So much happened in 2022 that it was nice to write it down in the annual report. We would therefore like to present to you the main milestones that have happened in that short period of 365 days and that have changed the way the whole organisation operates.
The report consists of individual insights from all our members, staff and colleagues who had the opportunity to experience the year 2022 at Archetix. You can expect to read about challenges, industry changes, news, visions, clients, plans and much more. So get into it!
Marek Čech
CEO and web analytics
I am very pleased to write the foreword to our next annual report. We’re coming off a turbulent year in 2022, in which Archetix has seen over 200% growth in total service revenue. In addition to the financial growth, I am pleased to see our team growing with more experts gradually filling our web and data analytics teams. This also enables us to fulfill our company’s vision of offering quality and affordable services in data analytics and web analytics.
Thank you to all our colleagues, partners and most importantly our clients for allowing us to realize our dream job.
After reading a few words from my perspective as a director, you can also read the views of other colleagues in this Annual Report to get a complete picture of what we have accomplished this year.
News/changes in the view of analytics
In 2022, much of the focus of the analytics market has been on greater emphasis on legally correct processing of customer data and evaluation of customer consent with respect to marketing and analytics measurement. This is because an amendment to the Electronic Communications Act came into force, straightening out some of the legal ambiguities around ad targeting and the processing of personal data on websites. We and our team of pros have kept up with the whole issue and have become a certified partner of Cookiebot by Usercentrics, whose solutions we deploy with our clients.
As the market was emerging from the frenzy around Cookie Bars, anonymous measurement or the ratio of consent and non-consent data, another agonizing thing started to plague it: the Google finally confirmed that in 2023 they will end its support for Universal Analytics, which is considered the most widely used tool for measuring website traffic.
The entire market, including us, led by marketers and managers, have gotten used to managing their entire marketing business around Universal Analytics in the 15 years that Universal Analytics has been with us and pretending that Universal Analytics is always right and has 100% of the data. We have historically known through the detailed technical audits we do with clients that this is not the case, but the market was yet to see this discovery.
So we eagerly began implementing the upcoming GA4 version, which is still finding its way into the market in 2023. I actually understand the whole situation myself, the marketers are unhappy because they don’t have the tool they were used to using, the tool works completely differently and the analysts are having a hard time training everyone in the company again. When you consider that the whole situation is compounded by the need to deploy cookie bars, it’s quite a lot for one eshopper. Unfortunately, this is the situation and if we want to stay true to Google’s tools we all have to adapt. We have been helping our clients with this adaptation since early 2022 and have over 40 implementations under our belt.
News/changes in web analytics implementations
Skipping the implementation projects related to the GA4 transition, we have started to focus a lot on SGTM and proper implementation of the consent policy. For the consent policy, we have thoroughly studied the different levels – legal, technical and business – and as a result we are able to offer comprehensive consulting services to our clients.
Thanks to the server version of Google Tag Manager, we were able to implement server-based measurement techniques relatively easily for our clients. During the course of the year we gained the necessary knowledge and certifications and by the end of the year we had several completed implementations.
A frequent motivation for our clients is the deployment of server-based event measurement for Facebook, the so-called Conversion API, or the implementation of enhanced conversions for Google Ads. We also have a lot of experience with real-time margin processing, which can make the job of people managing campaigns for products with different margins much easier.
Increasingly, we are deepening our network of partner agencies, for whom we regularly train internal teams of consultants and improve their clients’ implementations. We have very good relationships with Digital Depo and Morph.
News in the online world
With the emphasis on transparency and the legal side of measurement, topics such as first party data, ethical analytics, do not track, do not sell, etc. have started to come to light. These topics have pretty much swept through the entire analytics and marketing ecosystem and swept away some of the cobwebs and forgotten corners. New practices have had to be adapted by both the big ad networks like Google, Facebook and Criteo, as well as by advertisers trying to measure their performance. In general, all these related topics are called preparing for a cookieless future (i.e., a cookie-free future of marketing technology). In such a world, first-party data (which honestly has always played a role, it just hasn’t been talked about as much) and targeting based on it will be paramount. Even ad system activity often shows that phone number, email address and real address prove to be fine matching keys that users will provide anyway, so why bother with cookies. It is then crucial for all businesses to adapt processes that make their work and the flow of user and customer data more transparent and open up the possibility of control over this data at all stages of the process. With historical and bogged down analytics implementations, where the measurement code is lying around in sites and applications unknown where it is unfortunately not even technically possible.
