Item: Google Analytics
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Google Analytics

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Our company used the free version of Google Analytics to monitor and report on website visitors and e-commerce conversions. We would regularly generate reports based on the data contained within the platform, and use it to inform website development, issues and tracking of various KPIs. For this reason, it was crucial to our commercial performance measurement and a major contributor to future planning for different business functions. We also made some of the data available to third parties for the purposes of retargeting and advertising.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Clearly segmented dashboard for visits, commerce, performance metrics etc.
Relatively simple user and property management.
Useful exporting options for external integrations and analysis.
A variety of viewing options for different data, so that it can be understood better or drilled down into.
Intuitive UI for navigating historical data.

Cons

Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.

Most Important Features

Visitor metrics - hits, bounces, location etc.
E-commerce performance metrics - conversion, drop-off points, sales by SKU etc.
Performance metrics by page, browser, device etc.

Return on Investment

Great for visualizing website drop-off pages to theories and test update/iterations.
Bounce rates on pages to pinpoint bugs and issues.
Inaccuracy can lead to incorrect conclusions and decisions around CRO.
Segments can be very useful for validating split testing, providing a free tracking of variation vs. control - great ROI.

Alternatives Considered

Google PageSpeed Insights, Magento Commerce, part of Adobe Commerce Cloud and SolarWinds Pingdom

[Google Analytics] provides a broader appeal, combining what would usually require several different platforms, and as such is a bit of a jack of all trades in comparison, although often to a "good enough" level. If there is a particular aspect that you then find you would like better service for, for example uptime or real-user monitoring, you can then supplement this with a cost-effective service rather than a different all-in-one solution. This feels worthwhile as the platform is FOC at this level, so you're not losing out by doubling up in that particular aspect of reporting/monitoring.

Key Insights

Do you think Google Analytics delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Google Analytics's feature set?

Yes

Did Google Analytics live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Google Analytics go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Google Analytics again?

Yes

Other Software Used

SolarWinds Pingdom, Qubit, Adobe Analytics

Likelihood to Recommend

For a free product, [Google Analytics] is an excellent offering that is difficult to compete with out of the box. Simple integration is very quick and easy with gtag as a website snippet, or even via Google's tag manager. A more complex, detailed integration can be more costly and time-consuming, but it is always possible to opt in to various bits of data over time, so it is quite extensible in that sense. This makes it suitable for small sites and businesses starting out, and when you get to a scale where GA may no longer be fit for purpose in this state you can then evaluate versus other platforms and possibly upgrade to premium if desired.

Comments

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Great for the price (free!)

Software Version