As the deadline for the transition of the Universal Analytics (UA) to GA4 draws near, the web analytics field is embracing itself for quite a turbulent period, with increasingly tighter privacy regulations, changes in the Google Analytics dashboard and the need for increasingly better business insights.

The recent changes in GA4 have fundamentally changed how the B2B marketers view & interact with the analytics data. Unlike Google’s original GA platform, GA4 does not track website visits or sessions but is based purely on events and parameters. Have a look at the key differences between the UA and GA4 here.

Google Analytics has been the free go-to solution for website traffic analysis for years, but with growing concerns around data privacy and a complex user interface, many are craving a platform that boasts simplicity, transparency, and accessibility.
Millions of websites, especially those of small businesses, use GA3 as their primary data analytics tool. This is now set to be replaced with a whole new platform (GA4) that comes with its own features and functions.

Many EU countries like Denmark, Italy, France, Austria, and the Netherlands are considering banning Google Analytics as it is not entirely GDPR compliant. There might be other countries that follow the same path. As a result, some businesses, particularly those operating in EU markets, are considering other website analytics tools. There are many quality alternatives to Google Analytics (GA) which offer like-for-like analytics and added features.

In this article we will explore one of the most popular alternatives to Google Analytics, Piwik Pro, and why it can be a good choice for B2B marketers.

What is Piwik Pro?

Piwik Pro is a privacy-first web analytics platform that offers advanced analytics features while allowing for full control of data. It provides flexible reports and data collection in addition to consent management, tag management and a customer data platform. According to their official website, Piwik Pro Analytics Suite is geared towards compliance with the strictest security policies and privacy regulations around the world, which makes it a good alternative to Google Analytics.

Key reasons for Piwik Pro’s popularity as a GA4 alternative are:

1. Full GDPR compliance
This must be one of the main reasons for many companies switching to Piwik Pro. It enables you to store all of your data on your own infrastructure or a private cloud, so you have complete control over your data. With changing data residency laws, a cloud-hosted option like Google Analytics is subjected to scrutiny regarding data security & compliance.

2. Look and feel of Universal Analytics
Piwik Pro’s technical implementation is similar to that of Google Analytics, so if you have used Universal Analytics in the past, you may find it easier to set up Piwik Pro than to move to GA4. Piwik Pro’s free tier is also quite generous and includes most of the tool’s key functionalities, making it an attractive analytics tool for smaller websites.

3. Data storage & tracking flexibility
Google Analytics has a data limit of 10 million hits per month & when you cross a threshold of 500K sessions – data sampling activates. For a site with high traffic volumes, this can be seen as an obstacle. Sure, you have a few options here – upgrading to GA360 which comes with an extremely high price or sampling your data which will affect your analysis. There is also a limit to the number of properties, goals, and transactions you can track with GA4.
If you want an unlimited volume of page views and long-term data storage, you can’t get these capabilities with Google Analytics. Other tools such as Adobe Analytics and Piwik Pro make it possible. It’s worth considering an alternative that lets you freely track as many actions, events, and properties as possible.

4. GA4 migration is tricky
Many GA4 users have found its user interface to be difficult to use as it makes some basic features difficult to access. GA4 can truly be seen as an inherently different tool as compared to its earlier version and more suited to enterprise-level users than smaller businesses/teams.

This means that new users will require extensive training to use GA4. You would also need to rethink and rebuild your reports which can be seen as an opportunity to fix what has not been working earlier and reset the priorities from your analytics tool. Get in touch with us to find out how Velo can help with your GA4 migration & configuration.

Piwik Pro is for you, if –  

• You prefer software which complies with data security and privacy laws
• Your traffic exceeds the limits of Google UA – 10 million hits/month
• You’re looking for a platform with flexible hosting options since you don’t prefer to store your data in a public cloud or in random locations
• You want to store individual user data for more than 14 months after it gets automatically deleted from GA4
• You want to use a tool that is very similar to UA and not want to take up the migration efforts for GA4

Like it or not, Google Analytics is forcing companies to decide whether to embrace GA4 or switch to a new platform altogether. So, if you rely on a Universal Analytics’s data model and want to switch to event-based, it might involve a steep learning curve. The key question is – who is GA4 right for?

GA4 remains a good fit for larger organizations, as you need time and resources to rethink, redesign, and rebuild your data pipeline. It requires customization and difficult implementation to make data more targeted in GA4. It’s also the right tool for pro analytics users who can customize the analytics setup and are more comfortable defining and deploying their own event tracking, rather than using simpler, default, and older industry standard definitions. The same goes for the teams relying on detailed funnel modelling which might be more accurate with GA4, as many steps in a conversion funnel can be completed during separate visits.

Summary of key differences between Piwik Pro & GA4:

In conclusion, if you know that GA4 is not a good choice for you – there are other viable alternatives in the market. You could decide to use a different session-based platform like Piwik Pro that allows you to collect more data by default without the need of custom implementations. Or you can also contact us for any help with GA4 migration.

Diwakar Redhu

Digital Marketing Manager

With boundless experience in ABM campaigns for the technology sector, Diwakar generates outstanding results for our clients’ businesses through end-to-end organic and paid media digital campaigns and SEO.  Outside of work, Diwakar a commissioned photographer loves to head to the coast to capture shots.