3 Best Google Analytics Alternatives for Your Website

When it comes to website analytics, Google Analytics is the go-to tool for most businesses seeking insights into website performance. However, it's no secret that Google Analytics comes with its own set of challenges.

With its widespread popularity, it's easy to overlook other alternatives. You can benefit from website analytics without relying solely on Google Analytics. In this article, we'll delve into the issues with Google Analytics and present three alternative solutions that might just be the key to unlocking a new era of data-driven success.

First, Why it's Time to Ditch Google Analytics

While Google Analytics may be free, it is primarily designed for enterprise-level analytics. As a result, small business owners may find it unnecessarily complicated, frustrating to use, difficult to understand, slow to load, and invasive when it comes to privacy concerns.

1. Complexity

Google Analytics can be an overwhelming tool for many website owners. While it offers valuable insights, mastering it requires substantial time and training. The vast array of features and complicated navigation can make Google Analytics daunting for new users. This can leave beginners feeling perplexed and disoriented.

2. Privacy Concerns

Privacy issues have become a growing concern, with users becoming more cautious about their online data. Google Analytics gathers a significant amount of sensitive user data, which could be risky for your website. Numerous site owners overlook this, but it's crucial to disclose your use of Google Analytics to track visitors. By doing so, you can protect yourself and your visitors.

3. Inaccurate Data

Google Analytics, a widely used script, is blocked by a significant number of users who utilize ad-blocking software such as uBlock Origin, as well as users of popular browsers like Firefox and Brave. Apple Safari has also begun blocking Google Analytics from cross-site tracking.

The number of people who block Google Analytics is difficult to estimate as it varies depending on your target audience, but for a tech-savvy audience, it's not uncommon to see over 50% of visitors blocking it.

In addition, some individuals question the accuracy of Google Analytics data due to its use of data sampling. This process involves "analyzing a subset of all data in order to uncover the meaningful information in the larger data set."

Here’s a deeper look into that issue.

4. Slows Down Website

Adding web analytics to your website, like Google's Global Site Tag script, comes with a downside. It increases the size of your web pages and makes them take longer to load. If you only want the most important website stats and aim for a fast, lightweight site, the Global Site Tag script might be considered unnecessary bloat.

The Global Site Tag is Google's recommended way to integrate Google Analytics. It's a central script that not only enables Google Analytics but also integrates other Google services like conversion tracking and remarketing.

However, it's important to note that this script itself weighs 28 KB, and it downloads another JavaScript file (Google Analytics tag) that adds an additional 17.7 KB to your page size. So, in total, these two tracking scripts contribute 45.7 KB to each page load, impacting the loading speed of your website.

Finally, if you’re simply using Google Analytics for basic web statistics, it’s worth considering the dramatic effect it has on the visitor experience and the loading time.

What are available Google Analytics Alternative?

Many solutions do exist so there’s no excuse not to explore them for a bit. If you really don’t care too much about the data, you can simply go without having analytics in the first place or use your server logs to get access to the basic stats. But if you care about data, here are the 3 best google analytics alternative you should consider -

Plausible Analytics

Plausible Analytics is built with simplicity, speed and privacy in mind. It is intuitive and very user-friendly. All of its reports can be found on a single page and have a simple, clean design. In fact, we at Happy Clicks Web Analytics use it as our web analytics tool for free for most of our customers. 

Benefits

Plausible Analytics gives you a web analytics tool that is:

• An easy to understand data on one page analytics dashboard.
• A lightweight script of less than 1 KB so your site keeps loading fast
• Doesn’t use cookies so there’s no need for cookie banners
• Doesn’t collect personal data so no need for GDPR and CCPA consent prompts
• You can even import your Google Analytics stats into Plausible.

Matomo Analytics

Matomo is a privacy-focused, open-source web analytics platform that tracks website traffic and user behavior. This tool has become increasingly popular and is currently being used by over 1.4 million websites across 190 countries. Matomo allows you to generate detailed reports based on the data collected.

Benefits

• Avoid data sampling. Unlike Google Analytics, Matomo tracks all user data to offer accurate results.
• Retain data ownership. You own 100% of the data Matomo finds.
• Remain GDPR- and CCPA-compliant
• Access behavioral analytics, such as heatmaps and session recordings
• Import historical data from Google Analytics

Fathom Analytics

Fathom Analytics prioritizes privacy over data, setting it apart from Google Analytics. Like Plausible, Fathom offers a single dashboard that provides quantitative data and metrics on your website's performance, including traffic, time on site, bounce rate, and goal completions. The streamlined and easily digestible report on the most important metrics enables you to make key marketing decisions more quickly.

Moreover, Fathom claims to be able to bypass ad blockers, allowing you access to a more comprehensive set of data. Due to its minimalist data collection and pared-down dashboard, Fathom is an excellent option for smaller or up-and-coming businesses.

Benefits

• Bypass ad blockers to get complete data
• Remain compliant with the GDPR, CCPA, and the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations (PECR)
• Benefit from a small embed code that loads extremely quickly
• See streamlined dashboard for fast analysis and decision-making

How to Choose the Right Google Analytics Alternative

While Google Analytics has been a staple in the analytics realm, it's crucial to acknowledge the evolving landscape and explore alternatives that better align with the unique needs of businesses.

If you're looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, there are plenty of options available. The key is to find an analytics tool that meets your specific requirements and budget.

At Happy Clicks, our mission is to deliver simple, easy-to-understand web analytics solution that empower businesses to make informed, data-driven decisions. We do this by offering a suite of tools and services -

• Web Analytics Tool: We install a powerful, privacy focussed web analytics tool for free which will help you track website traffic by collecting and measuring data related to your website usage and visitor behaviour.
• Comprehensive Website Traffic Reports: Get a comprehensive monthly report about your website’s traffic and most critical web metrics so that you can make informed decisions.
• Website Audits: Get a detailed analysis of your entire site. We identify issues based on priority and importance, and share how to fix them - delivered to your inbox.

If you're searching for a comprehensive analytics solution that not only provides web analytics but more, give Happy Clicks Web Analytics Service a try!