#023: A European View of Analytics with Matthias Bettag

The following is a straight-up machine translation. It has not been human-reviewed or human-corrected. However, we did replace the original transcription, produced in 2017, with an updated one produced using OpenAI’s WhisperX in 2025, which, trust us, is much, much better than the original. Still, we apologize on behalf of the machines for any text that winds up being incorrect, nonsensical, or offensive. We have asked the machine to do better, but it simply responds with, “I’m sorry, Dave. I’m afraid I can’t do that.”

00:00:04.90 [Announcer]: Welcome to the Digital Analytics Power Hour. Three analytics pros and the occasional guest discussing digital analytics issues of the day. Find them on Facebook at facebook.com forward slash analytics hour. And now, the Digital Analytics Power Hour.

00:00:24.83 [Michael Helbling]: Hello everyone, welcome to the Digital Analytics Power Hour. This is Episode 23. Hey, all you listeners out there, come fly with me over the sea to a place full of history. That’s right, I’m talking about Europe or the EU or whatever, but it’s all those countries over there where a lot of us in America came from. They also do analytics over there. And we have a lot of listeners. And so we became interested. Who could help us understand the landscape? What’s going on over there? And so of course, my two co-hosts and I started thinking about that. I want to introduce Tim Wilson.

00:01:08.28 [Tim Wilson]: I’m so excited to have Angela Merkel on.

00:01:11.88 [Michael Helbling]: It’s awesome. And Jim Cain, who’s sort of like being in Europe in that Ottawa is sort of a European city.

00:01:20.35 [Jim Cain]: We’re Commonwealth. God save the Queen and all that.

00:01:23.05 [Michael Helbling]: Okay, perfect. So we have with us today a guest from the EU, Matthias Betag, who is someone we’ve known for a little while and is a digital analyst consultant. He’s in Berlin, Germany, and he’s the DAA’s country manager there as well as He runs an analytics conference called the digital analytics hub that came out of the exchange conference from when he was with Symphonic here in the States. Prior to that, he was also with Bayer. So has a long history in the digital analytics community, someone with passion for our industry. So Matias, welcome to the podcast.

00:02:05.50 [Matthias Bettag]: Hi everybody, very pleased to be here. Thank you guys.

00:02:08.36 [Michael Helbling]: So we’re excited. I’m excited. Tim Wilson is usually stony faced and you know, whatever, but this is so interesting because you know, of course we understand the context of digital analytics pretty well here in the United States, but there are many differences and many peculiarities for digital analytics that are quite different. So maybe let’s start off with a question. How are things in the EU for analytics?

00:02:36.12 [Matthias Bettag]: this is a really broad

00:02:40.64 [Jim Cain]: Here’s my first question. Tell me all of it.

00:02:45.03 [Matthias Bettag]: So things are going well, I would say. I see big developments. I’m happy to be on the consultant side because the demand is so high that actually acquisition is not really a big topic. There are a lot of movements. It’s actually quite interesting. We see we will probably talk about that. A different set of tools, probably a bigger variety, even in the high-end market. On the same side, we are fragmented in some ways, so it’s not like there is no European language, as I once heard. So there is, of course, a different way how the community in all the different countries is connected to each other. There are international events, no questions. The show I run with Michael Finer in UK is truly international, the digital analytics hub. And there we have some 13, 17 different countries, people from different countries joining. There are other events where people can meet. So the measure camp in London is a great opportunity. There are local events, really small events, like we have this fun thing, measure bowling. which is segment which you have two people right you have the one people who are good at analytics you have other people who are good at bowling and then there is a small fraction which applies for both and so this is a funny event which goes over i don’t know 24 30 cities every quarter so there is interaction building things are building up but you can’t really compare to the same way as it has been developing in the US since, well, I follow it since 2007. DAA was founded in 2004, I guess. And having one economy, one language, one currency makes it a heck of easier to have a bigger market being well connected to each other. So this is a major difference, I’d say.

00:04:28.41 [Michael Helbling]: Do you find that country by country, there are there are distinctions in terms of sophistication, usage of tools, those kinds of things?

