Just as Google isn’t the reigning monarch of the search engine realm, Google Analytics doesn’t hold the exclusive key to the kingdom of web analytics tools. In this vast digital territory, a host of alternatives exist, each boasting features that would leave Google Analytics users wide-eyed and wishing upon a digital star.
Google Analytics is great, but it’s not without flaws. For example, its tracking is limited to JavaScript-enabled browsers. So, if you’re dealing with legacy browsers or mobile devices that don’t support JS, you might not be getting all the data you need for analysis.
Plus, Google Analytics’ UI can intimidate some users, and its lack of robust features can be a deal-breaker for more advanced analytics users.
3 Reasons You Should Consider Using a Google Analytics Alternative
While Google Analytics is a robust and free option, it does sport a couple of hiccups that might make you don an explorer’s hat and venture into the jungle of alternatives. So, buckle up and let me share three compelling reasons to consider swapping your Google Analytics for another web analytics tool:
#1. Unfriendliness
Google Analytics doesn’t have the friendliest user interface. It can be hard to pick up, and even some of its experienced and advanced users struggle with the complexity of features and configuration options.
It has a steep learning curve that can be an issue for some users. To truly understand it, you must join Google Skillshop and get certified — something not everyone has the time for.
On top of this, they’re always changing the UI, making it hard to keep track of what’s new and what’s gone.
Even setting up a simple conversion tracking event can be quite complicated for the average user.
It turns out that most website owners don’t want to become GA pros. They just want to:
- Track the critical data on their website
- Understand how their visitors use the site
- Get insights from that data to make better decisions
That’s it.
Most GA alternatives have been designed with these objectives in mind. They make it easy for users to set up tracking quickly and get the data they need without diving deep into analytics’ nerd speak.’
#2. Privacy and Ethics
Google Analytics is free, right? Well, there’s a catch.
In exchange for ‘free’ analytics services, Google collects a ton of data from its users and uses it to improve its own products. It’s perfectly legal –but it doesn’t always feel good.
More privacy-conscious website owners may not want their data crossing Google’s servers.
Let’s break down how Google Analytics collects data:
According to BuiltWith, over 37 million websites are using Google Analytics. That includes 61% of the 100,000 most popular websites.
Each time a user visits one of those websites, Google Analytics records information such as:
- IP address
- Operating system and browser type
- The pages visited
- How long they stayed on each page
- Referring websites
- What website your users are visiting
- What your users buy online
- What topics are they interested in
In other words, Google knows your website better than you do. That’s why the rise of alternative analytics services is so important – they don’t have to compromise on privacy and ethics to get the insights they need.
#3. Data Accuracy
GA isn’t the most accurate source of website data.
That’s because it relies on cookies to track user behaviour and interaction. But when users delete, block cookies, or switch devices, GA will miss vital data.
Some devices also don’t work that well with cookies, like mobile phones and tablets. That means GA isn’t as reliable in tracking user behaviour on these devices.
Fortunately, other analytics services don’t rely on cookies to track users — they use a combination of user ID tracking (which follows the same user across multiple devices) and website fingerprinting (which identifies unique visitors on the same device).
GA also can’t tell if multiple people are using the same device.
For example, if you’ve ever created a new page and kept visiting the page constantly to make changes, GA may mistake this behaviour for multiple users. You might think your website is getting more traffic when it’s just you.
That’s where alternative analytics services come in handy — they can give you a better idea of how many unique visitors your website gets. They do this by tracking users across multiple devices and using technology such as fingerprinting to ensure each visitor is counted once without being affected by cookies or device changes.
10 Google Analytics Alternatives You Should Check Out
The market is full of alternatives to Google Analytics. However, not every one of them is worth considering. Plus, each alternative specialises in only one or two specific aspects of analytics.
For example:
- Lead and Customer Analytics: Lead and customer analytics tools like Piwik Pro, Mixpanel, FoxMetrics, Heap, and Woopra provide insights into customer behaviour and engagement. They also provide detailed insights into lead generation and conversion rates.
- SEO and Web Analytics: Services such as Ahrefs, Screaming Frog, Matomo, SE Ranking, Clicky, and Moz provide detailed insights into SEO performance. They help you identify issues affecting your website’s rankings and visibility in the search engine results pages (SERPs).
