LL782
commented
2 years ago I was going to set up Google Analytics GA4
I may be able to get the basic functionality I need now without too much work. It also looks worth learning about it's further potential. However, reservations on Google Analytics include the nature of sharing customer data with Google. Even if the data I share isn't individually identifialbe, what Google use the data for is not what I want analytics for.
So plan B
Store my own data in a database and give visitors the options and the info to consent to allowing me to recognise their devices, etc.
My database choices
A relational database seems to be the way forward if I want to be flexible about how I query the data in future. On the other hand what I want the data for is quite simple at this stage so perhaps I should go for the speed and cost benefits of a non relational database.
Thoughts around using Google Cloud
I'm leaning towards using Google Cloud because, in a choice between Amazon Web Servers (AWS), Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud (GC) only the latter claim to be carbon neutral at this point in time. The GC page on sustainability gives me a the impression of a more environmentally considerate industry than the others.
What about the little guys?
Up until now I had been looking to smaller providers (like Vercel) but in the case of Vercel and others like them, their hosting is ultimately on AWS and Microsoft anyway, so it doesn't make a lot of sense to just add in a middle-company.
Vercel's carbon footprint currently lies with multiple cloud providers that we use to provide our services to end-users.
For more information on our cloud providers' dedication to reducing their overall carbon footprint, we recommend checking out the following pages:
https://vercel.com/guides/what-is-vercel-green-energy-policy
What about the even littler guys?
Yeah, I genuinely want to ask and am open to hearing about them. In choosing a provider for web services, I balance what I can find out about who a company are with the experience of using their services. Recently the kind of experience I get from deploying a NextJS app via GitHub to Vercel hosting is hard to compete with.
Next actions
- [x] Set up Google Cloud
- [x] Add some database storage
- [x] Write some basic data to the database on certain interactions
- [x] Create an app that let's visualise the number of interactions
- [x] Ask for individual concent before adding any data that can be used to personally identify specific devices
- [x] Consider making the interaction data public
Value
Have a first idea of how anonymous customers are interacting with the website
Increment
Track basic page views and button clicks along with quick win, non-identifying browser data, like viewport size and page title.
Tasks
Examples
The one where someone anonymous visit the page once and goes
The one where the server confirms it has received the data
The one where we have over 1,000 entries in local storage
The one where someone visits the page two days in a row from the same browser
Verification
GIVEN anyone visits the website WHEN they clicks on a button I can see when that happened AND which button it was AND what size viewport they were using AND whether they reached the page from a previous URL
Related tasks
These are noted because it's convenient for me to write them here. They are not all necessary to achieve this increment. I'd like to get stuck in with the first task (above) and then return to what's below once I know how long we have left.