00:04:37.28 [Matthias Bettag]: There are quite a few differences, but it’s not always by the country. It’s not that some countries are per se smarter in analytics than others. I wouldn’t say that. You find the whole plethora everywhere. Of course, in a bigger market like UK or Germany, you have it easier to find a few couple of bigger companies doing analytics quite well or having a much broader scene of people being involved in that business. Certainly there are differences, but this is also in the total economy between Northern and Southern Europe there are differences and Eastern Europe is again another piece for itself. So there are also some tools out there in Eastern Europe and it continues by Russia and even China, which is no more Europe, just want to mention. And Angela told me not to disclose that. No, but I was, sorry, I’m jumping, but I was just asked this week what is probably the number three tool in the world after the two bigger ones we all know. And I said, I don’t know, maybe this Chinese company we don’t know yet. So there are certainly things happening, which I’m not really aware from a German, which is more Western-Northern Europe, some extent. Countries where I see big analytics involvements and people joining each other, having some community, certainly UK, Germany, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, France, Poland, Czech Republic. Italy is less what I see, which doesn’t mean necessarily there is. And then, of course, the Nordics was strong in Sweden, Finland, Norway, Denmark. So it’s quite a lot around. And quite a lot I have not seen because we can’t be everywhere, right? Not everybody is traveling everywhere. So some stuff remains like an island.

00:06:25.99 [Jim Cain]: Here’s my big question about Europe. In North America, people exclusively think about the final countdown. But I actually think that Carrie was a better song. It charted top ten. It was one of my favorite power ballads.

00:06:39.83 [Matthias Bettag]: I know the final count on what was the other one.

00:06:44.54 [Jim Cain]: Kerry, was there other top ten hits? See what I’m talking about?

00:06:47.60 [Michael Helbling]: You might want to sing a few bars for him, Jim.

00:06:51.27 [Jim Cain]: I can’t hit the high notes until I’ve had a lot of coffee. So the actual question I had is, and you were touching on it. And this is something, I think, especially for North American practitioners. You’ve got maybe some core metrics and some web trends kind of legacy practitioners out there. But right now, if you have Adobe chops and Google analytics chops, your ability to be a solid analyst tools use wise is pretty covered. But in Germany, the number one player I believe is web track. AT Internet has a huge piece of the French market and you’ve got Yandex Metrica in Russia. How many tools to be an enterprise grade web analyst? How many tools do you need to be comfortable with to kind of start to move around and say, don’t worry, I got it, like on your resume?

00:07:33.03 [Tim Wilson]: Or maybe even a flipside, like how many are you personally feeling like you span across?

00:07:37.71 [Matthias Bettag]: I can tell you, I currently have clients working with AT Internet, WebTrack, Adobe, Google all the way on standard. Premium much less, we can talk about that too. But it’s not like we have these two major tools like Google Premium and Adobe on the high end market. which basically share the entire market. Webtrends, core metrics getting more and more rare. Webtrek is a strong player in Germany, but not as strong as Adobe is, right? So it’s hard to say because I know some stats about tool comparisons. So overall, there might be quite equal Adobe and Webtrek. Actually, also Webtrek is evolving quite well. I guess their engine is really powerful. So it comes somewhat close to what Adobe can do in the entire suite. It’s a few. I would make a difference between if you have to work in the tool or if you’re more, which I am basically, on the strategic methodological side. So I need to know what a tool can do and what it can’t do. And I need to figure out how workarounds could work and which interface is my work best. But it’s not necessarily that I need to know the deep core tool for each of my clients because usually I have other people who are then specialists in the tool making.

00:08:53.09 [Tim Wilson]: But it seems like it’s interesting that Adobe and Google, and you touched on it, you said WebTrack is continuing to kind of innovate and grow because I look at Adobe and GA are both continuing to evolve because they’re chasing each other and it’s, you know, perfect storm for innovation and competition. It’s only going to be more perfect, it seems like, when if you’ve got other platforms like WebTrack that’s also chasing it, can you imagine a world where one of those currently strong player in Europe actually jumps across the Atlantic and emerges in the US? I mean, maybe that’s unfair.

00:09:33.07 [Matthias Bettag]: question to ask but is a it has been attempts i would not expect in the near or mid future that the tool would more or less take over or or become a significant market share because that would this is also a cultural thing right so i i i know quite a few companies who or which might be quite big but they’re still on a domestic market because that’s a german publisher or whatever insurance or a bank which has some countries but it’s not a global player. They may choose a tool also from the support side and if support is locally available that counts higher than being the world market leader.

00:10:11.64 [Jim Cain]: Right around the time they rebranded with the new name, put a significant amount of effort into breaking into Quebec, which is where I’m from. And I think they got a couple of, because again, there was a French language user experience. They were able to go to some of the key brands in the Quebec market. I think they got a little bit of adoption, but they were going to use that as their springboard into the rest of North America. and they just weren’t able to pull it off. I know also, maybe it’s different now, but Hugo Boss America is a web track shop, specifically because headquarters is. So I would wonder how many tier one European brands are kind of bringing their tools with them. And as an extension to that, I wonder if European analysts that have to use a lot of tools are a little bit better at qualitative analysis because you can’t just go, I always click these three buttons to answer my question. Like you really need to formulate a solid hypothesis before you go into the tool.