- Full Marketing and Analytics Suite: Full marketing and analytics suites such as HubSpot, Adobe Analytics, Kissmetrics, and Amplitude provide an all-in-one solution for tracking website traffic and user behaviour.
Lead and Customer Analytics Tools
Now, let’s talk about some of the popular lead and customer analytics tools you can use instead of Google Analytics:
-
Independent Analytics
Independent Analytics may be the best choice for your site if you’re running WordPress because it’s a plugin made exclusively for the WP platform.
An advantage of using a WP plugin is that all of your data is created and saved entirely on your website. There is no external communication with other servers at any point. Additionally, Independent Analytics uses cookieless tracking and saves your data in the WP database, so it’s easily backed up and transferred with your site.
You can find a wealth of data in the dashboard, including stats for all your pages, traffic sources, countries, and devices. You’ll also find WordPress-specific analytics, like stats for your authors, post categories, and individual post types.
Price
Independent Analytics is entirely free to use, so you can install it on as many sites as you want and use it forever.
There is also a Pro version that adds more functionality for those interested. As of now, it includes WooCommerce integration, real-time analytics, campaign tracking, and an automated HTML email performance report.
-
Piwik Pro
Piwik Pro is one of the most comprehensive analytics tools on the market. It’s the perfect alternative to Google Analytics if you’re looking for an all-in-one solution focusing on data security and user privacy. It also offers real-time reporting, allowing you to track user behaviour in near real time.
With Piwik Pro, you can store customer data on your own servers for enhanced security. So, instead of having this data spread across multiple third-party servers, you have complete control over it and can ensure your customers’ data is always secure.
That means only you can access the data. Not even Piwik Pro can access it.
But privacy isn’t the only advantage. Piwik Pro also boasts advanced features that let you understand your customer journey across multiple devices and record each visitor’s touch point with your brand.
That makes it easier to measure conversion through multiple channels and campaigns and track customers who drop off at certain points in the customer journey.
Price
Piwik has two pricing plans: the Piwik Core plan and the Enterprise plan
The Piwik Core plan is free and offers three modules: Tag Manager, Analytics, and Consent Manager. However, you’re limited to 500K monthly page views and 14-month data retention.
The Enterprise plan is the premium plan that unlocks additional features such as unlimited monthly actions and 25 months of data retention. The website doesn’t indicate the cost, so you must contact them for a quote.
-
Woopra
Another popular Google Analytics alternative is Woopra. Founded in 2008, Woopra is one of the oldest and most experienced analytics platforms.
Woopra was designed to help businesses take advantage of customer data and make smart business decisions. The platform is ideal for people who aren’t tech-savvy but want to take advantage of customer data insights.
Woopra offers a comprehensive customer journey analysis, providing insights into customers’ behaviour throughout their journey. That includes understanding campaign performance, tracking customer activity on your website, and detecting trends in customer data.
That will help you understand how to do better marketing and serve the right kind of ads and content to the right segments of customers.
Price
Woopra has three pricing plans: the free plan, the Pro plan, and the Enterprise plan.
-
- Free: The free plan offers core analytics features, 30-plus integrations, and 90-day data retention. However, you’re limited to 500K actions per month.
- Pro: The Pro plan costs $999 monthly and offers 5 million actions, 2-year data retention, advanced analytics, drill-down reporting, and more.
- Enterprise: The Enterprise offers 50 million + monthly actions, advanced analytics, dedicated support, data warehouse sync, data stores, workflows, and more. The price is not indicated on the website. You have to contact them for a custom quote.
-
FoxMetrics
FoxMetrics is a powerful analytics platform that will help you get in-depth insights into all areas of your business. It takes analytics to a whole new level by providing more than just the data. FoxMetrics takes complex analytics and makes them simple so you can easily take action.
It offers a real-time dashboard that shows live updates on what’s happening with your website, campaigns, users, and more. It also provides powerful segmentation capabilities to help you quickly identify trends in customer data.
The platform primarily focuses on restaurants. It helps you create customer profiles so you can target them more effectively.
Here’s how it Works:
You start by integrating FoxMetrics with your restaurant’s website, CRM, email marketing tools, and more.