During 2022, the changes associated with Google’s acquisition of visualisation company Looker began to take effect, with Google rebranding its Data Studio to Looker Studio and everyone eagerly anticipating how the paid enterprise version will work under Google’s watch.
Main company news
The biggest focus of our corporate development last year was definitely recruiting new people and stabilising the team, which we intend to continue in 2023. We welcomed three new faces to the team who stood out in the crowd of applicants.
As mentioned we strengthened our strategic collaboration with several agencies and freelancers.
We have opened up more abroad thanks to our foreign website archetix.com, which we are already giving the same attention as its Czech version.
At the end of the year, we became members of the APEK association or gave presentations at the Tools in Marketing conference, so that we could contribute even more to the cultivation and development of the Czech digital world.
Fulfilling visions
For 2022, I am most proud of the entire team for being able to learn new technologies and adapt new ways of working that they had never done before whether it was GA4, Cookiebot or a completely different approach to client consultation through the consent policy. Education has always been a top priority for us, but this year in particular has shown that this approach is critical to keeping our firm up to date.
Another big milestone was the growth of the entire firm, both in membership and in most financial metrics, which met our expectations as owners.
Marek’s year 2023
In 2023, we expect further growth with the entire company. The number of team members should stabilize around 10 and the performance of the entire team should grow with it. We want to maintain the quality of our implementations, but at the same time discover new directions and technologies that we can offer our customers that will help in the development of their business.
Personally, I would like to focus more on managing the company from my role as a director and its strategic direction and if I can, I would also like to be involved in implementing analytics for our key clients. Currently, I’ve soaked up especially the knowledge around server GTM and cookie policy and I’m looking forward to putting it to full use on key projects.
Lately, I’ve been most excited to work on clients whose digital projects are undergoing a planned strategic redesign.
Michal Pich
CTO, Data Analytics and Integration
News in the industry and our work
One of the newer technologies is the open source software DBT (Data Build Tool), which we started playing with in 2021 and implemented into our processes through trial and error. It’s not that new, it’s only in 2022 that a lot of companies and people started using it and it became very talked about.
DBT itself has grown a lot in the past year and we have managed to incorporate the tool as a major part and keep everything stable. At the same time there is a lot of discussion about what is already solved in the software world (code quality, CI/CD, data lineage). It is a topic of the last two years in software development. It starts with “homebrewing” on your own and gradually builds up a team that you need to work with. It is thanks to DBT that some practices are solved and a lot is simplified because of that.
At the same time, there has been an incredible boom with AI tools that are simple to use. The whole “hype” around AI in general doesn’t sit well with me because all these methods have been around since the 70s. It’s great that the field is moving forward, of course, but there’s a lot of unnecessary hype around it. A lot of these tools have reached people, so even our clients are open to discussing the implementation of similar tools in their processes. I expect this trend to gain momentum in the period ahead.
The other technology news was the official end of Universal Analytics and therefore the start of the transition to Google Analytics 4. So people started to take it seriously and it’s also a very important topic for us because GA is still the market leader in terms of web data collection. Also, the fact that GA4 has an open database is very important for us. So all the data that is there can be worked with thanks to the “Transport” function. This feature was not in GA3 and we had to work around this process in a complicated way. Along with these changes came a lot of options and updates, which of course we had to learn and implement into our processes.
At the same time, from the web world, there was still a lot of work to be done on the consent policy, which, in simple terms, went into effect for us on 2022/01/01. People who didn’t get to implement this change by that date are still catching up and we are still seeing entities who haven’t followed through. I expect that next year there will be issues like: How are people supposed to work with this? How do you read the data in it? How do they use that information?
We get a lot of new information, tools, technologies or even processes from meetups and community events. Prague is full of such events and in the data world the community of people is not that wide, but it is all the more interesting. What is definitely worth mentioning are the regular Data Mesh meetups. This is an event where I often learn something new or interesting. Data Mesh is more of a smaller event where a few people get together and present for 10-15 minutes at most about industry news or experiences. I don’t enjoy more community events like Measurecamp or Happynessatwork as much in terms of news. These events are great at networking, I’m always awfully happy to meet people I haven’t seen in a while. Knowledge-wise, though, they’re not for me.
We are a very progressive company, we adapt quickly to change and we are not afraid of challenges. That’s why we plan to move forward next year, both on our clients and internally, primarily by expanding our teams.