00:11:11.08 [Matthias Bettag]: that can be a heck of a moment i can tell you because if i have an idea which is basically easy to well it’s it’s it’s not a complicated thinking but then how to make it happen in that very particular tool in this setup etc etc so that probably causes a little more time there are also quite a few analysts and really smart guys who basically work in their tool universe so especially google of course but also i know a few people who are just so pros in adobe whatsoever even either on the tool side or on the implementation side, and they don’t do anything else. I’m currently even in contact with PIVIC. Very interesting here movements coming up because quite a few companies who have very strong restrictions consider PIVIC as a built-in on-premise tool. and then they start building their plugins and using the open source to their services. So this is a totally different approach. So there are quite a few areas where you can totally stick with one tool and not getting bored, I’d say. From my perspective, where I’m more into strategic consultancy, I have to deal with what the companies have. And sometimes it’s also my role to guide them through a new pitch or recommending additional tools to what they have already and then it’s getting interesting. 80 internet is actually sorry just to continue on 80 net because 80 internet also I like this tool very much as well and that really I think they own some 70-80% of the French market so it’s incredible how strong they are in France and that explains why they go to Quebec French speaking as well They have a very fair stake in Germany as well. They have grown fast. So maybe for them it’s less a tool, but the resources they need to scale with their growing business. Just a guess, but there’s so many components which may or not allow you to tackle another market and be successful there over time that I wouldn’t reduce it to the tool functionality and power itself. So I would say support is probably a very strong part and then making the right sales at the right places, right? You can get lost in. and then waste a lot of money without earning anything if you’re not there where you need to.

00:13:16.85 [Jim Cain]: AT Internet should just start telling North Americans that they can do training at headquarters in Bordeaux. They would probably close a lot of business.

00:13:25.47 [Matthias Bettag]: That’s true. I mean, Berlin should be quite interesting for the web track people as well. So they should do that. They should use a local cart and probably a higher plane.

00:13:33.96 [Tim Wilson]: Is there a local, and I don’t think we want to go too, too far down into the privacy world, but is there, I feel like the North America headquartered companies have a tendency to try to kind of stick their heads in the sand a little bit and say, you know, it’s kind of up to you, the company to comply with any privacy regulations. And because it’s just so complicated and dynamic and changing, Yeah, I feel like in North America, we are really struggling to understand UK, Germany, the EU, and that that shifting landscape. And it seems like for an analytics platform that is based in the heart of that and is probably kind of more is more dealing with the the shifting currents and potentially could could be could have a better answer and expertise and support that potentially it could be hey you know what if you use web track they really do understand privacy implications and they’re on top of it and they’re going to help you be compliant and answer any queries and questions that come in and I don’t know that’s one of those like theoretically that could be a case but I don’t know if in practice that’s that’s a reality.

00:14:51.06 [Matthias Bettag]: The vendors claim that they are privacy compliant. We have like a kind of an industry standard certification. Yeah, it’s not a company. Don’t ask me how it’s like, like an association. TÜV Technical Technician Überwachungsverein. And so you tools can get certified, but that is, I’m not a lawyer, right? Don’t get me wrong, but it’s like, A car can prove that the brakes are fine, that does not necessarily mean that the brakes will be used when you need to take them. So using a tool is always, you’re always as a data controller, as a user who implements the tool or user who uses the tool for certain purposes. So there’s always a data controller side where you have certain responsibilities, like not driving with 100 miles an hour in a kindergarten backyard or something.

00:15:38.38 [Jim Cain]: There is a good Volkswagen joke in everything you just said, by the way.

00:15:43.85 [Michael Helbling]: I knew somebody was going to bring that.

00:15:47.29 [Matthias Bettag]: And then on the other end we struggle also because it’s difficult to understand all the details and what may or not apply in. in which circumstances. And of course this is very hard for American companies to understand. One thing which is not necessarily privacy now, but this is what clearly is in question by the safe harbor decision, is that data ownership and by this data storage needs to be reconsidered if you were relying on US based system from Europe. And that is certainly an advantage for those players who have their clouds in a country or in Europe at least and can make sure or can scale it up to the needs of the client. The same happens, by the way, because of other reasons in Russia and China and probably more countries where the governments decide that the data of citizens of that country needs to stay in the country. And so I think there will be a diversification of the cloud, which never was really in the cloud, was always some And still is. So these platforms, these server farms need to be probably better be adjusted by the clients who use it.

00:16:58.81 [Tim Wilson]: I hadn’t even thought of it. So you’re saying that because if you’re saying everything, it’s all our stuff’s in the cloud. The cloud, like you said, is nebulous. That is a term is nebulous. But for companies, for analytics providers that can say yes, but we can track that the cloud, the actual physical servers in this cloud are located in Berlin and Munich and we will make sure that that is what gets used for any storage of the data. Do the large to the Amazon cloud to the Uber kind of professional cloud, do they support that?

