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Reclaim Your Marketing Data: An Open-Source Playbook for Accurate Attribution

Are your ad platforms all taking credit for the same sale? This common problem inflates your conversion numbers, making it impossible to calculate true Return on Ad Spend (ROAS). Each platform's tracking pixel operates in a data silo, and privacy updates like iOS 14+ block these client-side tags, causing massive data loss. This leaves you guessing where to allocate your budget, flying blind in a data-driven world.

This playbook details how to build your own server-side data infrastructure using powerful, cost-effective open-source tools. Instead of relying on fragile, browser-based pixels, 'The Open-Source Powerhouse' stack uses Jitsu as a central, server-side event collector. It captures a single, unified stream of customer data from your website or app. This reliable data is then sent directly to your ad platforms' server-to-server APIs for maximum accuracy, synced with your Brevo CRM, and used to populate your own self-hosted Matomo analytics instance. The result: you take back control, bypass browser tracking restrictions, and build a single source of truth for your marketing performance.

Expected Outcomes

  • Dramatically improve the accuracy of conversion tracking by bypassing browser-based ad blockers and privacy restrictions.
  • Eliminate data silos by creating a single source of truth for all customer events.
  • Calculate true, de-duplicated Return on Ad Spend (ROAS) for each marketing channel.
  • Gain full ownership and control over your first-party analytics data with a self-hosted solution.
  • Significantly reduce recurring software costs by leveraging powerful open-source alternatives.

Core Tools in This Stack

Jitsu

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Jitsu is an open-source Customer Data Platform (CDP) designed to collect event data from websites, apps, and servers and send it to data warehouses and third-party tools. It can be self-hosted for free or used as a managed cloud service.

Key Features
  • Open-source and self-hostable core
  • SDKs for event collection (JavaScript, Python, Go)
  • Real-time data streaming to data warehouses (BigQuery, Snowflake, Redshift, etc.)
  • In-flight data transformation with JavaScript
  • Managed cloud offering (Jitsu Cloud)
  • Privacy-first architecture with full data control
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Usage-based, Open-source

Tier: Low

Ease of Use

Intermediate

Matomo

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Matomo is a powerful open-source web analytics platform that gives you 100% data ownership and user privacy protection. It serves as a comprehensive alternative to Google Analytics, offering detailed reports, conversion optimization tools like heatmaps and A/B testing, and full control over your data.

Key Features
  • 100% Data Ownership
  • Privacy Compliance (GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA)
  • Visitor Profiles & Journey
  • Heatmaps & Session Recordings
  • A/B Testing Platform
  • Funnels & Goal Conversion Tracking
  • Customizable Dashboards
  • On-Premise or Cloud Hosting
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription, Open Source

Tier: Freemium

Ease of Use

Medium

Brevo

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Brevo is an all-in-one platform for building customer relationships across marketing, sales, and support channels, including email, SMS, chat, marketing automation, and more.

Key Features
  • Marketing Platform (Email, SMS, WhatsApp)
  • Sales Platform (CRM & Pipeline Management)
  • Live Chat & Chatbots
  • Transactional Email API
  • Landing Page Builder
  • Marketing Automation Workflows
  • Meeting Scheduler
Ideal For

Company Size: Micro, Small, Medium, Large

Industries: Technology & Software, Business & Professional Services, Retail & E-commerce, Creative & Media, Education & Non-Profit, Health & Wellness, Other

Pricing

Model: Freemium, Subscription

Tier: Mid-range

Ease of Use

Medium

The Workflow

graph TD subgraph "The Open-Source Powerhouse" direction LR N0["Jitsu"] N1["Matomo"] N2["Brevo"] N0 -- "Sends event data for analytics" --> N1 N0 -- "Sends event data for contacts & automations" --> N2 end classDef blue fill:#3498db,stroke:#2980b9,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef green fill:#2ecc71,stroke:#27ae60,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; classDef orange fill:#f39c12,stroke:#d35400,stroke-width:2px,color:#fff; class N0 blue; class N1 blue; class N2 blue;

Integration Logic

  • Jitsu Universal Event Collector

    Jitsu acts as the central data pipeline. It receives events (e.g., page views, form submissions, button clicks) from a website or application via its JavaScript SDK or API. Once an event is received, Jitsu's routing engine processes it and forwards it to configured destinations. In this setup, Jitsu will send event data to Matomo for web analytics tracking and to Brevo to create or update contacts and trigger marketing automations. For example, a 'user_signup' event can be sent to Matomo as a goal conversion and to Brevo to add the new user to a 'Welcome' email sequence.

Fix Your Attribution Data

Calculate your true ROAS and confidently allocate budget to the channels that actually work.