Matomo vs Google Analytics: Which web analytics platform we chose and why

In some respects, when first comparing Matomo vs Google Analytics they appear very similar:

  • both have very large user bases (Wikipedia tells us that Matomo is installed on approaching 1.5m websites, and Google Analytics is used on 66% of the world’s most ‘popular’)
  • and both have very impressive analytical functionality and dashboards, with hundreds of alternative views into the data

However, there are important reasons why, when looking for the right web analytics platform to link our clients’ websites with our customer data platform UniFida, we chose Matomo.

Matomo vs Google Analytics

  • Matomo gives our clients full ownership of the data it collects and stores. So, we can download from Matomo as much of our clients’ browsing data as they want. In reality we let Matomo do most of the storing, and we only download and keep the data that we can match to known customers.
  • The data provided is not sampled as it is in Google Analytics (unless you buy the GA 360 Premium version). This means that the view you get of what is happening on your website is not biased by the way the sample is selected.
  • There is a retention period of 24 months for the data that Matomo collects. This means that when a browser converts into being a recognisable customer, we can at that point download all their historic browsing activity for 24 months back.
  • Matomo has a GDPR manager to ensure that your website is fully compliant with the regulations.
  • We receive quick and detailed email support for any problems we hit.

And the extraordinary truth is that instead of paying $150,000 a year per client for GA 360 Premium you will pay a very much smaller amount, just based on the number of page views on your website; for instance, for up to 1m page views per month you will pay around $500 for Matomo.

Indeed, the combined cost of UniFida and Matomo for a customer data platform of up to 1m customers will come to around just one third of the cost of just buying GA 360 Premium.

Using Matomo we are now combining the browsing data collected via Matomo, with clients’ offline data, to provide our clients with a cross channel analysis of what is really driving their orders, not just on what they clicked on last. And we are also using it to help us understand how actively individual customers are browsing, and what their specific interests are.

If you would like to discuss further, then please email [email protected] to let us know when would be a convenient time to call you.


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UniFida is the trading name of Marketing Planning Services Ltd, a London based technology and data science company set up in 2014. Our overall aim is to help organisations build more customer value at less marketing cost.

Our technology focus has been to develop UniFida. Our data science business comes both from existing users of UniFida, and from clients looking to us to solve their more complex data related marketing questions.

Marketing is changing at an explosive speed, and our ambition is to help our clients stay empowered and ahead in this challenging environment.