00:17:35.15 [Matthias Bettag]: I think yes. Yeah, quite a few services rely on Amazon Clouds. And as far as I know, I’m not a server configurator, but AFR and I know you can scale it pretty well or limited to countries because the background of this decision was that the safe harbor agreement is totally underrun, overrun by Patriot Act and similar other things. And this is not really new. We all knew it since more than 10 years that this is basically the case only was never officially stated in a court decision from that high level. So of course, yes, that needs to be guaranteed. And we know that this particular problem of data being spied out by by secret services is happening, well, even in our clouds by our services. So whatsoever, but this is a legal requirement where companies probably have to think, where is my data? Literally, where is it? And how do I really have control of it? Is deletion of data really a deletion or it’s only a disabling and it pops up somewhere else? And these are processes which will consider a few fresh thinking to have a proper method.

00:18:36.52 [Tim Wilson]: Does that include, and now I’m going to treat you as a server configurator and a lawyer, either of which you are, but how the data actually gets there, right? I mean, the data is ultimately traveling over the internet in a way that is largely uncontrollable. If a major pipe goes down and the magic of the internet will just find its way, so it seems like it’s conceivable that you may be a user in Germany visiting a site that’s in Germany and your data is stored in Germany, but

00:19:08.57 [Matthias Bettag]: There’s no guarantee that now you’re visiting a German side from the US where the data is stored in Germany. And then your data has to make the way to Germany at some extent.

00:19:18.98 [Tim Wilson]: And it may, it may go through France on the way, on the way there. I mean, we don’t know.

00:19:24.53 [Matthias Bettag]: Yeah, exactly. I don’t think this will cover indeed. Very good question. Haven’t thought of that this week. I don’t, I basically don’t know how this is, this is controlled. I think TCP IP is still up and running. Right. Yeah.

00:19:40.95 [Tim Wilson]: Wow.

00:19:42.01 [Matthias Bettag]: So basically, so we have several issues because privacy is more or less what data do you collect for which purpose? Do you inform the people? Do you have that consent? And then if you have all of this and you do it in a transparent and fair way, then you can do it. But if you’re collecting the shoe size of someone who is trying to fill out a newsletter registration, then there is no real connection for that, except maybe your shoe seller and you want to sell them the shoes on the right side. So there’s always a context between what do you want? What is the purpose and can you get content for that? And that is the different process in Europe than in the US, really in a nutshell, which is also not established equally all over the different countries because there are still some differences. But quite a few European sites, if you visit them, you have these opt-in checkboxes for the side cookies.

00:20:34.20 [Jim Cain]: Can I ask you guys a question about PII? And it’s actually, it’s got nothing to do with Europe. It’s just, it’s an interesting question I’ve been struggling with. So let’s say I have a website that wants to capture height and weight data in something like a Google Analytics that’s completely locked down for PII. But I don’t have anything else at the user level other than I guess IP address that would give you any kind, like no credit card, no name, no address, but height, weight, IP address.

00:21:02.55 [Tim Wilson]: So for any, any listeners who aren’t, we’re starting to throw on PII. So that’s personally identifiable information, which a lot of people most analysts are familiar with.

00:21:11.10 [Matthias Bettag]: PII is there is no authority which states what exactly is PII. There are quite a few different interpretations from it. If you talk to a data protection officer, he would say that anonymous data, as we consider it, anonymous is often only pseudonymous. I mean, we have a cookie ID or we have any kind of of key to understand the visit and maybe following visits even though we don’t really know if that was me or you or anyone else but in certain circumstances this can be tied together and suddenly you have a clear person in mind or in scope so Think of a small village where you have one doctor and somebody is entering the fact that he has a PhD, then it’s clear it’s him, right? And all you need is a geolocation and the fact that he has a title. Just to make up one example, but this is where you really have to go in the nitty-gritties by the purpose, by the business, and if you need it or not. Of course, I have to give my address if I want someone to send me a parcel. So this is implied consent. Other stuff isn’t. So this is a big discussion where you really need to be careful. You have to think of the individual requirements and real needs. And maybe you have two or three tiers of importance or sensitive data levels, right? And then you have to approach it.

00:22:28.83 [Michael Helbling]: All right, let’s shift gears here. We talked a little bit about the tools and about some of the state of sort of regulation, but let’s talk about the people. Analytics people in the US tend to come up a certain way. There’s a path for them. There’s ways that they can get educated. And we’ve talked about some of those things on the show. How is that happening in the EU? How would someone who wanted to become an analyst or get into a field in the field of digital analytics? What resources are there? How should they approach the industry? And how did you get into digital analytics? And is that common or is your story the way that everyone should do it?