Main news about the company for 2022
The year 2022 was a very extreme year in terms of recruitment. Hopefully things will calm down a bit in 2023, but the ambition to expand the teams still remains. The primary issue with the lack of people in the data and web analytics industries is the lack of an education system to prepare people to work in these industries. We are trying to shed at least some light on these positions through workshops or evening schools, which we plan to implement in the fall of 2023. The training situation is complicated by the number of tools and software that are emerging in the industry. However, these can change frequently and therefore we are looking for all-round talented candidates.
The main change at Archetix is the arrival of new people, namely Kristy, Tom and Bara P.. It is with their help that we have been able to implement some new events here in Pilsen. The main event was the Google Cloud Meetup, thanks to which we hope we have stirred up the Pilsen community of data scientists. On the same basis we would like to realize another Meetup in 2023.
The establishment of the Prague office was also quite a major milestone. The decision to expand the Pilsen office with the Prague one was made at the end of 2022 and we were able to open it right at the beginning of the new year. I, together with my Prague colleagues, take advantage of this opportunity and visit our office near the beautiful Vyšehrad Castle several times a week.
Michael’s year 2023
The big task for 2023 is still in recruitment. Related to this is the fact that we want to build a data team by the end of 2023. So we would like to expand our teams and we also want to build a stable and functioning Prague office of Archetix. This year, we would like to professionally grasp internal HR and take care of our people. We will strive to grow our employees more systematically and create educational plans for them. At the end of 2023, I also want to focus on working with partners. In this way, I would like to strengthen our joint relationships, deepen them and work on joint projects that will benefit all parties.
In terms of tools, technologies and partners, we want to continue our cooperation with the Czech ETL process tool Keboola. I hope that together we will get more momentum in the partnership program. Another goal that we want to put a lot of focus into is the partnership with Google Cloud. And we definitely plan to continue to use the DBT tool, where I expect it will connect with Google Cloud to create an interesting combination of tools.
It’s through the collaboration with Google Cloud Czech Republic that we want to focus more on Machine Learning and specifically into BigQuery ML. It’s still going to be more around the “simpler” stuff where it’s going to use specific services of the tool.
From a visualisation point of view, we want to move more in the direction of supporting our customers, as clients have increasingly specific requirements that are better addressed individually. From our experience over the last few years, it works better for us to provide customers with all the ready-made documents and they will be able to build the reports in the way that suits them best.
A big theme is reverse ETL, which is a way of getting calculated/processed data back into systems. We implemented a couple of these last year and I think it will be much more frequent in 2023.
A topic that I think will be addressed a lot in late 2023 is how to enable our customers to work with the data so that the output is stored somewhere and it doesn’t end up just filtering.
Martin Štacko
Web Analytics & Smartlook
Company-wide view for 2022
In my opinion, 2022 was a very successful year for the company from various perspectives. A lot of credit for this goes to the expansion of the team with the addition of new faces – Bara, Kristy and Tom, the consolidation of various internal processes that led, among other things, to more efficient work between us within the company and the possibility to open a second office in Prague, which contributed to networking, as a lot of events are held in the capital and it is now easier to attend these events.
We have also transferred the efficiency to our client relationships, where we have worked on working with long-term clients and have consolidated our place as Archetix in the web analytics field, not only in the Czech Republic, but we have also expanded our presence abroad to various smaller clients.
The big challenge for us in 2022 was the fact that Universal Analytics was coming to an end, so a lot of things revolved around that – learning Google Analytics 4, training clients, explaining the differences, that you can’t compare Universal Analytics and GA4 one-to-one… developing tools related to the transition, implementation, etc.
What I plan for 2023
As the new team leader, I have a clear vision and goals I want to achieve. My main goal is to improve the efficiency and performance of our team. I want to create an environment where every team member feels supported and motivated to achieve the best results.
One of my priority goals is to provide opportunities for personal and professional growth for all team members. I want to support their development, provide them with feedback and gain experience myself in effective people management. I believe that assigning appropriate responsibilities, tasks and communication are key to the development of our team.
Communication with people is where we will stay – another thing I would like to improve is the overall management of clients, both current and new. Streamline communication with the client, handing over projects, tasks internally… So that both we and the client are happy.
Regarding web analytics, I would like to gain knowledge of GA4 at the level I had with GA3. Functioning, tools, tips, tricks or the possibility to automatically check implementations…
Tomáš Ondříšek
Web analytics
Company-wide view for 2022
From my perspective, 2022 was a very successful year, both from a purely corporate perspective and in terms of new market opportunities and new clients.