Here’s the data you can integrate:
-
- Loyalty programs
- Mobile ordering
- Web ordering
- Gift cards
- Deliveries
And so much more
FoxMetrics will help you analyse customer data to understand their behaviour and preferences. That allows you to create better customer experiences and more tailored marketing campaigns.
From there, you can use the information to develop better marketing strategies. With the help of their advanced analytics capabilities, you can identify trends in customer data and use this knowledge to make more informed decisions.
Pricing
Contact FoxMetrics for a quote. The pricing is based on the number of users and features you need.
No free plan
-
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is another excellent alternative to GA. It’s a powerful analytics platform trusted by thousands of companies worldwide, including Expedia, GoDaddy, and Uber.
Their goal is to help you build powerful analytics reports that answer any question you have about your business or market.
Mixpanel was developed on the idea that every interaction a customer has on your website must mean something. It’s not enough to track your website visits or email opens. You must understand how users interact with your product and services and use this information to improve their experience.
For such, Mixpanel goes beyond the basics of simple metrics tracking, like time spent on a page or page views. It also provides advanced analytics capabilities by tracking three key things:
-
- See how visitors use your product
- Analyse your conversion funnels and optimise it
- Identify your most profitable customers
So, why is this important?
First, Mixpanel will help you build custom user flows and track all activities between the first contact and the final purchase. That allows you to identify opportunities for improvement and optimise your user experience.
Second, Mixpanel will also help you get insights into customer behaviour, like what triggers them to buy from you or why they abandon their carts. With this data type, you can create targeted campaigns and better understand what works and what doesn’t.
Finally, Mixpanel will help you gain valuable intelligence about your customer’s journey, enabling you to make data-driven decisions that lead to increased sales and improved customer loyalty.
And yes, Mixpanel isn’t limited to SaaS-based businesses. You can use it on just about any type of online business you have.
So, if you’re ready to take your analytics to the next level and start uncovering actionable insights about your users, Mixpanel is definitely worth a try.
Pricing
Mixpanel has three pricing plans – the Starter, Growth and Enterprise. The Starter plan is free and comes with basic analytics features and core reports for user journey analysis.
The Growth plan comes with advanced analytics capabilities and costs $20/month. The Enterprise plan is $833/month and comes with enterprise-level features and solutions, like advanced access controls, prioritised support, automated provisioning and SSO.
-
Heap
Heap is like Google Analytics on steroids. It’s a powerful data analytics intelligence platform that measures the entire user journey – from first click to final purchase. Heap offers a comprehensive suite of analytics tools that make it easy to understand how customers interact with your business, down to simple clicks and swipes.
Heap’s visual reports are highly interactive and allow for granular filtering and segmentation, giving you a deeper insight into user behaviour.
But what makes this analytic tool stand out is its ability to capture every in-app event without you having to tag anything manually. That means you get a complete picture of user behaviour down to the smallest details.
How to Use Heap?
Short Answer: Generate more sales and leads.
-
- Long Answer: Heap is perfect for any business looking to understand its customers better and maximise user engagement and retention.
Heap will automatically help you pinpoint where your customers drop off in the conversion funnel. It records clicks, taps and swipes, tracking the behaviour of customers that fail to convert and helping you to identify and fix any issues.
The tool will help you identify the exact friction points in your user journey. That could be anything from the colour of a button to a confusing page layout. With this information, you can make changes to improve your user experience and optimise conversions.
What’s more? It can integrate with over 100 marketing tools and channels. That makes it easy to attribute customer behaviour across multiple channels and compare how different campaigns and ads perform.
Pricing
Heap has four pricing plans:
-
- Free: With this plan, you’ll gain access to their core analytics charts. You also get unlimited enrichment sources, six months of data history, and SSO. However, you can only track up to 10K monthly sessions.
- Growth: With this plan, you’ll get everything in the free plan plus unlimited users and reports, chart customisation, CSV exports, email support, and 12 months of data history.
- Pro: With this plan, you’ll get everything in the Growth plan plus account analytics, report alerts, standard support, engagement matrix, and optional add-ons.
- Premier: With this plan, you get everything in the Pro plan and premium support, API and streaming access, computational alerts, custom data sources, behavioural add-ons, unlimited projects, dedicated CSIM, data warehouse integration, advanced user permissions, and actionable insights.
Heap is a great option for those looking to gain insight into their website’s performance with detailed reports. You can learn more about your visitors from which pages they visit, how long they stay on each page, or where most conversions come from.