00:23:04.57 [Matthias Bettag]: I don’t think that I’m representative or not. So I was a nurse working on an intensive care unit before I decided to do something very different. And I stumbled into a media computer science study on a university of applied science in Berlin. And initially i thought it’s kind of something which cool graphic design and i may end up by by doing super cool postcard selling them to japanese tourists so that was my sinking in the late 90s. For maybe a few weeks until i figured out this is heavy math and programming which i was buying into with less blood and urine though right yeah yeah it was cleaner cleaner and also the. Let’s say I had way more time to play Unreal Tournament in Quake 3 and stuff while I had no night shifts anymore.

00:23:51.94 [Michael Helbling]: So critical.

00:23:53.20 [Matthias Bettag]: with my plan, man, of course.

00:23:55.01 [Michael Helbling]: Career choices matter, absolutely.

00:23:58.05 [Matthias Bettag]: Yeah, absolutely. So, yeah, blood was only on the screen, not more on my hands. That’s actually an interesting line, yeah. This was my story, how I went, well, first of all, into computer science. And then from there, because I was a nurse before, my first job was actually in clinical data management, where they were happy to have somebody who understood the data. from a database standpoint, so I could do my own queries to get my sets together, my reports, but I could also evaluate the data because it had a medical background. If it sounded reasonable, if there were any open questions, and then I could phrase the questions like, hey, this guy has a total different blood pressure within two days in a row. Was there anything happening or is that a typo or whatsoever? So this was my very first job and a year later I changed and became a webmaster at the pharma company sharing, which was later bought by Bayer. And I was working on a content management system and I did these websites, HTML, PHP, MySQL, and I figured out that technical SEO was lacking all over the places. So I did them clean. I used CSS. I used, I was a total HTML three notch guy, right? I wanted to have everything totally strict xhtml compatible I love all these validation tools to make sure everything is smooth and fine and well separated content from design and functionality. And then I got this role on a global e-marketing department, which was consulting after the merge of Bay and sharing all the different countries and business units in the different regions of the earth to, well, to migrate all their hundreds and hundreds of websites to a big international platform. And this was the point where I first looked into the data really. I did that as a webmaster before, but Instead of thinking how much workload does it cost us to switch this ASP program website to a PHP program website, I was always looking in the data, if any was applicable, to understand if the site was successful. And then we switched it or not. And maybe we switched it, but then with some optimizations. So I was trying to find a qualitative key to understand if a migration made sense or if this is something outdated which we can shut off. And this is combined with this very nice travel budget I had on this international role. And I was flying North and South America and Asia and Europe all the way. How I got in contact with all these interesting folks in the US on the metrics, for instance, or how I also met Gary Angel on the exchange and Eric Peterson and name it. So it was a great opportunity for me in the mid-2000s to get in touch with these people and to get this super huge relief that all my problems are quite common. So I was not the only one and trying to find the holy grail, but that was just difficult. And the whole industry was looking how to get certain things done well and better. So this was my story, right? And I see all the different stories of people of my age, how they came to analytics. There is no proper line. And there are really, really quite a few. That is actually a question you should pose all your people what was the former first or second job they had so i met quite interesting it’s crazy i mean most of them actually started in nursing so it’s a strange thing there’s one common thread yeah no i haven’t met too many in my role but we have for education this is a huge topic and this is one reason why the daa germany was was funded as a proper own country because the demand is so super high. And we do use the UBC course. We have the UBC course in German, actually half German. So the applications are in German, but the content, the main content is still in English, but people use this. And I’m one of the tutors for the course in Germany. So we, I don’t know, we have two or three courses per year with up to 20, 25 people in. So that’s actually, and it’s developing well. There are no real full education, say, like a university saying, I teach you analytics, but that comes from all the different ends. So it’s getting better, but I still don’t see something like a digital analytics masterclass, which is more like only one semester or in addition to some studies. That is something which will come soon.

00:28:17.72 [Jim Cain]: It kind of leads to a question that I wanted to ask. And by the way, this could be the first show ever that we don’t have to use the explicit tag for. So Matthias, you must be a positive influence here. But I actually spoke at a conference in Russia about measurement about a year ago this week, I think. And one of the things that came up, because there were a number of analysts in Europe as well who were there to speak and things like that, And there seemed to be a little bit of an inferiority complex around the, not the talent, but the skills and the business practices and the best practices in Europe for measurement versus what we’re doing in North America. And I asked a lot of questions and I really didn’t see that discrepancy, but I could certainly hear it from people when I spoke to them. When you’re at conferences, do you hear a lot of people saying, we need to keep up with North America, we need to And if so, do you think that that’s valid in any area? Because I really didn’t see it.

