Top 6 alternatives to Google Analytics — best marketing measurement tools 2024

Universal Analytics has been a go-to for marketers since the inception of online advertising. So, why would Google sunset its Universal Analytics (UA), with its 30% market share, to shift to Google Analytics 4 (GA4) without offering users even essential data migration? The new GA4 also emphasises event-focused analytics rather than straightforward cookie-tracking data. Does that mean Google has changed the way it rates and counts events?

These changes indicate that there has been a fundamental shift in the basics underlying the data analytics industry, and that it’s time to look at new ways to measure marketing goals. But before you move to a replacement analytical tool, what is the best Google Analytics alternative to avoid getting you into trouble with privacy laws? 

First, you need to understand Google’s well-documented privacy debacles and the tool limitations inherent in Google Universal Analytics to help you avoid similar issues when choosing an alternative to Google Analytics.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of the new Google Analytics 4, check the current best alternatives to Google Analytics, and find out why some alternative marketing measurement tools could be on dangerous ground in increasingly restrictive privacy environments.

Why do marketers look for alternatives to Google Analytics?

Customer journeys have become extraordinarily complex. People now use multiple digital tools besides robust privacy protection. They leap across devices like digital grasshoppers, leaving marketers scrambling for ways to track the impact of their marketing campaigns and attribute the value of each touchpoint correctly.

A customer may first see your product on Twitter, read about it on a website while on a home laptop, then see it in action on Facebook and search for a stockist on their mobile device. Perhaps they’ll add it to an Amazon wishlist on Amazon from a home laptop - before finally buying it directly from your website from a work desktop.

None of the conventional multi-touch attribution or analytics tools can follow each customer journey correctly. That creates a massive problem when marketers have to justify their Facebook or Google advertising spending.

What are the main problems to avoid with Google Analytics alternatives? Tool limitations

The main problems with Google Analytics are the increasing pressure on marketers to preserve user privacy and GA4’s technological shortcomings.

Google Analytics Tool limitations

Google Analytics 4 may have been developed by the most powerful advertising company in the world, but the problems that plagued the old Universal Analytics will still be present in the new GA4:

Data sampling

Google commonly uses data sampling on large data sets which skews advanced analysis reports.

Data losses due to loss of consent to track

Google handles the data of people who ignore consent buttons in Google Consent mode. The resulting anonymised data may not be used for tracking, which lowers the quality of your dataset.

Complex manual migration process between UA and GA4

You can’t import any data, tags, or settings between the platforms. Once UA shuts down, say “Goodbye!” to the historical records you need to analyse growth or trends. You’ll have to start over.

The steep learning curve of GA4

Google Analytics 4 isn’t a reporting tool, per se. It’s simply a dashboard where you can integrate the outside DIY tools of your choice. You’ll need to learn how to use each of those sophisticated tools to do an independent, off-platform analysis of your data, then integrate the results into your GA4 dashboard. If you’re a data analyst, data analysis tools are all in a day’s work. If you’re a marketer or business owner, working with GA4 could be remarkably challenging.

The freshness of incoming data

In Universal Analytics, you wait at least 24 hours for your reports. GA4 is faster but still takes at least 4 to 8 hours to process incoming data.

Still no access to raw data

Unless a marketer has direct access to AWstats in CPanel you must pay for BigQuery to access your raw data.

Outdated multi-touch attribution

Google’s Multi-Channel Funnels Model Comparison Tool allows you to compare different attribution models to evaluate the impact of your marketing channels. However, Google’s tool is based on the flawed assumption that it is possible, in this day and age, to record people’s every touch point. The reality is very different. 

Google Analytics Privacy issues

Privacy is the future. Third-party cookies are going away. Several European countries have fined Google for contravening GDPR. France, Belgium, and Sweden’s data protection authorities recently hit Google with multi-million-dollar fines, but in early 2022 Austria went a step further when they declared GA illegal. The Dutch and Norwegian data protection authorities have since followed suit.

Even though Google has been forced to change its privacy practices, Google still profiles your users and shares your information with other users in environments where you can’t protect and control your data.

If your new analytics tool collects Personally Identifiable Information (PII), even accidentally, that means that you, the analytics tool user, are a party to this transgression, and you will be held liable for violating GDPR. For example, Google’s Remarketing or Display Network advertising services still rely on PII. Therefore, any marketing measurement tool that used the data Google previously obtained from its remarketing and display network services will be affected.

The important implication is that most alternative marketing measurement tools that claim to be GDPR-compliant may not be safe in the future.

We’ve recapped the shortcomings of Google’s UA because the same problems have been ported to GA4. You’ll need to keep these issues in mind as problems to avoid whether you stay with GA4 or look for an alternative to Google Analytics.

The Top 6 alternatives to Google Analytics for 2024

The analytics tool industry keeps inventing new ways to slurp up both relevant and irrelevant customer data while dodging the edges of privacy laws. But marketers don’t need superfluous private information about people. Instead, they need their marketing measurement tools to tell them where, when, and how much of their marketing budget to spend.

We’ve included some of the newest digital marketing measurement tools in this list of alternatives to Google Analytics.

1. Fathom Analytics

If the idea is for the best Google Analytics alternative to provide “just enough” information about users, this tool is on a noble path.