-
SE Ranking
If you don’t have a budget for SEMrush or Ahrefs but still need a powerful SEO tool, SE Ranking is your next right pick.
SE Ranking is everything you need for SEO and web analytics – keyword research, backlink analysis, on-page optimisation, SEO reporting, competitor analysis, etc. And the best part? You don’t have to break the bank to access these features.
Plus, it’s easy to figure out how to use SE Ranking, meaning you won’t waste your precious time trying to learn a complex analytics tool.
And just because it’s easy to use, that doesn’t mean it’s lacking in features. SE Ranking offers all the bells and whistles that you’d expect of a high-powered SEO analytics tool, like:
-
- Keyword Rank Tracker
- On-page and Technical SEO Auditor
- SERP Tracker
- Backlink Checker
- Keyword Research Tool
- Website Audit Tool
In short, SE Ranking is an excellent option if you’re looking for a versatile Google Analytics alternative. And while its features aren’t necessarily groundbreaking, it’s still an incredibly powerful analytics tool for the price. So, if you’re on a tight budget but still need access to advanced analytics, SE Ranking should be at the top of your list.
Pricing
Pricing starts as low as $55 per month, so why not give it a try?
You can take advantage of their 14-day free trial to see if it fits your needs. And if you’re not satisfied, just cancel within 14 days, and you won’t be charged.
So go ahead — test drive SE Ranking and see why it’s one of the top Google Analytics alternatives today.
-
Clicky
At first glance, Clicky looks like an old-fashioned analytics tool. But don’t let the dated UI fool you — Clicky has plenty of features that can give Google Analytics a run for its money.
First off, Clicky is completely free for one website. That means you don’t have to pay a penny to get access to its analytics suite. Plus, they offer plenty of great features, such as:
-
- Heatmapping for individual pages
- Real-time data and analytics reporting
- Widget creation for custom reports
- Backlink analytics
- Track JavaScript Events
- SEO monitoring and analysis tools
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Clicky also offers detailed visitor tracking, conversion optimisation, keyword research & much more.
-
Adobe Analytics Cloud Suite
Adobe’s cloud-based analytics suite is the perfect tool for enterprises or large organisations that want to create more comprehensive user and website data reports. It comes with tons of helpful features, such as:
-
- Advanced Segmentation
- Marketing Attribution
- Custom-calculated metrics
- Shared Audiences
- Flow Analysis
- Ad hoc Analysis
You also can easily integrate all your marketing channels, from email campaigns to your website. Plus, Adobe’s customer service is top-notch and always ready to help you with any questions or issues you might have.
You can even track offline data and create more powerful custom reports. With all these features, it’s no wonder Adobe Analytics Cloud is one of the top Google Analytics alternatives for large companies.
The only downside is that Adobe Analytics feels a little clunky to use compared to some of the other options we’ve listed. But if you’re looking for a powerful analytics suite with many features, then Adobe is definitely worth considering.
Pricing
Adobe doesn’t list its pricing on its website. You must contact the company and request a quote based on your needs.
-
Kissmetrics
Kissmetric is an OG in the analytics world that offers some of the best customer segmentation tools. It’s a great choice for marketers who want to learn more about their customers, from tracking individual customer behaviours to creating powerful cohort groups.
It was originally found by the SEO guru Neil Patel, so you know it has to be good. Its intuitive user dashboard makes it easy to set up and view different analytics reports quickly.
So, what makes Kissmetrics so special?
Well, using their own words:
“GA tells you what’s happening, Kissmetrics tells you who’s doing it”
By tracking individual customer behaviours and segmenting them into different cohorts, you can get a really good understanding of who your customers are.
Plus, it integrates with other platforms like Salesforce and Mailchimp so that you can easily export data for further analysis.
Pricing
Kissmetrics offers a 14-day free trial and three different pricing plans based on your desired features. The Silver plan starts at $199 per month, the Gold plan costs $499/month, and the Platinum plan is custom and depends on the number of customers you have.
All plans come with activity reports, path reports, and population reports. The Gold plan also includes a revenue report and cohort report. The Platinum plan has all these features plus unlimited segmentation reports.
So, if you want to really dig into the data of who uses your product or service, Kissmetrics is worth considering.