There has been alignment within the company and the creation of long and short term visions for the company, which we are all working hard to ensure are met.
This is mainly related to the constant expansion of our teams, which is the main contribution of Kristy, followed by the expansion to foreign markets, which is again the responsibility of Marek, and last but not least, the constant education and monitoring of trends, which everyone in the company is engaged in. A significant achievement within the company was also the hiring of a new office manager, Bara, who takes care of us as her own. ? Personally, I don’t know what we would do without her.
In the field of acquisitions, we have won a significant order for us from abroad. It is a German start-up, with whom we have been cooperating since last July. This involves commissioning a new data layer, setting up measurements in Google Analytics 4 and the start of server-side measurement.
Other important collaborations have followed, both on the domestic and foreign markets. One of the reasons is also the fact of Universal Analytics ending and the need for eshops and start-ups to continue to get data. For this reason too, potential clients are increasingly turning to our firm to handle the entire transition to the new Google Analytics 4 for them.
Finally, the area of new opportunities! Within the last year, a pilot program for a new product called “Conversion Optimization – or, how to solve the sales and lead slump” was developed and subsequently adopted. This is a model where we use the data we already collect for our clients and, with the help of additional tools and analysis, create new outputs that help achieve higher sales and leads.
Another innovation from last year is the anonymous measurement of cookie approvals. This is a dedicated client report that accurately counts the number of customers who have accepted all consents, declined all consents or only partially consented. Based on this, it is possible to see how much data we are actually losing in GA4 and we can focus more on optimizing the cookie bar itself.
What I plan for 2023
The biggest challenge this year will be to launch and stabilize the new product “Conversion Optimization“, which is currently running in a pilot program. I would like this product to be able to reach the largest possible field of clients and their needs in terms of sales and leads. We have developed several pricing options from which smaller and less demanding clients as well as the largest and most demanding clients can choose. The goal is to provide clients with a complete report that clearly points out the bottlenecks on the site and offers solutions along with estimated benefits to their business.
Over the course of this year I would like to finally delve more into the topic of server-side measurement, which has somewhat eluded me so far, but I see great potential in it. I have split my training in this regard and will subsequently be working on server-side in practice with some of our clients.
Subsequently, I want to continue debugging the cookieless anonymous measurement report templates mentioned above. I need to synchronize the settings of the measurement itself and the report in Looker Studio so that, simply put, all I need to do is change the source and the report will work.
Last but not least, I need to develop my knowledge and skills in Javascript, which has become an indispensable tool for me when setting up tags, triggers and variables in Google Tag Manager. After that, I would like to continue into Apps Script and try to create my own plugins or possibly a corporate book rental service.
In the field of education, this is still not all. There is still much to learn in the field of web analytics. So I currently have a few courses that I’m doing in between. The biggest course right now is a mini-degree from CXL called “Technical Marketing”, which covers the technical side of setting up and implementing measurement, including the basics of other programming languages.
Now for the more fun stuff. We have some great things coming up in 2023. A few colleagues and I are attending MeasureCamp, which will be in Munich. This is a big conference for web and data analysts where the agenda is made up on the spot. It will be partly teambuilding, where we will be staying overnight in Munich and probably also exploring some of the places in the city.
Another event we’re going to have and where we’ll meet a lot of cool people is Data Date. The event is a full day event and takes place in Prague. It includes lectures, networking, barbecues and other fun activities.
The last major event I have coming up, which I hope will work out, is a trip to Vietnam. This will be a great experience as I will still be on the job for part of the month and will defacto be handing in work backwards, i.e. at the time my colleagues are getting up. I believe that everything will work out as it should and that my colleagues and I will coordinate the meeting times properly, because for the rest of the month I want to switch everything off and enjoy the leisure and beauty of Vietnam.
Bára Soukupová
Data Analytics and AI
Shift in Archetix
Over the past year, I have experienced significant personal and professional growth that has allowed me to make a significant shift in data analytics. I have focused mainly on technical knowledge and problem solving skills. Through continued education and training opportunities, I have improved my technical skills in data analysis, web analytics tools, and programming languages.
This growth has allowed me to tackle complex data sets more effectively and gain meaningful insights. I also actively sought out challenging projects and problem-solving opportunities that honed my critical thinking and analytical skills. I learned to approach problems from multiple perspectives, explore alternative solutions, and make data-driven decisions to optimize outcomes.
