Marketing analytics

Let the data brew.

Hands-on guides to privacy-first measurement — funnels, tracking and reporting, without the noise. By Jonathan Whitaker.

Analytics Basics

What Is a Conversion Funnel? A Practical Guide to Funnel Analysis

Most visitors who land on your site never do the thing you want them to do. They arrive, look around, and leave. A conversion funnel is how you figure out where they’re…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jun 4, 2026 ·5 min read

What Is a Conversion Funnel? A Practical Guide to Funnel Analysis

Latest

Privacy & Compliance

Server-Side vs Client-Side Tracking: What’s the Difference?

Your analytics script loads in the visitor’s browser, an ad blocker quietly kills it, and that visit never gets counted. Multiply that across a privacy-conscious audience…

Jonathan Whitaker ·May 18, 2026 ·5 min read

Server-Side vs Client-Side Tracking: What’s the Difference?

Analytics Basics

UTM Parameters Explained: A Practical Guide to Campaign Tracking

You share a link in a newsletter, post it on social, and drop it in a paid ad. A week later, traffic is up — but…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Apr 27, 2026 ·5 min read

UTM Parameters Explained: A Practical Guide to Campaign Tracking

Analytics Basics

What Is Bot Traffic? How to Spot and Filter It

Your traffic spiked 40% overnight and nobody on the team ran a campaign. Before you celebrate, check whether real people drove that spike — because a…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Apr 9, 2026 ·6 min read

What Is Bot Traffic? How to Spot and Filter It

How-To Guides

How to Build a Weekly Marketing Report in 30 Minutes

Nobody reads a 20-page marketing report. The best reports I’ve built fit on a single page and take 30 minutes to put together. Here’s the template.…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 29, 2026 ·6 min read

How to Build a Weekly Marketing Report in 30 Minutes

How-To Guides

How to Track Goals and Conversions Without Google Analytics

You don’t need Google Analytics to track conversions. In fact, most privacy-first tools make it simpler. Here’s how to set up goal tracking in Plausible, Umami,…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 26, 2026 ·8 min read

How to Track Goals and Conversions Without Google Analytics

How-To Guides

How to Set Up Plausible Analytics (Complete Guide)

Plausible takes about ten minutes to set up. No tag managers, no cookie banners, no consent prompts. Here’s every step. I’ve set up Plausible on dozens…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 22, 2026 ·8 min read

How to Set Up Plausible Analytics (Complete Guide)

Tools & Reviews

Matomo Review: Full-Featured Open-Source Analytics

Matomo is the only privacy-first analytics platform that genuinely tries to match Google Analytics feature-for-feature. Whether that’s a strength or a weakness depends on what you…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 19, 2026 ·8 min read

Matomo Review: Full-Featured Open-Source Analytics

Tools & Reviews

Plausible vs Umami: Choosing Your GA Replacement

Plausible and Umami are the two tools I recommend most when someone asks me to replace Google Analytics. They’re both excellent — but they’re built for…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 15, 2026 ·7 min read

Plausible vs Umami: Choosing Your GA Replacement

Tools & Reviews

5 Best Privacy-First Analytics Tools in 2026

Every privacy-first analytics tool claims to replace Google Analytics. Most can — but they do it differently. After testing all of these on real sites, here’s…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 10, 2026 ·10 min read

5 Best Privacy-First Analytics Tools in 2026

Privacy & Compliance

First-Party Data: The Only Data Strategy That Lasts

Third-party cookies are dead. Third-party data is next. If your analytics strategy depends on either, it’s time to rethink. I’ve watched companies scramble every time a…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Mar 5, 2026 ·7 min read

First-Party Data: The Only Data Strategy That Lasts

Privacy & Compliance

GDPR-Compliant Analytics: What You Actually Need to Do

Most GDPR guides are written by lawyers. This one’s written by someone who’s actually had to implement compliant analytics across multiple sites — and dealt with…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Feb 28, 2026 ·9 min read

GDPR-Compliant Analytics: What You Actually Need to Do

Privacy & Compliance

Why Cookie Consent Banners Break Your Analytics

Most websites now show a cookie consent banner. That’s not news. What is news: those banners are silently destroying your analytics data, and most teams don’t…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Feb 22, 2026 ·6 min read

Why Cookie Consent Banners Break Your Analytics

Analytics Basics

What Is Marketing Attribution? Models Explained Simply

You’re running ads, writing blog posts, sending emails, and posting on social media. A customer finally buys. Which channel gets the credit? That question is the…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Feb 16, 2026 ·8 min read

What Is Marketing Attribution? Models Explained Simply

Analytics Basics

Bounce Rate vs Engagement Rate: What Changed and Why

If you’ve been tracking website performance for any length of time, you’ve probably noticed the ground shifting under your feet. Bounce rate used to be the…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Feb 9, 2026 ·7 min read

Bounce Rate vs Engagement Rate: What Changed and Why

Analytics Basics

What Is a Pageview? (And Why It’s a Misleading Metric)

Most marketers can tell you how many pageviews their site got last month. Fewer can tell you what that number actually means — or whether it…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Feb 3, 2026 ·6 min read

What Is a Pageview? (And Why It’s a Misleading Metric)

Analytics Basics

Understanding Website Traffic: Metrics, Tools, and Why Your Numbers Might Be Wrong

“How much traffic does my website get?” seems like a simple question. In practice, the answer depends on what you’re measuring, which tool you’re using, and…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jan 30, 2026 ·8 min read

Understanding Website Traffic: Metrics, Tools, and Why Your Numbers Might Be Wrong

Analytics Basics

What Is Organic Traffic? Understanding Your Most Valuable Visitors

Not all website visitors are created equal. Some find you through ads. Some click a link on social media. Others type your URL directly into their…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jan 20, 2026 ·9 min read

What Is Organic Traffic? Understanding Your Most Valuable Visitors

Privacy & Compliance

What Is Data Minimisation? A Practical Guide to Collecting Less

Every piece of data you collect is a liability. It can be breached, misused, or become a compliance headache. Yet many businesses still operate on a…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jan 13, 2026 ·7 min read

What Is Data Minimisation? A Practical Guide to Collecting Less

How-To Guides

12 Conversion Rate Optimisation Best Practices That Actually Work

You’re getting traffic. People visit your site, look around, and leave. The analytics dashboard shows pageviews going up, but revenue stays flat. This is where conversion…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jan 8, 2026 ·8 min read

12 Conversion Rate Optimisation Best Practices That Actually Work

Analytics Basics

How to Do Cohort Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

You launched a new feature last month. Signups went up. But are those new users actually sticking around, or are they churning faster than your old…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Jan 5, 2026 ·9 min read

How to Do Cohort Analysis: A Step-by-Step Guide

Analytics Basics

What Are Customer Segments? A Simple Guide for Web Analytics

If you manage a website long enough, you start to notice something: not all visitors behave the same way. Some arrive, bounce in two seconds and…

Jonathan Whitaker ·Dec 25, 2025 ·12 min read