If we are honest Google Analytics is not or never was the answer to marketing measurement. The evolution from GA3 (UA) to GA4, Google have taken the right steps with moving away from a session-based to event-based data model. Google Analytics focus is on inbound ‘traffic’ to the website or mobile app in turn over-indexing on performance based tactics and its own channels will always form a bias view.
The Challenges
The core challenges to Google Analytics being a solution for marketing measurement:
Data Collection
With Google Analytics reliant on data collection, privacy and browser restrictions has been a nuisance in data collection and processing which has been driven by:
- The changing rules globally with GDPR and CCPA
- The rise of ad blockers and cookie blockers
- Apple’s ITP (intelligent tracking prevention) in Safari
They all provide challenges for Google Analytics to collect accurate data and be that a trustworthy source of measurement for marketers.
The other obstacle to data collection is data sampling. It’s very much dependant on the scale of the business.
View Through
Google Analytics is built on tracking the click, with CTR on a big decline the GA model is fundamentally flawed. It’s likely to reward efficiency over effectiveness. View through provides insights on ad effectiveness, within Google Analytics the reward would go to ‘branded paid search’ click.
The idea that we could track the click’ was fundamentally flawed, historically CTR have always been weak, studies have shown that clicks do not correlate to sales. ‘Impressions’ plays a role in influencing users decisions which has always been a grey area in Google Analytics.
The black box of attribution models
Google Analytics has gone through an evolution of attribution models from GA3 (UA) to GA4. In the current iteration of GA4 the only models available are data driven and last click. With the focus on DDA it brings up transparency in how Google Analytics calculates the models, making it too much of a black box for marketers.
With Google defaulting to data driven attribution it's just Google protecting Google in it's own black box. I believe there was some value with all the models mainly first click and last click providing an impartial view within reason with the available data pic.twitter.com/0AFKspSXUx
— DIPESH SHAH (@mrdipeshashah) April 12, 2023
The common view was first click could help better understand top of the funnel where other models could help provide a better picture of how the marketing budget is performing.
Over-crediting Google channels
With Google Analytics being a Google product, there is no reason for Google to provide more credit to non-Google channels. In turn Google will be over-crediting Paid Search which skews the marketers view of how channels are performing and over indexing on efficiency then effectiveness.
The right marketing measurement approach
There is value in Google Analytics, and it can provide a certain view of marketing performance with some great use cases particularly getting access to the raw data in Big Query.
If Google Analytics is not the holy grail measurement solution, then what is? There is no perfect measurement there will be many different approaches that can provide a view on marketing performance. It would be a mix of:
- Econometrics
- MTA
- Incrementality testing
- Brand Tracking
- Post Checkout Surveys
These approaches provide an unbiased view on marketing performance. Adopting multiple approaches will provide a clearer picture what is working in your marketing plan and driving business performance.