Overall, my personal and professional growth over the past year has allowed me to become a more confident and capable data analyst that positively contributes to the success of our team and the company.
Year 2023 at Bara’s
I would like to share an important decision I have made for my personal and professional development. I have decided to study Data Science in Ireland and therefore my career path will take a new direction.
Although my decision to pursue higher education means leaving my current position, I am grateful for the opportunities and growth I have experienced here. I sincerely appreciate the support and guidance I have received from my colleagues and supervisors during my time here.
Kristýna Bulíková
HR & marketing
Company-wide view for 2022
For me personally, 2022 was a year full of change, progress and challenges. Not only did I become a part of the Archetix team, but I also completed my studies at the University of West Bohemia in Pilsen, ending my study era. The very first challenge that awaited me was to take on several positions in our company – office management, marketing and HR.
The interplay of these positions was very beneficial for me, I learned a lot of great skills, how the office works, how to make sure that people around me are happy, how to make sure that the company is visible on social media or how to choose the right person for the team and much more. But towards the end of the year I was very grateful for Bara P. who took over office management from me and many tasks could be spread between the two of us ?.
We had some great team building sessions which I believe benefited us right where they should have. We implemented our first Pilsen Google Cloud Meetup to spread awareness of Google Cloud features here in our beautiful Pilsen. Marketing Pilsen, an event we help make happen, is in full swing and we love seeing the enthusiastic audience that came to soak up information, experience or knowledge in our fields.
What I consider to be perhaps the biggest success of 2022 is the successful recruitment of data and web analysts to our ranks. I try to look at HR in a very unbiased way, but I’m always very motivated when a recruitment goes well. At the same time, I’m very pleased with every new lead that comes into the company that we take on right away.
What I plan for 2023
We have a clear vision and goals for 2023 and we need to focus on them. For me, this specifically relates to recruiting new colleagues to our ranks, plus optimizing campaigns, social media visibility and finding other methods to impress our community. In terms of education, I’d like to primarily focus on digital marketing where I feel I still lack knowledge and confidence, which is also why I’m planning to attend my first “professional” PPC restart conference, which I’m really looking forward to.
We are also planning great team building, other conferences, events like Pilsen Google Cloud Meetup Vo. 2, Marketing Pilsen, seminars for students, night schools and other events that we are fully open to.
Bára Pospíšilová
Finance & office management
Company-wide view for 2022
I joined Archetix in September 2022 when I filled the position of Office Manager. At the same time, just after joining, I left for Kyrgyzstan with a school project, so my “joining” was postponed for this time.
So, as it may sound from the first paragraph – my year 2022 revolved mainly around work and school. My story at Archetix started with taking on an office management position, studying in Kyrgyzstan, followed by taking on the finance side fully and starting work on my thesis.
So much has changed in such a short period of time, and all of these challenges have gifted me with countless experiences and skills I never imagined I would master.
Following on from these events, I quit one of my three jobs – working in a bridal salon – and at the end of the year I took full responsibility for processing documents and contracts at Archetix. I never really thought I would ever manage the income and expenditure of a company and it was great to dive into something from the ground up like this. Kyrgyzstan was a test of my mental and physical strength (I won’t eat horse meat and milk anymore) and I started 2023 by successfully completing my penultimate semester at university.
But the biggest shift I see in the company is in our clients. We have deepened our collaboration with our regular and long-standing clients even more, and there are a lot of new and interesting companies that have partnered with us to collaborate on different and exciting projects. It’s great to see how the company is attracting new organisations to join us, but at the same time managing to keep up with long-term clients.
What I plan for 2023
My main goal for 2023 is to successfully complete my Master’s degree. This means that I will spend the first six months of the year either writing my thesis or studying for my state exams. The state final exams are my biggest challenge and highest priority at the moment. After that I would like to relax, I have many trips planned either with my parents, friends or boyfriend. Rest will be replaced by work and then moving, so the vacation won’t last forever and some of that chaos will come in its place.
My job isn’t exactly diverse. It is a bit monotonous – invoicing, communication with the accountant, accounting as such, all office management and invoicing again. But what I really enjoy is organizing teambuilding and events. I always get a kick out of planning joint activities. It’s great to be creative and come up with something fun and funny for us to get to know each other a little bit more and better again. I like how my job description is perfectly balanced. The combination of contract and document processing and office management is perfect because when I get tired of the monotony, I can move into the creative part of the job.