How it works:

Their technology allows you to bypass ad blockers with a script that assigns attribution to a sub-domain uniquely associated with your business. Effectively, the solution doesn’t know who visits your websites, but they know which pages are popular and which are the best referrers.

Pros:

• It’s a simple web analytics tool with an easy-to-read dashboard for essential reports.
• It has some serious privacy credentials, including a European-owned infrastructure for EU traffic. 
• If you use Google Analytics, Google owns the data and shares it according to its (opaque) privacy practices. With this tool, you own the data, which places you in the position to guarantee that the data you collect is never shared or sold.

Cons:

It fails to capture the customer journey via multiple digital devices for marketers who need proof that they are spending their marketing budget in the right places.

2. SegmentStream

SegmentStream offers a robust solution for businesses seeking more advanced features than Google Analytics provides, especially in today’s cookieless world.

Key Advantages of SegmentStream:

1. Deeper Data Analysis: Goes beyond basic analytics to provide in-depth insights by analysing a broad spectrum of data, including website user behavior, ad clicks, and sales.
2. Machine Learning Insights: Uses advanced machine learning for predictive and real-time analysis, a step up from Google Analytics.
3. Cookieless Attribution: Functions effectively in a cookieless environment, crucial for compliance with current privacy standards.
4. Effective Cross-Device Tracking: Accurately tracks and attributes user activities across multiple devices.
5. Customizable Reporting: Offers more flexibility in reporting than Google Analytics, tailoring data to specific business needs.
6. AI-Driven Budget Optimization: Provides intelligent recommendations for budget allocation to improve ROI.

3. Piwik

This is an analytics suite that focuses on data security and the privacy of users.

How it works:

It provides the users with the ability to analyse the digital user experience in many places, e.g. post-login areas, SharePoint spaces, and so on. 

Pros

• It allows for optimising the customer journey where it is typically impossible by analysing the digital customer journey.
• The tool anonymises has on-premises and cloud storage options.
• It has tailored and custom reports.

Cons:

The solution has limited integration options with third-party tools. Some users also report that creating custom events for some actions is limited.

4. Heap

This is an analytics tool for micromanaging and improving website interaction, tweaking funnels, and increasing website conversion. 

How it works:

It analyses user behaviour on your website and models predictive website improvements.

Pros

• The main benefit is the tool’s ability to pinpoint both hurdles to conversion and moments of greatest opportunity for users on your website. It shows scenarios for tweaking your site to improve user experience, lowering bounce rate, and other ways to optimise what you already have.
• They offer all the expected analytics reports but also some beneficial custom add-ons. For example, Journey Maps visually compares each user’s paths to reach a specific goal and quantifies the impact of optional steps in proposed funnels. 
• The Digital Experience Insights highlights alternative paths to conversion that you may have missed and can even quantify user friction to help you identify product improvements.

Cons:

It provides excellent data on user behaviour, but no interpretation of user intent so it’s not the best Google Analytics alternative. If you want help with focusing your marketing spend it must be integrated with other digital marketing tools.

5. MixPanel

MixPanel is an enterprise-level tool aimed at real-time user identification and behavioural tracking. 

How it works

It uses cookie-based tracking. It relies on extensive data-sharing networks to identify each user as an individual and then tracks real-time data.

Pros

• The highly detailed user data includes devices, time, browser, and other familiar metrics. You can group users based on their actions, set up funnels and segmentations based on page-specific data, and add several other custom reports. Specifically, the tool allows you to send real-time messages or special offers to website visitors based on custom-defined triggers.
• It also offers integration with over 50 marketing tools which can be considered a pro, but the drawback is that you share your data with a vast network of other marketers.

Cons

• It prides itself on identifying each user, on an individual level. It will cause customer pushback like Google Analytics does.
• It’s a big tool for big companies. Marketers with smaller budgets may find that they spend more money on getting the data than they can afford to spend on advertising. 
• The tool relies on gathering and using PII, and it’s just a matter of time before some of the functions are curtailed by privacy laws, forcing you to consider another move. 

6. Matomo

This is the most conventional in our list of alternative analytics tools, being very similar to Google Analytics if slightly more complicated to use.

How it works

It uses cookie-based tracking that relies on a network of data-sharing tracking companies.

Pros

• It’s GDPR compliant if you choose an EU server. Still, if you handle sensitive data, you should note that there is no dedicated module for handling such user requests and that data anonymisation options are limited.
• It offers basic Google Ads and Search Console integration, but if you request reports based on a large dataset, you’ll need to pre-process the data because of the restrictions on the tool’s MySQL backend. 

Cons

• The basic package is free although you’ll need to get some of their add-on features to enrich your data. These add-ons may quickly become expensive. 
• A premium option is a powerful tool, but, like all traditional multi-attribution tools, the accuracy of their attribution reports depends on what users consent to share. That’s becoming problematic for all conventional marketing measurement tools.
• The tool is a big-box solution for bigger budgets that relies on a conventional, somewhat outdated multi-touch attribution model to advise you on how much money to spend on each channel. 
• Additionally, in the face of almost weekly cybersecurity and data breach scandals, it is concerning that their last documented external security audit was in 2014.