00:29:12.21 [Matthias Bettag]: Yes, good question. So one thing I start with ranting, I see so many people claiming analytics is, oh well, they’re not claiming that. This is just a way they think and they do it. And they do basically general analytics. Right? So it’s often analytics is taken as a purely marketing channel, even marketing cross channel optimization, right? And I think there’s a huge lack in onsite analytics where you actually know your customers on your own platform, right? And that is a very, very important part of the entire picture. And of course, all the channels come in and are the traffic drivers for these people. But I always struggle with approaches where analytics is considered as a plain, more or less paper-click analytics and nothing else counts, right? And then you have the super-world budgets for all the retargeters, affiliates, display advertisers who all have their tools and systems. And then you have a fraction of maybe, I don’t know, tens or hundreds of that for those who do the online, on-site analytics. So this is something where, at least when I was working for Symphonic, we were doing almost entirely very strong onsite analytics frameworks and researches and analyzing this whole stuff. And that is something where I see big room for improvement in Europe. Only that my experience I had at Symphonic is probably also not representative for Well, that’s what I’m thinking.

00:30:42.03 [Tim Wilson]: If you’re taking the work that Symphonic did and trying to say, making an assumption that that’s how most North American companies operate from a sophistication level, then I think it is the arrogant Americans have won by being pretentious. Because what you describe seems like what, to me, a lot of companies are. They’re saying, where are we spending our media budget and let’s how much traffic is that sending and not so much the onsite I think that’s why I mean how does a be testing fall I mean it’s one of those it’s such a simple story every analyst thinks we should be testing all the time but the number of organizations that really

00:31:22.84 [Matthias Bettag]: are, you know, have a robust optimization integrated testing team please and not someone else doing that in a different oh yeah no they’re on the testing team that we’re the analytics team they’re on the testing team what yeah yeah yeah I mean I would be happy if we have two teams maybe you have an analyst here to try to to hurt the cats to quote Jim Stern And you have a testing team which has five people testing this crazy webpage which has seven visits a day to make it eight. I’m getting mean now, but I see a lot of fragmentation here. It’s not only about testing. We’re not yet there where I see, and this is also something which I experienced not only by Symphonic, but also by Zmetrics or the exchanges I’ve been visiting in the US. You still have, and weapon analytics demystified is clearly in that market, so you have plenty of stories here too, Tim. You have quite a few broader companies, bigger companies, who are doing really sophisticated stuff and seriously aim for better, right? Wherever they are. And those, they make progress and they really mean it. It’s not a bottom-up approach by luck or something. and this is something I see less strong in Europe even though it’s evolving and some people get it and some people get it too but do it wrong and then just don’t get it because they just look at the play number and if they sell I don’t know how much on display, or at least I convinced that the display is a conversion driver, they continue doing that. And they would not invest in something else. And if I come up with some sophisticated theory, this is a theory. It’s very hard to prove unless they feel like they have pain. And unless you do the on-site analytics well, you will not identify the right bottlenecks or friction drivers or whatsoever you have per segment and goal which you have which which you can’t take in an average. So all these framework which provide you contextual insights at a glance and from there you can raise questions and evaluate hypothesis and do it better or fail again and do it another time better. This is not that common, I would say. You see this also on the tool market, how many tools are out there and how much of these tools are relying on dashboarding, means collecting all these different data sources to have an overview, how many of these tools are doing different levels of BI where it’s all about the paid channels in detail and more detail in real time. I don’t see really popping up new analytics tools which help you building up a visitor framework. That’s a different story.

00:33:49.94 [Tim Wilson]: That seems like there are a lot of companies that are telling that story, but you look at them and say, wait, you’re two guys who were in college a year ago. I’m not sure that’s going to be the solution for the.

00:33:59.82 [Matthias Bettag]: And also they use the same terms. They say analytics. They say return of investment. They say conversions. I mean, this is. And it’s not wrong, right? But it’s difficult. Assume you would be, whatever, C-level at a mid-level company and you understand you need some analytics and you start googling them when you end up, right? I’ve seen even these questions being ending up at hiring an SEO company because they understood they can do traffic and then that’s it. And the SEO company does probably a significant drop in SEO, but they never have cared about a visitor framework on site. So this is where I think analytics is in a weaker position because we’re kind of still somewhat nerdy, somewhat a niche, somewhat, yeah, if you have the luxury to empower that, then you can make a benefit. Otherwise I rather stick with what I can kind of thinking. On the other hand, I see a lot of big companies from agencies like a full service creative PR strategic on the one hand and also from the really paid channel media service and both seek the way if you think of the media and all the traffic agencies as I call them On one hand, and on the other hand, you have the big strategic ones doing all the bigger frameworks, probably consulting super big players and how to do social media at all. And that cascades down in hundreds and thousands of teams. And in the middle, you have the pure analysts as we are. And I get, I get requests from all over the places where because they have understood they need to understand this way too, if they want to continue providing full service. It’s not enough to tell them. the clicks for rates and some keyword rows.

