A spectre is haunting Europe: GA4 and its alternatives

05/17/2022

Google has announced that it will permanently discontinue Universal Analytics on July 1, 2023. Users will then have to switch to the new Google Analytics 4. Is it worth making the switch? What alternatives are there to GA4?

A spectre is haunting Europe – the spectre of Google Analytics 4. Once again, there is news about the world's most widely used and most criticised tracking tool. And once again, it means stress and grief for everyone who still clings to it. The situation is becoming increasingly difficult for Google Analytics: data protectionists have been criticising it for years for a wide variety of reasons. The list of regulations, laws, and court rulings that make it difficult to collect user data in general, but especially for services such as Google Analytics, now reads like the lyrics of the iconic song MfG. From a purely legal perspective, the gray area in which some website operators believe they operate with Google Analytics seems to be increasingly turning into a midnight gray zone. According to some experts, GA is now even in a Vantablack zone (the blackest black in the world).

And now there's the update to GA4. Unusually quickly, the switch to the new version will now be mandatory for all users as of July 1, 2023. After that, there will be no going back to Universal. The predecessor will then no longer collect any data and will be completely shut down at the turn of the year. Old data must be exported from the tool by then at the latest. However, users will probably not be able to do much with it: importing it into the new version is not possible. Year-on-year comparisons will therefore only be possible to a limited extent. The data collected over a long period of time will not become unusable, but interpreting it and comparing it with data from GA4 will become significantly more complex. It is therefore hardly surprising that news sites such as t3n recommend updating to GA4 as soon as possible. This is the only way to collect historical data for comparison in GA4 so that meaningful comparisons can be made in GA4 from July 1, 2023.

This means that the time of waiting and seeing is over for all GA users.

Should I stay or should i go now?

“We'll stick with Google Analytics for now until we have more clarity.”

“The effort involved in switching is still too high for us at the moment. Maybe the legal situation will change again and then the effort will have been unnecessary.”

“We can talk about it later. There's no rush at the moment.”

Do you find yourself agreeing with any of these statements? Many websites have so far avoided switching to other tracking tools or have postponed doing so until later. This is understandable, as the effort involved does not initially provide any directly apparent or measurable added value. In addition, it is very easy to find supposed arguments everywhere that everything will be fine even without switching. Other companies, including large ones, are still using Google Analytics. Some bloggers and websites say that GA is legal or at least still tolerated (with the appropriate cookie banner).

With these arguments on the one hand and the effort involved on the other, it's not difficult to want to wait and see and postpone the effort until later. Let's wait and see what happens. If necessary, we'll catch up later!

However, by forcing the update to GA4, Google has now decided that later is now! You will have to take action now, regardless of whether you want to stick with the controversial Google Analytics or take the step out of the gray area, away from the specter of the law, and toward legally compliant alternatives.

Is it worth switching now?

The short version: Yes. Yes, yes, and yes again! Absolutely! Preferably yesterday.

The long version: Of course it's worth switching. There were already good reasons why you should switch from Google Analytics to one of the many alternatives:

At least a dubious legal situation: If you have already researched the topic, you will know that there are many interpretations of the legal situation surrounding Google Analytics. From “everything's fine, carry on” to “AAARGH! Switch quickly!!!”, you'll find everything imaginable on the internet, even on reputable websites. Don't let this unsettle you or lull you into a false sense of security. All these articles show that the legal situation surrounding GA is dubious, to say the least. And you shouldn't build your website on shaky foundations!
Cookie banners like package inserts: The legal situation brings us straight to the next reason that clearly speaks in favor of a change! Anyone who wants to continue using Google Analytics on their own website in compliance with the law (within the scope of what is possible, if at all) must at least obtain the corresponding consent from users. This applies in particular to providers who transfer the collected data to third countries without GDPR-compliant regulations. And hey, Google Analytics happens to be just such a provider!
Inadequate results: Imagine you want to buy some vegetables at the farmers' market around the corner. The weather is nice, the air is fresh, and you're feeling good! You enter the farmers' market and are about to turn toward a stand when the vendor places a huge poster over his wares, covering everything. The poster is full of small print, and when you ask the vendor about specific items, he just pulls out more posters and lists. Are you already losing the desire to shop? So are your users on your website! They may have been motivated at first, but now they are uncertain and confused. This document is particularly extensive and daunting in GA. No wonder that in some cases only 14% of users agree to cookies. So all that fuss just so that you can collect information about a quarter of your users at best. And you're supposed to be able to derive something from that?

In summary, Google Analytics has so far ensured that your website is, at best, in a legal gray area. In return, it requires you to display comprehensive cookie banners to provide at least some protection, which in turn severely impair the user experience on your website, meaning that you only receive data from a fraction of your users. And now Google wants you to switch your tracking to GA4 by July 1, 2023, without addressing any of these issues. That's a lot of effort for data from only ~14% of your users.

Are you still here or are you already looking for alternatives?

What alternatives to GA4 are there?

If you no longer want to fear the spectre of Google Analytics, there are several good alternatives available in Europe. We are big fans of Matomo and etracker in particular! Both providers are based in Europe, which means that most of the cookie policy is no longer necessary. Users respond much more positively to the comparatively short cookie banners and are more likely to agree. That alone is a major advantage of both tools!

We ourselves are certified etracker experts. We are happy to communicate this transparently and openly, as we have only had positive experiences with the German provider in the past. Together with Cookiebot, etracker is a fully-fledged alternative to Google Analytics. It is quick and easy to integrate, requires no major changes or adjustments, and is easy to use.

However, it gets even more exciting if you want to completely dispense with cookies that require consent. A lot of data about your users can also be tracked without any problems using so-called cookieless tracking. What's more, you can finally do away with annoying cookie banners altogether! This is probably reason enough for your users, as they will no longer be disturbed when visiting your website. At the same time, this also gives you an immense advantage: Instead of having consent rates of only 14% in some cases with Google and even only 40% with some European providers, with cookie-less tracking you can track almost all users on your site in compliance with the law! We have already written more about this topic in other articles.

So: You can accept the effort and switch to GA4 to continue collecting legally critical data about the generous 14% of your clients.

You contact us and we will help you switch to the optimal tracking solution for you.