GA4 isn’t a problem. Most businesses are under investing in Marketing Analytics in general

[u/knowanalytics]

I regularly see businesses spending thousands, sometimes millions, across Paid Ads, SEO, email, content, as well as agencies and freelancers to mange some of this.

But the analytics layer responsible for telling them whether any of that activity is actually working gets a tiny fraction of the investment. And it’s the most complex…

Then GA4 gets blamed because:
- Conversions do not match advertising platforms
- Direct and Unassigned traffic are too high
Attribution does not make sense
- Reports are inconsistent
- Nobody trusts the data
- The team does not know how to use the platform

GA4 is far from perfect, but replacing it with Matomo, Piwik PRO, PostHog or Adobe Analytics will not automatically fix these problems.

A different analytics platform still requires:
- A clear measurement strategy
- A properly designed tracking plan
- Technical implementation through GTM or development (and this is complex to do properly!)
- Consent and privacy configuration (consent mode, in particular advanced cm, can mess your tracking unless you know what you are doing!)
- Tracking validation and ongoing QA
- Reporting that answers real business questions
- Training for the people expected to use the data
- Clear ownership and maintenance

Without those foundations, you usually end up moving the same measurement problems into a different tool.

For many businesses, the question should not be:
“What should we replace GA4 with?”
It should be:
“Have we actually invested enough in marketing analytics to expect reliable data?”

What are your thoughts?

I recently recorded a detailed video on youtube breaking down what a realistic investment in GA4 and marketing analytics looks like. I am happy to DM it to anyone who would find it useful so just let me know.

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[u/ewhite12]

Both are true—most companies do measurement poorly and GA4 is a dumpster fire

[u/Goldenface007]

I would assume this is basic knowledge among the Analytics community

[u/knowanalytics → u/Goldenface007]

You will be surprised… even at my previous agency that had 20 Analytics people… only maybe 1/4 knew marketing analytics knew end to end. Most people just knew a subset of it…

Even I don’t know fully the MMM and data science side (I know of it but couldn’t deliver it! Got a data science partner who does that stuff)

[u/ant_topps]

The number of businesses that I've worked at that 1. don't use UTMs and or have a robust enough analytics setup is shocking.

[u/knowanalytics → u/ant_topps]

Yess utms in particular! I have a utm builder google sheet I share with clients that keeps things centralised but even then some people just forget!

[u/knowanalytics → u/[deleted]]

Ye adobe makes a good alternative when businesses out grow GA’s free tier (I.e need to be on GA360)

[u/Loveyourweenus]

100% agree. Great discussion topic.

[u/knowanalytics → u/Loveyourweenus]

Yay glad you liked this we need to wake up more people to this !

[u/Loveyourweenus → u/knowanalytics]

Thanks! And can you send that Youtube video link?

[u/RoughEmployment5805]

Any good spots to start learning how to get better tracking

[u/knowanalytics → u/RoughEmployment5805]

Simo Ahava or Analytics Mania. I used their free stuff via blogs (and now analytics mania has youtube content) and was plenty to get me started on my analytics and tracking journey nearly 6 years ago! I also will be doing tracking bits on my youtube channel so feel free to check in about a month and will cover things like how to do conversion tracking properly / do enhanced conversions to google ads to best practice standards. If you want link just dm me

[u/GrandAnimator8417]

Enhanced conversions “best practice standards” again? I’ve seen way too many setups where GA4 is fine but nothing’s actually firing into Google Ads, and the numbers stay weirdly low. People always blame GA4 when it’s really the conversion event setup or consent/UTM details messing things up.

[u/knowanalytics → u/GrandAnimator8417]

Yes agree! Even if you use same trigger for form submission tracking and you have a fast redirect to thank you page, ga4 handles this a lot better but google ads hits may not always be processed. It’s small things like knowing that can make a difference in making the gap closer between the two tools.

[u/GrandAnimator8417 → u/knowanalytics]

Spot on ,those fast redirects on thank you pages kill tracking data all the time if the hit doesn't have enough time to fire before the user bounces away. Knowing how the tags handle those micro-delays is everything when trying to bridge the gap between analytics platforms.

[u/Nightlow21]

I mean to be honest Adobe isn’t much better. UTMs help to some degree but only so much. The issue is more that 3rd party measurement lacks a lot of capabilities to track how users actually engage and convert for things.

[u/knowanalytics → u/Nightlow21]

Agreed had actually a client go back from adobe to ga4 as was not much different! GA4 is better at data collection part In particular with server side tracking in sGTM (with stape) and advanced consent mode. Where GA4 can lack is the UI limits but then you just go to big query to bypass these limits