General metrics changed after GTM template update

Data collection and tags
1

Hi,
We are very happy that Piwik Pro updated their GTM template, but since we updated on July 25th, we noticed a significant change in our basic metrics: users, pages and bounce rate dropped, session duration and time on page increased 4 times. I presume that it is coming from the basic tracking code. We only updated the template without changing anything else. Has someone experienced the same problem?

2

Hi @danielakeil,

Could you share the template settings? I’m mostly interested in the privacy & data collection related fields.

3

Hi @anthonybartczak,

Here is our basic template settings:

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4

Are you sure about that part :sweat_smile:?

The default value of IP collection mode should be Collect visitor's IP addresses. Same for secure cookies - these are off by default.

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5

I meant compared to our settings before template update in GTM.

We had secure cookies turned on before. IP collection didn’t exist in the template before, but we have it turned off in our global account settings in Piwik Pro.

I still don’t understand why turning IP collection off should change the metrics so much.

6

If you are using the session hash for session recognition, it will impact it in a very negative way as its one of the primary variables required to calculate it:

If IP collection if fully disabled (whether it’s in the GTM template or Piwik PRO), I’d suggest disabling session hash and using cookies.

7

Thank you Antoni. I will turn off session hash and see the result.
I am wondering then, if the previous template in GTM (before the update) didn’t respect the global setting in Piwik Pro and has collected IP adresses.

8

“Collect visitors’ IP addresses” setting available in the Administration module works on the Piwik PRO Tag Manager level, meaning it requires usage of Piwik PRO Tag Manager to automatically include a specific tracking request parameter (rmip) that removes the address from the data collection pipeline.

The previous version of the GTM template didn’t support either anonymous mode or the IP address removal.

We’ll add this type of information to the feature description for sure.

9

All right, that makes completely sense. Thank you very much for explanation and help. I appreciate it.

Have a great day :slight_smile:

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