Everyone knows about Google Analytics, but do you know what ecommerce-specific solutions are out there? In this post, we will explore some of the best alternatives to Google Analytics for your ecommerce store.
The average ecommerce marketer uses Google Analytics to help analyze the effectiveness of their marketing. However, Google Analytics is a generalized tool that can be used in any number of different industries and lacks many ecommerce specific features. This opens the door for a new breed of ecommerce specific tools to step in and fill in the gaps.
The Weakness of Google AnalyticsGoogle analytics is great at tracking pageviews, clicks, events, and it can even track some basic ecommerce metrics like revenue and orders. However, ecommerce marketing analytics demands so much more than that. Here are a few key areas where Google Analytics drops the ball.
- Can't easily track marketing spend
- Lacks data about returns, refunds, voided payments
- Lacks customer data such as LTV
- Poor revenue attribution
- Monetizes you and your customers' data
In this article we will take a look at several alternatives to Google Analytics that address these shortcomings.
#1 - ThoughtMetric
ThoughtMetric is a multi touch attribution platform built for e-commerce.
It helps marketers track marketing performance and make data driven decisions to scale revenue.
Easy to install and set up, ThoughtMetric has plugins for all of the major e-comm platforms such as Shopify, Woocommerce, BigCommerce and Magento.
Track and optimize your paid ads, email, affiliate campaigns, influencers and more by scaling the channels that drive the most valuable customers to your store and drive the most ROAS.
- Track Paid Social, Paid Search, Email, SMS, Affiliate and Influencer Performance
- Optimize Ad Spend, Increase ROI and lower CAC
- Send Data Back To Ad Platforms to Optimize Ad Performance
- Run Post Purchase Customer Surveys
- Integrates with your e-commerce stack: Shopify, Woocommerce, Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and more
- First Party Data Tracking Technology
If you run an e-commerce store and are looking for a marketing attribution platform built specifically for e-commerce, ThoughtMetric is a great choice. If you don't run an e-commerce store, there are better options.
#2 - Matomo
Matomo is a solid Google Analytics alternative that protects your data and your customers' privacy. Matomo puts you in control of your customers' data, by allowing you to self-host their tool so that your customers' data never leaves your own servers. There is also a cloud hosted option if self hosting isn't a good fit. With 100% data ownership you get the power to protect your user’s privacy. You know where your data is stored and what’s happening to it, without external influence.
Top Features- Data Privacy
- Self Hosted
- Open Source
- Web Analytics
- Conversion Optimization
If data privacy is your biggest concern this is a great option, if not, there are more feature rich alternatives to consider.
#3 - Polar
Polar Analytics is a comprehensive marketing analytics platform designed to empower Shopify brands with data-driven insights. It centralizes data from multiple sources, including Shopify, Google Analytics, and various advertising platforms, allowing users to visualize and analyze key performance indicators through a single dashboard. The platform simplifies the creation and monitoring of reports, offering advanced data integration and customization to enhance decision-making and business performance.
Top Features- Clean and easy to use UI
- All your data in one place
- No engineering required
- Enterprise-grade data warehousing
- Intuitive Event Tracking
If you are looking for a modern tool with a clean user interface that provides Shopify analytics this is a good tool for you. However, If you are not running Shopify, Polar won't work for you.
#4 - Heap
Heap is an analytics platform that helps you understand how and why customers engage with your store. With product analytics that track behavior in your website, the platform gives you detailed information about your users that goes well beyond Google Analytics’ session and pageview metrics. Heap is excellent at helping you understand what users are doing once they get to your store. It is great for identifying and fixing cart abandonment issues, or other areas in the checkout funnel that may be causing issues.
Top Features- Identifying and fixing cart abandonment issues
- Understanding buyer behaviour on your store
- Web Analytics
- Event Tracking
If you are looking to optimize the checkout flow of your store this is a great option. If you are looking for more general analytics around marketing campaigns or traffic, there are better options.
#5 - Glew
Glew is an ecommerce analytics platform that is built exclusively for ecommerce. Glew delivers multichannel business intelligence and analytics for ecommerce merchants, digital agencies It goes way beyond your standard marketing analysis platform and also includes product analysis, inventory analysis, and customer analysis. It has built in support for all of the major ecommerce platforms such as Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce.
Top Features- Marketing Analytics
- Product Analytics
- Inventory Analytics
- Automated reports and alerts
- Strong Ecommerce Support
If you are looking for a platform that supplements marketing analytics with lots of additional ecommerce analytics such as product, inventory and customer analytics this is the tool for you. If you are looking for a tool that focuses exclusively on marketing there are better options.
#6 - Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a tool for product and marketing teams that focuses on advanced web analytics. It’s a great alternative to Google Analytics. It tracks in-depth metrics about key user behavior and has good ecommerce support. Kissmetrics can help you optimize your checkout funnel, convert more visitors into loyalists, and increase the lifetime value of your customers.
Top Features- Marketing Analytics
- Customer Cohorts
- Checkout Funnel Analysis
- Good Ecommerce Support
If you are looking for a marketing analytics tool with some additional ecommerce support this is a good tool for you. If you are looking for something more focused on ecommerce there are better options.
#7 - Fathom
Fathom is a simple, light-weight, privacy-first alternative to Google Analytics. The tool’s aim is on providing access to simple, fast website metrics for as many sites as needed.
Top Features- Data Privacy
- Cookie-free tracking
- Web Analytics
- Conversion Optimization
If you are looking for a simple and privacy based analytics solution this is a good choice. If you want something with more detailed ecommerce analytics there are better options.
