I came across an interesting alternative approach from Philip Walton. He explains clearly why all websites cannot work with the default definition of a page view in Analytics and how we someone could start using the page’s visibility state (using the Page visibility API). Unfortunately this post was originally published in 2017 and still until today, even though Single Page Application (SPA) websites are widely used, we reply mostly on complicated implementations to virtually create page views for analytics tracking. Another alternative to this problem is to use an Event Driven Data Layer (EDDL), but I like the simplicity of...
Panagiotis Tzamtzis - Digital analytics consultant & Web developer
Enterprise websites split across many regions and locales are huge, but every page matters. Keeping track of the website’s quality, across all pages and on different devices, is a complicated and time-consuming process. It requires the constant evaluation of page performance, web analytics implementation accuracy, accessibility, and SEO audits.Baresquare developed an automated solution to keep track of website changes and website quality. This is a scalable solution built on GCP, with cost and resources customized to the website’s size. The solution utilizes a customized version of Lighthouse SDK and a BigQuery database for keeping track of results. Analyzing results is...
A new trend is rising in the analytics and web marketing community! Lists of 50 things you believe about your industry. This list was created based on my experience working in digital analytics projects since 2008 and from numerous conversations I had while organizing the Digital analytics meetup, Thessaloniki since 2017.
Recently Apple & Google announced a partnership, which would allow them to create a digital contact tracing solution, that would work for iOS and Android phones on a global level. Can such a widespread application work safely?
In the following article, I shared a few thoughts on the risks and opportunities for the Greek government, the EU and every citizen. It's clear that we will have to face a lot of difficult decisions in the coming years, in the dawn of a new era which relies heavily on data.
I was very pleased to exchange and share some thoughts with Sotiris Kyriakidis from the Greek news agency “Praktoreio” on how big data can help the current battle against the Coronavirus (Covid-19). It’s the first pandemic (at least in my lifetime), where data scientists or just a data enthusiast can play an important part in how governments handle the Coronavirus crisis. I would be glad to hear your thoughts. (Unfortunately the interview is only available in Greek) Τα «big data» ως τεχνολογικό όπλο για την αντιμετώπιση ασθενειών Εμβόλια, φάρμακα, θεραπείες, έρευνα είναι μερικές μόνο από τις ανθρώπινες δραστηριότητες στον τομέα...
If you have reached a state where the analytics business stakeholders have clearly defined KPIs, spend time discussing website optimization goals and the data collection setup is working consistently, then definitely A/B testing is the next step.
Over the past couple of years, we’ve seen a lot of changes in web analytics and privacy. We saw the release of GDPR and CCPA, the rise of ad-blockers (both in mobile and desktop devices), several releases of Safari’s ITP, Mozilla’s ETP and announcements from Google on similar browser changes in the beginning of 2020. One thing is for sure, the way web analytics was working before is evolving. It does not look like the wild west anymore and there are several rules someone needs to keep in mind when setting up the tracking for a website/mobile app. It’s very...
Firefly III is a (self-hosted) manager for your personal finances. It can help you keep track of your expenses and income, so you can spend less and save more. Firefly III supports the use of budgets, categories and tags. It can import data from external sources and it has many neat financial reports available. Here are some screenshots. If you are using a Synology NAS you can easily use a Docker container to install Firefly, following the instruction below. The original docker installation instructions from Firefly’s website are available here. Docker installation on Synology (DSM 6.2) We are going to...
As part of the 17th digital analytics meetup, which I’m hosting in Thessaloniki, I held a talk on how to use common digital analytics tools to optimize the online experience of visitors. I wanted to show ways a digital analyst can utilize commonly used tools/services in smart ways, which go beyond what is advertised by the vendors. A mature, professional website starts its development cycle several months before its publication, but many may do not know that its development is completed shortly before it is replaced by its replacement (usually several years later). During its “life” there are constantly technical...