00:35:39.72 [Tim Wilson]: So what I gotta ask is, do you think they’re saying, yes, we need to use the data so that we can understand this and be better, which is kind of what you’d hope? Or is it, we need to have a data, we need to have an analytics offering because that’s more share of wallet, that’s more money we can extract from our clients. If we sell analytics services, if we’re gonna claim to be full service, then oh, this is another offering we need to have. and let’s ignore the fact that now we’re gonna claim that as a traffic agency, we are now going to be measuring our own performance and anybody who just steps back like two meters and says, oh, wait a minute, so you’re both going to do the work for me and you’re going to charge me to tell me how well or poorly you’re doing. I guess that’s my cynical view of of the structural issue with agencies that aren’t objective, you know, analytics oriented.

00:36:37.04 [Matthias Bettag]: I mean, you’re always at risk if you let somebody who spends your money measure it at the same time. And this is certainly possible because not everybody is in a fraud more per default, but it’s risky, I would say. Sometimes it’s just the case how it works and they They may or may not do a good job. So I think you’re right. There are quite a few companies who just claim to do analytics because this is what the client expects and then they get some reports, of course. Generally, I see companies also approaching me or people as me. because they want to learn, they want to understand, so they’re really meaning it. And this is actually a good sign. I also see these strategic companies who, after they want to pitch, call out freelancers and other independents to get on board. And this is clearly something where they want to pitch without being transparent in which resources they have. But clearly this shows that analytics gets more and more into scope from a requirement perspective also by the client. So it’s not enough to serve them all. The question is really, do you want the money spender to measure its own success and performance? That’s a question you have on many levels and there are different ways to solve it.

00:37:48.62 [Michael Helbling]: Oh, that’s great. So unfortunately, we have to start the wrap up process, but this conversation is obviously a one that could go on and on. So thank you, Matias. And obviously, if you’re listening and you’re an ICU nurse looking for more video game time, this is the show for you. No, I just, I love it. I love where everybody comes from. And obviously over the years that I’ve known you, your passion for this industry is something that I’ve really come to appreciate. So let’s go around the horn, guys. What were some things that you either learned today or thought were interesting about sort of this juxtaposition or conversation we’re having about the EU?

00:38:34.13 [Jim Cain]: So I just like this one because I hadn’t met Matthias before and you’re really good at this stuff. You can come back anytime.

00:38:41.01 [Matthias Bettag]: Thank you, I’m happy. I’ll come back to the glass soon as well.

00:38:45.46 [Jim Cain]: Yeah, well, this is another chance for us to do a live analytics power hour at your event in Europe. I might drag myself to the airport for that.

00:38:53.85 [Matthias Bettag]: Oh, please do that. So we just decided that the next digital analytics hub will be June 7 to 9, north of London. Very nice venue site. So yeah, it’ll be cold and June, even for London, should be a good season. So you’re welcome.

00:39:09.21 [Jim Cain]: Yeah, that could be fun. And the other thing I think from today’s show is that we didn’t just talk about the state of measurement in Europe, but it really felt like we kind of organically got into a couple of the key topics that European analysts seem to be talking about, specifically the tool ecosystem, PII and what PII means. And I think as well for North American analysts who are listening to this show, per the statements we were making earlier about There might be a bit of an inferiority complex in Europe, and maybe the practice for certain things is a little bit behind. PII, or what customer data in an analytics tool means, is something that’s being made to be taken seriously in North America right now. And if it’s something that a North American analyst really wants to up their chops on, look to Europe. Start reading blogs from Aurelie Pauls and people like yourself, Mattias.

00:40:01.05 [Matthias Bettag]: I have no blog. I’m so lazy. I’m sorry.

00:40:03.74 [Jim Cain]: So we’ll just post your cell phone number on our Facebook page.

00:40:13.57 [Tim Wilson]: And I will echo that a little bit. I definitely won from the explanation of the background. It sounds very, very similar to North America that nobody got into this with a full degree. Everyone’s looking and hoping for more and better education to feed the industry with talent and we’re, but it seems like we’re still out of ways from when people say, I got into this because I got interested in this course in college and continued with that. I think from, I didn’t take much away from this conversation that says there’s any merit whatsoever to an inferiority complex and that’s just Americans being arrogant bastards or let me restate that. That’s just Americans being arrogant fucks so I can now get the explicit tag. Nailed it.

00:41:01.11 [Jim Cain]: We need one millennials crack and then we’ve got all the boxes.

