Digital sovereignty

As a digital marketer, I live daily in a digital world that is largely built on American technology. That has not been a conscious choice for a long time — it's just how the internet has grown. Google Analytics, Meta Ads, Power BI, AWS, Ring doorbells, iPhones: they are so intertwined with our work and our lives that we hardly think about them anymore. Until you really think about it.

That moment of awareness for me did not come from one big reason, but from an accumulation of small insights. How dependent are we on one continent for our digital infrastructure? What does this mean for the privacy of our visitors? And what does it say about us as a European organisation that believes in transparency and care?

The American layer under everything

Look at an average marketing stack. Television content through American streaming services. Phones and laptops from Apple or Google. Smart doorbells from Ring (Amazon). Payment transactions via Stripe or PayPal. CMS systems running on AWS or Google Cloud. Analytics via GA4. Advertising through Meta and Google Ads. Dashboardling via Microsoft's Power BI.

The list is endless. Even if you consciously choose a European alternative, you will quickly find out how deep the roots are going. We work with Kentico, a CMS that was developed in the Czech Republic — European, in other so. But the servers it runs on? Amazon Web Services. American infrastructure, European jacket.

That is not necessarily a mistake. But it does force you to ask an honest question: where does our digital sovereignty actually lie?

From awareness to action

At the end of 2024, I decided that awareness is not enough. I actually wanted to take steps. Not from a dogmatic anti-American sentiment, but from a business and ethically responsible perspective. European privacy legislation (GDPR) is stricter. European data storage offers more security for our visitors. And honestly, it fits better with who we want to be as an organisation.

The first big step: the switch to Piwik Pro as an analytics platform. Piwik Pro is a Polish company, fully European, built around privacy-by-design. Where Google Analytics 4 sends data to US servers by default — even after all GDPR adjustments a legal grey area — Piwik Pro offers complete data hosting within the EU, with explicit control over where your data goes.

The reality of change: it's a marathon

Anyone who thinks that such a switch is arranged in a few weeks has never done a serious analytics migration. It's not just about installing a new piece of code. It involves rebuilding a measurement plan, validating data, training your team, redesigning reports and convincing stakeholders who have been used to GA4 dashboards for years.

In this process, I work closely with an analytics specialist who monitors the measurement plan and takes care of the technical implementation. That collaboration is crucial: without a well thought-out measurement plan, you build on loose sand, regardless of which platform you use. Together we ensure that every step we take is documented, validated and sustainable.

My schedule is as follows

2024–2025: Transition phase

Piwik Pro is installed alongside GA4. We run both platforms in parallel to compare data and build trust in Piwik Pro. The measurement plan is transferred step by step and validated by our analytics specialist.

2026: Dismantling GA4

GA4 is becoming less and less leading. Piwik Pro will become the primary platform for web analytics and reporting. We are still linking the advertising data from Google Ads and Meta to GA4 — Piwik Pro cannot fully handle this yet, but this is a point that the platform is working hard on.

2027: Complete transition

The goal is to fully rely on Piwik Pro for web analytics and reporting by 2027. Advertising will then be the only domain where we are still dependent on American tooling — and we are also actively looking for alternatives there.

Dashboardling: from data to insight

One of the concrete improvements I want to get out of this transition is better and more regular reporting. At the moment we don't really do structured dashboarding from analytics. That changes.

The plan is to send the marketing team a clear dashboard weekly from Piwik Pro: traffic, conversions, campaign performance, the most relevant KPIs. Clear, concise, actionable. For management, there will be a monthly report with a higher level of abstraction — trends, strategic insights, comparison with objectives.

This not only helps in making better decisions. It also provides more support for switching to Piwik Pro: when people see that the data is reliable and the reports are at least as good as they were used to, the resistance disappears on its own.

What I want to give other marketers

I don't expect everyone to stop with GA4 and Meta Ads tomorrow. That's not my point either. My point is that we as European marketers can make an active choice — and that choice does not always have to be at the expense of quality or functionality.

Piwik Pro is a full-fledged alternative to GA4. The platform is growing fast, the documentation is good and the support is European. There are more such alternatives: Matomo, Plausible, Fathom Analytics. In the field of CRM, there are European players. In the field of hosting, there are parties such as Hetzner, OVHcloud or IONOS.

The path to digital sovereignty is not a revolution. It is a conscious, step-by-step reorientation on who you want to be as an organisation and which parties you trust in it.

Start small.

Start somewhere.

But begin.