Wordpress: Choosing Privacy-first Analytics

These gripes about Wordpress’ directory extend to most plugin searches.

And if you're on the market for other tools, we've already written about the 10 essential Wordpress plugins.

However, these gripes make finding a privacy-focused analytics platform particularly difficult. Website analytics is a huge market, and the options are all different in terms of the features they provide.

Defining a Privacy-focused Wordpress Analytics Plugin

Data privacy is a vital consideration for website analytics in 2023, and you can read more about this fascinating subject in our GDPR and Data Privacy Resource Hub.

These platforms are powered by website visitor data. Their capacity to collect personal data - and even personally identifiable information like names, IP addresses, and geographic locations - puts them squarely within the scope of GDPR and other data privacy laws.

Businesses can mitigate their responsibilities under data privacy legislation by choosing a privacy-first analytics integration. These will use cookieless tracking technologies that remove the need for explicit user consent. They’ll also ideally fully anonymize visitor data, scrubbing it of all identifiable information.

The data storage practices of these platforms is also important for data privacy compliance. This extends to the type of data they collect, how it’s stored, and whether it’s shared with third parties. It also extends to how transparent they are about these practices.

Today, there are some Wordpress plugins that fit this criteria. However, privacy has become something of a marketing buzzword in recent years. People often throw it around with little substance. Some integrations will claim to be privacy-compliant, but still use cookies to track website visitors.

Taken together, it’s a real headache.

It means that Wordpress users will need to be careful about how they set up many of the analytics plugins. And for those that use cookies, they’ll still need to ensure that they activate cookie banners. They'll also need to update their privacy policy, even if the platform claims to be data privacy-compliant.

Ideally, what they want is an analytics platform that is GDPR-compliant straight out of the box. However, these are few and far between, and you’ll find the list of them that we’ve compiled further down this article.

If you search for “privacy website analytics” in Wordpress’ marketplace, you'll find a huge number of options - 402 to be exact.

But scratch beneath the surface and options dwindle. Since the filtering system is so limited, the vast majority of these results are not privacy-focused. Instead, they’re any integration with the words “privacy”, “website”, and “analytics” in their description. Which, basically, is just about anything. 

Google Analytics Powers Many Analytics Integrations

Between the different iterations of Google Analytics - think Google Analytics 4 and Universal Analytics - there’s no shortage of plugins from Alphabet.

This makes sense, given the stranglehold that Google has over the market.

Many plugins from third parties also complement its official, first-party plugins. Some help users to, for instance, add Google Analytics’ tracking code to their site. Others allow them to see the analytics data in the Wordpress’ dashboard.

There are also a range of popular plugins that are powered by Google Analytics. These include MonsterInsights, ExactMetrics, and Beehive Analytics.

Google Analytics Isn’t Privacy-compliant

Regardless of how it is integrated into Wordpress or claims from integrations that have adapted it, Google Analytics is not data privacy-compliant.

Frankly, it's easy to see why.

Google Analytics uses cookies to website visitor personal data. It also stores data stateside, violating GDPR standards for the transfer of EU citizen data outside of its borders.

But privacy regulations don’t stop at the EU border.

The US government has the power to access personal data on request. Google’s storage of data there will consequently also violate other privacy laws - many of which, like California's CCPA, were modeled on the GDPR.

And unfortunately, it’s user businesses that are liable for the misuse of website visitor data by Google Analytics. Companies are now finding this out in court. Recent legal action in Sweden shows that they now face large fines and also need to deal with reputational damage in the eyes of internet users who are increasingly aware of the dangers to their privacy online.

Alternative Wordpress Analytics Integrations

Away from Google, there’s still a wide range of plugin options available to website owners. This is understandable given the popularity of Wordpress, with all software developers wanting a slice of the pie.

Of course, TWIPLA is a great alternative to Google Analytics. But we've identified 24 other Wordpress plugins that initially seemed to meet data privacy compliance requirements.

However, most of these suffer from similar privacy issues. Beehive Analytics claims to take privacy seriously, but it’s powered by Google Analytics so isn’t a serious option.

SlimStat also claims to be data-privacy compliant, but it uses cookies and is tight-lipped about its data storage and sharing practices. Clicky Analytics also uses cookies, as does AFS Analytics and Pikiwk Pro.

Likewise Advanced Page Visit Counter, which claims to take privacy seriously and yet is another platform that isn’t transparent enough about its cookie usage.

The list goes on. But simply put, most wordpress analytics plugins just aren’t really privacy minded. This speaks to broader issues in the market, as well as how difficult it is to create software that can effectively report on website performance within the restrictions set by data privacy laws.

Given these issues, our 25-strong list of Wordpress analytics plugin options has been whittled down to 9. That’s a tiny fraction of the 402 results that came up in our initial “privacy website analytics” search.

And if anything, this highlights the paucity of options for such a vital website component from Wordpress’ directory that has just shy of 60,000 plugins.

However, we had to disregard any integration powered by Google Analytics. We also had to remove plugins that had less than 100 active installations, an indication that they aren’t trusted by the Wordpress community (for the time being at least).

This left us with only 9 analytics integrations to recommend. Some of these plugins will directly integrate into Wordpress. Others simply help users to add their tracking code to the platform - which they can then view in another page tab or app.

Our Recommended Privacy-first Wordpress Analytics Integrations

As you can see from the table above, seven of our selection offer cookieless tracking by default. This is evidence that they have privacy by design.

Website owners can set up the remaining two to collect data without tracking cookies. However, this can reduce reporting accuracy.

Crucially, they all either store data on a Wordpress server local to the website owner, within the EU, or in a country with an EU GDPR Adequacy Ruling. And since the GDPR is the strictest data privacy law in the world, this ensures that their data storage practices comply with all laws globally.

As you can see from the findings of our Wordpress analytics plugin research, privacy still remains a niche part of the wider sector. However, this will undoubtedly change. Data privacy legislation continues to tighten. Data protection authorities are also enforcing violations in ever-increasing numbers.

Ultimately, privacy-first analytics is a social good that enables businesses to collect more website traffic data. It also allows them to do this while keeping visitor data safe. This mitigates security risks, and helps to build website credibility amongst internet users who are increasingly aware of the dangers the internet poses to their personal information.

Of course, the integrations we’ve identified were not all created equally. They each have different features, and different businesses will find them suitable.

We've reviewed the nine privacy-perfect Wordpress plugins to help you get to know what's available.

TWIPLA stands proudly as the best option available. It offers more features than any of the alternatives, and its advanced cookieless tracking system maximizes data collection and the accuracy of insights.

So sign up today and unlock your website's true potential!