GA review
February 03, 2016

GA review

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Software Version

Google Analytics

Overall Satisfaction with Google Analytics

I actively used Google Analytics within a previous role at Johnston Press. Although I didn't use Google Analytics everyday it was being used within only parts of the business. For example the marketing team used Google Analytics a lot on their micro sites and on marketing emails as it allowed them to view and edit the data very easily without having to go through the data analyst team. Since Google Analytics is so easy to implement it allowed for very quick and easy implementation when speed was essential.
  • Easy and quick to implement.
  • For very little effort you get a lot of data and information on your audience.
  • The reporting UI is very clean and user friendly.
  • Using the URL as a basis for all the data can make the reporting messy in places.
  • Creating goals and conversion funnels can be a little tricky for novice users.
  • The data can seem a little superficial on the surface when compared to the more sophisticated digital analytics software.
  • Faster implementation and data reports.
  • Fracturing of teams because they are no longer talking to the data team.
  • Increased interest in data and the nice looking Google Analytics reports.
If it was my choice I would have used IBM Digital Analytics (DA) for everything. DA has it quirks but it really gives some deep analysis on the data and with a bit of development work you can really get all the data you could possibly want. If every website and newsletter was on DA it would be really powerful. Google Analytics was selected by other parts of the business that didn't want deep data and instead wanted quick and easy reports.
Google Analytics works very well for users that require quick and basic implementation of digital analytics. The basic implementation works really well to understand your audience at a higher level and how they interact with your website. Where Google Analytics falls down is if you want a real deep analysis on your audience, as the data is sometimes just not deep enough. This can be solved by implementing extra pieces of code in Google Analytics but I feel like most businesses pick Google Analytics because it looks pretty.