months.

At the heart of the problem lies the somewhat innate conflict between data-guzzling artificial intelligence and weight-watching data privacy laws:

“On one hand, we have the GDPR, a robust legal framework established to protect the privacy rights of EU citizens. It’s a stringent piece of personal data protection legislation, and GDPR consequently has real implications for marketers. On the other hand, AI has an insatiable appetite for vast amounts of data, occasionally crossing boundaries in its pursuit. Given this, striking a balance between these opposing forces presents a monumental challenge for OpenAI.”

Learn more about ChatGPT and Data Privacy.

Data Privacy Legislation and EU Analytics Cookie Compliance

Last of all in July's monthly musings comes analytics and cookie compliance in the EU. At TWIPLA, we think that cookies are a fairly stale way to collect website traffic data. Similarly, internet users also hate cookies and have a habit of rejecting consent banners - reducing the amount of data that businesses can collect on their website visitors.

Nevertheless, they remain the basis for the vast majority of website analytics platforms that are on the market today. This article therefore looks at how businesses can use these integrations in a way that respects EU data privacy legislation, and also tables cookieless analytics as an alternative for businesses that don’t want the hassle that comes with adopting tracking cookie-based technologies.

Learn more about analytics, cookie compliance, and EU data privacy compliance.