Google Analytics (GA) and its latest iteration, GA4, are widely used tools by marketers and businesses to collect website and app traffic data.  

According to Statista, 2022 saw Google dominating the web analytics industry, with GA coming in first with a market share of 29.6%. Following that were Google Global Site Tag and Google Universal Analytics, with a market share of 23.73% and 19.61%, respectively. This means Google holds the top three spots, with Facebook Analytics and MonsterInsights coming in fourth and fifth, respectively.  

As a result of Google’s familiar brand name and its dominance in the industry, it often is the default choice for most businesses. To be fair, GA is great for measuring your Google Ads performance and SEO. But if you are looking to go beyond that, you may need to consider an alternative to GA. 

Why do we need alternatives?  

Surprisingly, GA does occasionally fall short. For instance, some GA users are now looking elsewhere because of Google’s privacy issues. According to a few news reports, GA has been declared illegal in a few European countries, such as Austria, France, and Italy, due to not complying with the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This regulation is one of the world’s most stringent and strongest sets of data protection rules, which places limits on what organizations can do with people’s data. As such, all these reasons are now pushing organizations to find alternative analytics software that both complies with privacy regulations and overcomes GA’s limitations.  

Google Analytics Alternatives

While these alternatives will likely not replace GA entirely, they do help to cover any missing data. Therefore, they can help to give a more in-depth overview of your website traffic, so you can better understand your leads. By understanding what makes your audience convert, the better you can target them effectively.

Adobe Analytics

Adobe Analytics remains a popular alternative to GA and GA4. Adobe Analytics is a cloud-based platform that is part of the Adobe Experience Cloud suite and is specifically geared toward enterprise-level companies. The software offers various features, including real-time data analysis, advanced segmentation and attribution, and support for multiple languages. Additionally, Adobe Analytics uses machine learning to provide advanced reports regarding predictive modelling and attribution. So, organizations can use it to evaluate data on journey habits and user segments. This can then be used to model future actions and how the business will perform.  

Overall, Adobe Analytics remains a premium tool, but its costs reflect its capabilities. Adobe offers customers three tiers of pricing – the Select, Prime, and Ultimate tiers. However, these costs are only available at request. Meaning this tool is generally only used by large organizations with high budgets and a need for advanced analytics.  

Matomo

Previously called Piwik, Matomo is an open-source, self-hosted web analytics tool. It provides a range of tools such as e-commerce tracking, advanced segmentation, as well as a breakdown of real-time data. In addition, Matomo also has unique features such as session recordings, heatmaps, SEO keyword reporting, and A/B testing, for marketers to gain a more in-depth understanding of their analytics. The platform makes it easy and convenient for those looking to migrate from GA to Matomo by letting users import their historical data directly.    

Matomo also gives organisations more control over their data and privacy since everything is self-hosted. It is one of the most commonly used analytics tools, with over 1.4 million websites in over 190 countries using it. Because it follows privacy laws like the GDPR and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) so stringently, there is no need for the platform to provide disclosures or obtain consent from users.  

Regarding price, Matomo offers a free plan with limited features hosted on your servers. The paid plan starts at 19EUR and is based on your monthly traffic.  

Piwik PRO

Like Matomo, Piwik PRO Analytics Suite focuses on privacy and data security. The platform, which is open source, complies with GDPR, CCPA, and the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (HIPAA). Aside from offering similar features to GA, its interface is also incredibly intuitive and easy to use. There are additional abilities for building customer profiles, coordinating tag behaviour, managing consent, and more. Due to Piwik PRO’s privacy focus, it is ideal for industries that need to handle sensitive customer data, such as healthcare, government, insurance, and finance.  

The tool offers a free plan with limits that can be used forever. Paid plans can be customized and determined by your traffic or individual use case. However, costs are generally only available upon request.  

Clicky

Clicky is extremely privacy-friendly and tends to be preferred due to being straightforward to use and install. Much like GA, it focuses on quantitative analysis, with tools such as real-time traffic analytics and heatmap tracking, to name a few. These features can help marketers and businesses visualize the user’s journey on their website.  

Unlike the above platforms, Clicky is a lot more lightweight. While its tracking and analysis features are a little more basic, the platform can still be a good option for smaller businesses or websites that have low traffic.  

Clicky offers both free and paid plans. The free plan is only available for websites with up to 3,000 daily pageviews. It also offers a free 21-day trial of premium service. On the other hand, paid plans have four pricing tiers – the Pro, Pro Plus, Pro Platinum, and Custom – and start at $9.99 a month. Of course, the actual cost will depend on the number of websites you want to track and their daily pageviews.  

Mixpanel

A unique aspect of Mixpanel is that it is designed to be a product analytics tool. This means that it analyzes how users interact with your internet-based product. So, Mixpanel provides tools to analyze app usage, retention rate, conversions, and other real-time user behaviour. This allows organizations to make data-backed decisions when it comes to their products. This tool lets marketers see conversions across different segments and additional custom event tracking. Not surprisingly, it is also used in tandem with GA.  

Mixapanel is available on the web, mobile, and other smart devices. It has a limited free plan, including up to 20M monthly events. It also has two tiers of pricing – the Growth and Enterprise tiers. The paid plan starts at $20 monthly for up to 300M monthly events.

Others  

Aside from the above, there are a few more analytics tools that you can choose from. For smaller businesses or those who may not have as much website traffic, they may decide to pick a more lightweight solution. This can include platforms such as W3Counter and Mint. On the whole, these tools offer very basic tracking and analysis features, and while they may not be as robust when compared to GA, these platforms can still be a viable option for certain businesses.  

For those looking for other open-source analytics platforms, a few come to mind. These include Amplitude, Heap, and Segment, to name a few. In general, these platforms tend to specialize in event tracking, mobile tracking, and user behavior. Additionally, they also offer robust segmentation, funnels, and cohort analysis. These tools all help to give marketers and organizations a more detailed analysis of any user behavior on their websites.  

For businesses that need to handle sensitive customer data, privacy-focused analytics tools like Plausible can be a great help. Not only is it simple to use, but it is designed to protect user privacy. This is done by only storing and collecting minimal data, such as page views and unique visitors. Plausible also complies with regulations such as GDPR, CCPA, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR). Prices start at $9 a month and will depend on your website’s monthly pageviews. 

Bottom line

Overall, many alternatives to GA and GA4 can be used by organizations. The one that businesses pick and use will depend on various factors. This can include data privacy, being open-source, real-time data analysis, user behaviour tracking, and more. Of course, each tool will have its strengths, weaknesses, and costs, meaning companies need to carefully evaluate their features before committing to a final option.  

If you have any questions, make sure to contact MediaGroup Worldwide! Our experienced digital marketing specialists are excited to help you analyze and understand your website traffic and measure campaign performance. Contact us now at: https://mediagroupww.com/en/contact/.