Google Analytics verboden in Nederland?

Why might Google Analytics be banned?

In mid-2020, European courts ruled that the agreements on the transfer of personal data from the EU to the US (titled the Privacy Shield) are against the law. This is because within these agreements, US authorities can access personal data of European Union citizens.

Because Google is a US company and provides its own encryption of personal data, Google may have to hand over unencrypted data to the US authorities if they ask for it. The use of Google Analytics by website owners therefore violates the AVG under certain circumstances, according to these regulators.

Why a possible Google Analytics ban is important for marketers

Chances are that your organisation also uses Google Analytics, as it is most commonly used method to measure website traffic. Chances are your marketing team uses the input to assess which information or products are most in demand, measure which advertising channels work best and improve the website. So if Google Analytics is banned, that will no longer be possible.

Moreover, there are probably many other US marketing tools that have access to your prospects' personal data, such as Mailchimp, Hubspot, Marketo or Facebook Ads. If Google Analytics is banned in the Netherlands, the legality of using these tools might also be called into question.

Why look for a Google Analytics alternative?

While many marketers do not yet seem to care about the possible consequences of third-party cookies disappearing, more and more people are looking for a Google Analytics alternative. We see the search volume for "Google Analytics alternative" increasing. This is a logical reaction, because in order to attract more customers and/or sell more, marketers are using Google Analytics in various ways:

1. Improve the website - e.g. by allowing them to see which content is favoured by prospects or customers or the results of a/b tests
2. Marketing attribution and campaign optimisation- e.g. insight into how many sales advertising campaigns generate, which channels to put your advertising budget into and which landing page your ads should best point to.
3. Distinginguish between visitor groups and individual visitors on your own website and in ad campaigns:

• Introduce new visitors to your brand and your products or services. Branding is key. *Encourage returning visitors to the next stage in the customer journey. Resources and incentives are central.
• Showing customers information and products or services that match what they bought. Customer service and upselling are central.

What is a good Google Analytics alternative?

Fortunately, there is a Google Analytics alternative for measuring website data and legitimately tracking customer behaviour, without you as the first party handing the data over to a third-party. Indeed, as a proponent of data-driven marketing, Centagon uses the customer data platform OpptyLab. Opptylab allows us to store, process and use first-party data. All website behaviour is stored per anonymous visitor. This data is automatically combined with information that web visitors and customers give us themselves (zero-party data, e.g. an e-mail address) or are under the control of the customer (such as customer data). This customer data platform (CDP) pulls in - fully GDPR-compliant - data on website visits via Matomo, which is used by, among others, the European Union itself and recommended by the French regulator.

But doesn't that make Centagon, as an agency, a third party?

As an agency, we are bound by the strict rules of a processing agreement with our clients, which does not allow us to simply access the information and certainly not to transfer it to another party. The client is the party that determines what should happen to the personal data and how it should be done and therefore the processor. The processor is the external party that carries out the processing for the controller.

Such a client's first-party data resides on cloud servers (AWS), but is fully owned by our clients. Other agencies can also use Opptylab's customer data platform and built-in marketing automation system for their own clients as processors.