Leading Children’s Hospital Migrates from Google Analytics to Matomo

The Problem/Challenge

As healthcare organizations can attest, the last few years have been challenging from an online tracking technology (OTT) and online marketing perspective.

In December of 2022 the US department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and more specifically the Office of Civil Rights (OCR) issued a vague and confusing ruling that spawned lawsuits against large Healthcare networks for using OTT. Most of the controversy was centered around facebook / Meta pixels; however, there were concerns that other providers of OTT (Google, et. all) would also put organizations at risk. Many legal and compliance departments called for, and received, the removal of Google Tag Manager (GTM) and Google Analytics (GA) and all other providers of OTT from their websites.

As all digital marketers know, data is the difference between marketing success and failure. For Healthcare marketers, this is doubly true as their job is to connect prospective patients to the doctors and treatments with potentially life-changing or life-saving outcomes.

With GTM and all tracking removed, what once was a trusted and valued data set to aid marketers and prospective patients, became an unrecoverable blind spot.

MoreVisibility recognized the risk and proposed alternative tracking options to our longtime client, a leading healthcare provider in the northeast that has been recognized by U.S. News and World Report as one of the nation’s best children’s hospitals.

As partners and data analytics pioneers that have been Google Analytics Certified Partners since 2008, MoreVisibility was in a unique position to help vet and explain alternative platforms and the pros and cons of each.

The Solution

After an exhaustive review, our client chose to host their solution and collect data on premise using Matomo Tag Manager and Matomo Analytics.

Once our client initially configured a test implementation, MoreVisibility used a custom tagging roadmap to streamline tracking and implement all required tracking. The solution leveraged lookup tables to minimize tag usage while building out a robust tracking platform to collect and isolate the Matomo data based on distinct units and service lines, as well as building in rollup capability. This included working with two distinct, external platforms used for events and fundraising. Neither of these platforms provided a Matomo integration so MoreVisibility was able to, in some cases, leverage a Google Tag Manager data layer deployed by these providers while backfilling gaps with Matomo specific tactics.

90%

Reduction in Core Tags

The Results

Recently a court has struck down parts of the HHS OCR ruling; however, many organizations are still moving to Google alternatives to eliminate any possible exposure to HIPPA rule violations.

At the project’s conclusion, MoreVisibility had all tracking efficiently deployed via Matomo Tag Manager and collecting in Matomo Analytics. Our client’s marketing team now has the data required to help care seekers connect with the correct providers; while the fundraising team can once again see donations attributed to marketing campaigns. Our partners were thrilled with the 90% reduction in core tags which resulted in a more responsive and faster user experience, and the Matomo training we provided. This transition was eased by MoreVisibility’s construction of custom Matomo reports to provide required data with minimal effort to their internal teams.