Third-party tracking and the problem for mobile apps

Over the past 10+ years, there has been one constant in the world of internet traffic tracking: Google Analytics. Sure, there have always been many alternatives, but thanks to the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), using Google Analytics and similar tools is becoming more complex and difficult.

For mobile apps, the whole thing goes one step further: Apple already started to restrict or even prevent third-party tracking in iOS apps with the introduction of iOS 15, and Google followed suit in October 2022 and enacted a similar policy for the Google Play Store.

What does this mean for app operators?

We have seen a massive drop in valid tracking data from our partners and customers since the introduction of these third-party tracking restrictions. As a result, reliable statements about the success of new features or marketing campaigns are only possible to a limited extent or not at all.

This strategic limitation is a problem for many companies, because the operation and further development of an app costs money and the companies understandably want to know whether their further development and marketing measures also bear the desired success. However, this is simply not possible without reliable data.

A possible way out

However, there is a light at the end of the tunnel: The well-known open source solution Matomo, formerly developed under the name Piwik, is still offered as an open source solution for self-hosting, but also as a cloud solution. For our problem with mobile apps, however, the cloud solution is not interesting.

The self-hosted version is much more interesting. Why? - Simple: If you host your analytics system yourself, it is a first-party system and therefore does not fall under the restrictions of third-party tracking.

This way we get back reasonable analytics numbers for our mobile apps and can continue to evaluate our development and marketing campaigns and adjust our strategy based on that.

What to do if you can not or do not want to host yourself?

We are happy to support you. Together with our hosting partner Hetzner we can set up your own Matomo instance and support you with the configuration and integration into your app.

Sounds interesting? - Then be open and say hello to us!

Address

BNO Technology Solutions e.K.
Burggrafenstraße 21
41061 Mönchengladbach
Germany

Contact

Phone: +49 2161 2700142
Fax:       +49 2161 2700143
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