> Here's a crazy idea: Don't use analytics at all but focus on your product. If your success relies solely on "improving conversions" by tracking your users and then changing the position and color of your "Checkout" button then maybe try setting yourself apart
I am very much onboard with this idea. The notion that it is a requirement that businesses track individual customers’ actions in order to succeed is pervasive in this newly-connected world we inhabit. It feels too early in my life to be a grumpy old man but I do certainly feel like it sometimes. Brick and mortar retailers manage to reach an acceptable level of business without watching exactly how every customer looks at shelves by just selling things people want or need and I don’t see why the internet should be much different. Surveillance just because we can is not something I like.
Disclaimer: I hate Google Analytics because I hate Google, I hate monopolies, and I hate excessive hoarding of user data. I think the necessary aspects of tracking can be maintained without having all the bad aspects, but we need to break up the ad companies first.
> without watching exactly how every customer looks at shelves
This is absolutely not true. Do you have experience with managing brick and mortar stores? Ever been to a grocery store with a "discount"/rewards program? That's their tracking of individual behavior.
They also use credit card data for the same purpose, although CC data is less reliable than rewards cards.
Coupons accomplish the same thing. You put out a specific coupon code for each newspaper/circular/TV ad, and then you see how they convert.
Things like Google Analytics are just the web version of things that have been done for almost 100 years.
Rewards programs are opt-in. Stores have even stopped harassing me to sign up.
Analytics are the equivalent of a computer following you around the store, watching what you look at, how long you look at it, what you pick up, what you pull out of your cart and put back...
I’ve never in my life gotten message from the grocery store saying, “Hey, we saw you were looking at grapefruit. Here are some other citrus fruits we think you might like.”
I’ve never in my life had a store send me a message offering to sell me all the items I abandon in my cart on my last trip.
There is certainly data brick and mortar are looking at and it is often intrusive and creepy. Still, they weren’t doing this a few decades ago and they were fine. They’re pointing at online stores and saying “But it’s the only way we can survive!” It’s almost bizarre to point back at the more expensive, often first-party controlled, less accurate solutions of brick and mortars and say, “But they’re doing it too!”
(This problem is compounded when this data is given freely to a third party who now has much more data than even the individual stores or websites.)
All this adds no benefit to me as a customer. Lower prices are not a benefit if I’m also being psychologically influenced to spend those savings and more on something else.
Online or offline, I don’t care. Stop doing it. It’s creepy and unethical. It’s a waste of resources that could go towards giving me better products or a better experience. It’s the equivalent of cops asking for back doors in encryption schemes because it makes their jobs easier. If businesses can’t find a way to stop doing it themselves than I think maybe we need some regulation.
> Analytics are the equivalent of a computer following you around the store, watching what you look at, how long you look at it, what you pick up, what you pull out of your cart and put back...
I hate to break it to you, but that's already happening too. Many retailers are using NFC/RFID + door scanners combined with CCTV and computer vision to track exactly these sorts of things, as well as patterns of flow. Retail store layout is a critical part of product placement optimization and is used to create particular flows through the store. The most blatant example of store layout controlling flow is how an IKEA is designed, however these things are used very heavily in grocery and mixed retail spaces (Walmart, Target).
> Still, they weren’t doing this a few decades ago and they were fine.
This part at least isn't really true. Since grocery stores have been around, there have been people working full time in effectively analytics - observing customer behavior, modifying products/layouts/UX, doing a/b testings etc. Digitizing everything gives new tools and approaches but overall the game hasn't really changed.
Every part of your experience in an grocery store has been analyzed and tweaked since at least the 60s.
I disagree, and I would prefer the entirety of my phrasing be quoted:
> Brick and mortar retailers manage to reach an acceptable level of business without watching exactly how every customer looks at shelves by just selling things people want or need [...]
I am referring to the enormous number of independent retailers, not just the small number of ultra-wealthy retail giants. Note I was careful to say "acceptable level of business" rather than "absolutely maximised profits", because I don't necessarily agree that it is a requirement that all people make as much money as they can possibly manage.
If you were to make the argument that monitoring customers' actions is a means to make more money, I wouldn't disagree. I just don't think that all businesses will fail miserably without it.
> Do you have experience with managing brick and mortar stores?
Yes. They're small shops that serve a well-understood need for the local population and produce a sustainable income for everyone involved. No need to do much more than that for me.
I think classifying grocery store operations as frontend/backend is too far from reality to be a useful analogy. That’s not to say that I don’t agree that google analytics is more insidious than just about anything grocery stores do.
Tracking individual users is how Google Analytics works. Every hit has a "client ID" to tie together hits that came from the same browser. You can trace the actions of an individual in the "User Explorer Report." Although in practice, that's only useful for debugging.
The terms of service prevent you from putting PII into Google Analytics data. It is perfectly acceptable (and even encouraged) to put in an opaque identifier, which connects to PII stored in a different system. That is, for example, how you implement the official integration between Google Analytics and Salesforce CRM.
I am very much onboard with this idea. The notion that it is a requirement that businesses track individual customers’ actions in order to succeed is pervasive in this newly-connected world we inhabit. It feels too early in my life to be a grumpy old man but I do certainly feel like it sometimes. Brick and mortar retailers manage to reach an acceptable level of business without watching exactly how every customer looks at shelves by just selling things people want or need and I don’t see why the internet should be much different. Surveillance just because we can is not something I like.