To achieve long-term business success and retain customers, it is important to understand the interests of the existing customer base, as well as potential customers, and their user behavior. To this end, operators of websites or apps use so-called web tracking. Nowadays, there is hardly any provider of web services that does not use tracking and analysis tools for the purpose of collecting and evaluating user behavior on its website or in its app. This is because online tracking offers operators a wide range of possibilities to offer and market their own website and their goods or services more profitably. Web tracking is an indispensable tool for success monitoring and process optimization in the digital realm. Nowadays, there are numerous ways to track users. However, since this is often not or only very difficult for users to understand and their data is processed on a large scale, there appears to be an insurmountable contradiction between tracking and data protection. Companies have a comprehensible interest in tracking user behavior, but at the same time, the boundaries of data protection must naturally be observed.
The most important points in brief
- Tracking refers to the observation, tracking, and evaluation of the behavior of website or app users.
- Web tracking methods are important for companies to be able to advertise effectively and profitably.
- The basis of web tracking is the processing of personal data of internet users.
- As a rule, user consent that complies with data protection regulations is required for this.
What is meant by tracking?
Tracking refers to the observation, monitoring, and analysis of the behavior of website or app users. Analytical data can be viewed and analyzed live or retroactively in recorded form using various tracking tools. These come in different forms and contain information about the online behavior of website or app users, such as location, the number of website or app visits, and the duration of the visit.
What tracking methods are there in the marketing field?
In the field of marketing, there are various tracking methods. The use of a specific tracking method depends on the respective analysis goal. This can, for example, involve improving the user-friendliness of the website or achieving an increase in sales.
Mention Tracking.
Mention tracking can be used to analyze the mention of a brand or company on the internet. This serves in particular to measure the success of marketing campaigns. Special tools search the internet for specific terms. The goal of this tracking method is to obtain concrete results for an advertising measure over a specific period.
Event Tracking.
Event tracking analyzes specific interactions on a website or in an app. This includes, for example, download numbers or clicks. Event tracking serves to provide an overall picture of user behavior.
Eye or mouse tracking.
This refers to the recording of a website visitor's interaction. Using eye or mouse tracking, movements, clicks, and scrolling on a website can be recorded. From the recorded information, it can then be inferred which areas of the website are particularly attentively viewed. This method is primarily used when the usability of a website is to be examined.
Email Tracking.
In email tracking, information about the email recipient is collected by embedding small graphics in HTML format when sending a newsletter. When the email is opened, the graphic, which is usually the size of a pixel, is loaded from the server, thus documenting that the email message has been retrieved.
Geo-targeting.
Geo-targeting can be used to address specific target groups in a region. Personal data such as IP addresses or GPS data are then used to assign and locate individual users to a region. Such tools are used in market research or for online shops to narrow down and analyze demand regionally.
WLAN Tracking.
Important information for marketing can be obtained through Wi-Fi tracking.
When a person is in a store and their phone's Wi-Fi is active, the phone constantly tries to find and connect to Wi-Fi networks. This is then registered and analyzed through Wi-Fi tracking. For example, this allows for information gathering on how many customers are in the store and their movement patterns.
What web tracking methods are there?
Web tracking is the most important method for companies to monitor user behavior in order to then display interest and target group-specific advertising based on the insights gained. This allows marketing goals to be achieved more quickly and business success to be sustainably secured. The best-known of all web tracking methods is cookie tracking. However, current possibilities in the field of web tracking go far beyond cookies:
CNAME Cloaking.
Through so-called CNAME cloaking, advertisers and trackers can bypass ad blockers by „disguising“ their domains to avoid being listed in the ad blocker's host lists, thereby allowing them to display ads to users despite ad blockers.
Cross-Device Tracking.
Cross-device tracking allows companies to track their customers across multiple devices. The goal is to identify the user, regardless of which device they use to access the respective web services, in order to subsequently show them advertisements tailored to their interests.
Fingerprinting.
Fingerprinting creates a digital fingerprint based on information stored on end devices, allowing users to be recognized. This tool also aims to display targeted advertising to the user.
Common IDs
With this tracking method, users must create a user account to access certain web services. Each user is assigned their own identification number so that they can be identified and tracked during a subsequent website visit. Large providers, such as Google, offer other website operators the option for users to log in to their websites with their existing Google account.
App tracking.
As part of app usage, so-called app tracking can be used to measure user behavior from installation to deletion of the app, as well as app performance.
What data protection issues arise with tracking?
The basis of web tracking is the processing of personal data of internet users. Therefore, web tracking stands in a close, albeit problematic, relationship with data protection. In particular, the GDPR requires a legal basis for this. The primary legal basis for the processing of personal data is Consent under consideration.
No effective user consent.
User consent plays an important role in tracking, as their behavior is usually to be recorded to a considerable extent. For this, the GDPR fundamentally requires voluntary and informed consent from the affected users. If no consent is given, this has a negative impact on the analyzable data set. For this reason, many advertisers try to persuade users to consent by not fulfilling their information obligations sufficiently. However, even if corresponding user consent is given, there is still a risk that users will withdraw it by exercising their right of withdrawal. To avoid this situation, users are often not informed about their right of withdrawal in the first place, or the exercise of this right is unlawfully made difficult.
Insufficient Anonymization.
To circumvent the strict requirements of the GDPR, website operators generally have the option to create anonymized user profiles. For the creation of an anonymized user profile, only data that is neither personal nor linkable to a person may be used. This includes, among other things, the date and time of the website visit or the file accessed. The same applies to the IP address, which generally constitutes personal data but can be anonymized through truncation and modification. The extent to which the personal link can be removed by using an ID is disputed. This is particularly doubtful because, depending on the amount of data collected about a person's behavior, there is a probability that the natural person behind the ID can be re-identified without disproportionately great effort.
Advertiser's Legitimate Interest
Ultimately, the DSK in its „“Guideline of the supervisory authorities for providers of telemedia" (as of: March 2019) The possibility of basing web tracking on a legitimate interest of the website operator pursuant to Art. 6 (1) lit. f) GDPR is not excluded from the outset. However, with the entry into force of the Telecommunications Telemedia Data Protection Act on December 1, 2021, the legislator has clarified that tracking measures that involve the storage of data or access to the end-user's terminal equipment may only be carried out on the basis of the user's voluntary, informed, and express consent.
Outlook
Web tracking is indispensable, especially in marketing, as observing user behavior forms an important basis for improving services and user-friendliness. As some recent fine proceedings clearly show, there are still some legally unresolved problem areas regarding the use of tracking tools. However, despite the great importance of protecting personal data and data security, it is not necessarily the case that tracking must be abandoned. However, care must be taken to keep the processing of personal data as low as possible and, above all, to obtain GDPR-compliant consent from users in advance.