00:41:04.37 [Tim Wilson]: We can check them all off. And I think that the tool ecosystem, it is one that fascinates me because we immediately forget it. I mean, a week from now, it’s going to somebody’s going to say something like, oh, yeah, it is not just the big two in this whole other continent that is a major player in the global economy. is dealing with this thing that in the states, it’s just those two. And I kind of hope that some of those other companies do manage to sink their tentacles into the US, because I think it’s just going to be better for the overall evolution of the market, although more challenging for analysts to say, oh, I now need to know enough about two or three different tools. So those are kind of my takeaways.

00:41:50.35 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, I’m right there with you. I really like this discussion only because of what I think we can all learn from it and and to have a more global perspective, I think is just educational around, you know, analytics is being done and being done at a pretty high level all over the world. Matias anything I don’t expect that you’ve learned much today but anything going on in in your world you want to talk about let people who listen to the show know about I would be happy for you to plug a couple things or whatever you had that you wanted to talk about.

00:42:23.28 [Matthias Bettag]: There you go yeah. So first, I really hope that at latest in 2016 I can come back to the US another time. I used to be there twice or three times a year since last two years I haven’t been there. I think there are quite a good community events going up in Europe. Like I said initially, major camp, major bowling. There are big even conferences in Eastern Europe which were so while I heard that even the What was it called? This thing, which always was in January in Hungary is going to be in Jamaica this year.

00:43:01.38 [Jim Cain]: It was like super something.

00:43:02.89 [Matthias Bettag]: It’s a super week. Exactly.

00:43:04.31 [Tim Wilson]: I’m on a plug for the Copenhagen Webinar next Wednesday, which was super cool as well.

00:43:09.89 [Matthias Bettag]: I was invited there earlier this year and there were some 350 people. I was like, wow, right? And Copenhagen has a certain size of Berlin. And I do these we call them the DALA events in Germany DALA for late afternoon Which coincidentally is the same hashtag as local chapter of LA of the DALA in the US, but we don’t really come in competition to our tax here But other events which we run all over in Germany in different cities is a great way also to catch up with folks of your city doing analytics. I think it’s a great time being in that business. I really can recommend from my own. If you’re starting new, don’t get fixed with one tool because that changes so much. It doesn’t mean you shouldn’t care about tools, but it’s always worth to understand methods and approaches better than which button is the one. There are many, many, many industries tackling the analytics market. So we have front runners as you have in the US, probably not as many, which makes less people being on a super advanced level. But we have the whole range and we’re developing fast. And yeah, it’s a good job opportunity, I would say.

00:44:18.19 [Michael Helbling]: Yeah, absolutely. Once again, Matias, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with us. I think this is going to be a really great opportunity for the folks who listen to our show to get a better education around what’s happening in digital analytics around the world. If you are listening out there and you’ve got questions or you have comments, we would love to hear from you. You can find us on our Facebook page, facebook.com slash analytics hour or on Twitter and of course on the measure slack community, which is something that is growing and becoming more global all the time. So check us out there, ask your questions. Maybe even the great Matthias Betag will come and answer your question and help you get a better understanding of what’s going on in the EU. Can’t guarantee it. He’s hard to pin down. International man of analytics. But thanks again for Tim Wilson and Jim Cain. I’m Michael Helbling.

00:45:22.79 [Announcer]: Thanks for listening and don’t forget to join the conversation on Facebook or Twitter. We welcome your comments and questions. Facebook.com forward slash analytics hour or at analytics hour on Twitter.

00:45:36.91 [Michael Helbling]: You represent all of the hopes and dreams of analytics in Europe.

00:45:49.96 [Jim Cain]: Would that make your mom a Tog Manager? Finish your data layer or write to bed.

00:45:56.43 [Michael Helbling]: Europeans tend to dress nicer, I think.

00:46:00.68 [Tim Wilson]: I might shut the hell up. Oh, let’s not.

00:46:02.98 [Michael Helbling]: You know what’s funny is? I said you don’t have a dress knowledge, but I never said you wouldn’t talk a lot.

00:46:14.90 [Jim Cain]: PII is 3.14.

00:46:18.63 [Michael Helbling]: If you are listening to this podcast and you don’t know that, just get out.

00:46:24.00 [Tim Wilson]: Maybe I’ll cut that. That is dripping with sarcasm.

00:46:28.59 [Jim Cain]: It’s the final.

00:46:30.23 [Tim Wilson]: I’m not doing it.

00:46:31.13 [Jim Cain]: We’re heading for Venus.

00:46:35.02 [Michael Helbling]: What? Nice people in Europe? Yeah, I see that Jim and Matias are going to be great friends. Rock flag in Europe.

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