Piwik PRO COO Mateusz Krempa: Why Privacy-First Analytics Is An Opportunity

In this interview series by Website Planet, I invite the top minds in SaaS, AI, cybersecurity and martech to share actionable tips from their direct experience and stories to help you build and grow your website.

My guest today is Mateusz Krempa, COO at Piwik PRO, a platform designed to help organizations collect and use customer data effectively while prioritizing privacy and security. At the time of writing, Piwik Pro has over 600 enterprise clients (including the European Commission, Fitch Ratings, and DKMS) and over 12,000 active users on their free plan.

Previously Account Executive at Sales&More, then Project Leader for Atos and then Project Manager at Exlabs Software, he joined Piwik PRO in 2017.

Let’s pick his brain.

To start, tell us briefly about you. What is your current role at your company, and what are the measurable achievements you are most proud of?

My name is Mateusz Krempa, and I’m the Chief Operating Officer at Piwik PRO, creators of an analytics platform called Piwik PRO Analytics Suite. Our platform offers advanced, privacy-friendly solutions for data collection and activation.

In a nutshell, I’m responsible for all customer-facing teams and our long-term business strategy. One of the things I’m most proud of is the growth journey we’ve experienced at Piwik PRO. We’ve transitioned from a service-oriented company to creating one of the best marketing analytics products on the market, with over 10,000 active accounts.

This might not seem spectacular for a SaaS company. But in the context of the analytics market, which has been dominated for years by one player and 2-3 other very large competitors, it shows that we’ve done a remarkable job with our product and our privacy-first approach.

What pain point(s) do you solve for your customers? What was the “aha moment” that led to the idea? Can you share that story with us?

The key problem we address is analyzing the customer journey without compromising user privacy or data security. Our customers need to measure the performance of their digital assets, such as websites, portals, and apps, as well as their marketing and communications activities.

Since the beginning of our company in 2013, we have been conscious of issues surrounding data privacy and security. However, back then Google Universal Analytics was the standard, and there was little emphasis on data privacy and its ethical implications within the analytics and marketing departments.

Events in the previous decade, such as the disclosures by Edward Snowden of global surveillance mechanisms, the Cambridge Analytica scandal, and the introduction of GDPR highlighted the importance of privacy, shifting perspectives of both the industry and the broader public.

Meeting GDPR’s requirements proved challenging for organizations, and some were hit with significant fines. This growing privacy awareness solidified our position as the go-to solution in this area. As events like GDPR, Universal Analytics sunset, Schrems II, and new HIPAA restrictions unfolded, we were ready with one of the best technologies on the market.

What do you think makes your company stand out? What are you most proud of?

We used to primarily focus on our competitive advantage in privacy, but it’s no longer our only edge. We have evolved from being one of the best alternatives to Google Analytics to an integrated analytics platform with excellent data activation capabilities. Additionally, we offer a technologically advanced product with an intuitive user interface that marketers appreciate.

One of the key aspects of our DNA is our personalized and relationship-oriented approach to customers. We don’t just blindly follow scalability and self-service trends. Instead, we build a community and foster partnerships, and we are proud of this commitment.

From your experience, what are the most important elements in building a highly successful online business? Please explain each in detail.

There are many factors to our success, but it all comes down to one thing: the customer.

No shiny feature or splendid strategy is worth anything without a strong customer base. Our acquisition strategy is deeply rooted in our values, such as privacy and user-friendliness, and it covers a lot of use cases, from small to enterprise level. We also rely heavily on the content we create to educate the market. This approach builds our credibility and positions us as experts, resulting in a higher inflow of leads.

We also make our product easy to access with our freemium model, which serves as a powerful source of leads and significantly boosts our brand awareness. On a high level, it’s all about customers, but on a granular level, it’s about executing and improving the small details in the best possible way. Our secret sauce is a great team that can deliver on all these fronts.

“Overall speaking, if I were looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, this would be my first choice. But if you rely heavily, like myself, on Google’s tools, you might find easier just to use Google Analytics. Piwik is a lot more transparent, cleaner, easier to use as a standalone tool though.”

Marco Mancosu, Managing DirectorManaging Director at FCA Digital Marketing Srl

In your opinion, which aspect of running a website tends to be most underestimated? Can you explain or give an example?

While this mindset is becoming less common, some organizations still view privacy as an obstacle rather than an opportunity. Nonetheless, privacy is a key factor in developing trust with your customers, resulting in a higher likelihood of them sharing data with your brand. And once trust is lost, it’s very difficult to regain.

For example, there are still many marketers who are unaware that their sites are firing off potentially dozens of pixels that collect user data without much justification. These companies are at risk of losing trust and face substantial fines from regulators.

If there were one part of the website development process you would have spent 50% more time on, what would it be and why? What made you realize the importance of this step?

From observing our customers’ experiences, it’s clear that more focus needs to be placed on the complete customer journey. It’s not just about driving traffic to your website and getting people to click the CTA button. Instead, it’s about designing the entire experience in a way that allows you to measure and optimize it for your specific KPIs.

By looking at the customer journey holistically, you can better understand and enhance every touchpoint, ultimately leading to more effective strategies and better results.

Based on your experience, what trends and technologies are currently underestimated or overlooked, but have the potential to significantly impact your industry?

In terms of trends, data collection in a privacy-oriented way is definitely here to stay, as privacy has gone mainstream. We’re seeing a rise of aggregation of non-personal data and a strong emphasis on collecting sensitive information only when there’s explicit consent.

Another important trend is personalization of the user experience. To better understand customers’ needs, companies are increasingly investing in solutions that enable data activation such as Customer Data Platforms. The decline of third-party cookies means that marketers will need to increasingly depend on first-party data or zero-party data and create new approaches for user tracking and targeting.