Google Analytics Pricing, Features, Reviews & Comparison of Alternatives

Pros
We use this software on a daily basis to review data and help us make decisions about where to focus our marketing efforts, especially with social. It allows us to gather information on demographics, which is great for ad targeting, especially when you also use the Google Pixel which provides conversion data. It allows us to gather KPIs for various campaigns as well as track the success of our influencers campaigns in combination with Google Tracking URLs. We have also found that the Google Data Studio, which draws from Analytics, is one of the most effective ways to create shareable reports that can be manipulated quickly and easily for specific groups of pages, which is great for us as we have multiple segments with different target audiences. While it can take a while to learn how to navigate Google Analytics, there are great resources online to help you. You can track user behavior which is great in determining where improvements need to be made in your buyers journey.

Cons
It can take time to learn how to manipulate Google Analytics so that it provides you with the information you need but once you figure it out it is a great tool. It would be great if definitions were built in. There are many terms I was unfamiliar with and I had to do online searches to get clarification.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 9/10

Pros
Google Adwords is by far the most useful online advertising platform I have come across yet, but not for the obvious reasons. Google Adwords has various features that can serve as beneficial to any small business to large enterprise needs. My preferred tool is the keyword planner, which provides you with insight into the most popular search terms with an average monthly search volume and competition for each. Since Google has certainly monopolized today’s search engines I would strongly recommend using it as your first resource when searching for key terms to include in your campaigns, website, and SEO purposes. For more insight into the search terms that you are already ranking for and is bringing organic traffic back to your website you can look into Google Analytics and cross reference those phrases with Google Adwords to see if there are alternatives or better opportunities for you to rank in this niche. Ultimately, you are looking for key terms that have a low competition with a high monthly search volume. The secret… you want low competition and high search volume. The keyword planner also lets you set up ad groups based on phrases that pertain to specific ad or topic and provides a bid estimate to give you an idea of how much it would take to run that campaign.

Cons
When setting up a Google Adwords account it is easy to get stuck in the billing cycle. If you don’t wish to have a card on file or would just like to use the keyword planner to get ideas or improve on SEO you can opt out of the payment process when you first create your account. Because we are a fairly small company we have not seen much monetary payoff for our campaign initiatives, which was limited due to a smaller marketing budget. If you want to see results you are going to have to spend the money or the ad may not reach the intended audience or large enough quantities for it to make an impact. For smaller companies, I suggest spending your time increasing your SEO, using the keyword planner - as you can gain a bunch of organic traffic to your website if done correctly and it’s free. Tips: One way to ensure the key terms or phrases you intend your content to show for is to complete a search for that term in Google and analyze its results. You can also you MOZ’s plugin to compare the page authority and domain authority of the other websites shown in the search results to get a better idea if your word or newly selected word would outperform some of the current results of the first page shown on Google.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
Without question, Google Analytics (GA) is the gold standard of website analytics suites, especially since you get so much for no cost. I love that you can track multiple properties from one login, tracking conversions, behavior, visitor origin, exit point, how long they stay on your site, etc. For most people, GA is all you need to understand what is happening on your site, how well your SEO is working, the effectiveness of campaigns, etc. The reporting functionality is robust, and you can export reports to several formats for sharing. Allowing others access to GA so they can get the data is available, although the controls lack significant granularity. But the filtering of data is robust--just about any control you could want in this area is available. And since GA is everywhere, there are plugins for every major CMS that make it easy to implement on your site. I also like the new mobile app, which allows you to track your site's performance easily from your mobile device. Official documentation is robust, and there is no end of YouTube videos, blogs, and articles from third parties to assist with getting the most benefit from GA.

Cons
Data visualization on anything other that the GA site requires a separate service. GA is very complex and with Google making frequent changes to the product, it's easy to get behind with understanding where things are located and how it works. Google also seems to have eliminated one of my favorite features, the heat map, which showed where visitors were going on a page in real time.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I have built a website from scratch and to monitor the traffic and analyse the data, I look at a tool that could help me. Google analytics goes far beyond my expectations when it comes to displaying analytics about my website. The simplicity with which I can integrate Google Analytics in to my website code is remarkable. Either using the analytics code or the embed source code options, I can navigate through and analyse my website traffic. This is really great for SEO purposes too! It shows me multiple dashboards that help to monitor real-time traffic and their locations from where site and page hits are received. I am simply in love with the smart and beautifully designed analytics intelligence, that understands and responds to my questions appropriately. We have different methods to view automatic insights of the website data and observe various generate visuals and reports of the same. This helps us to track and analyse data periodically and also keeps us updated with different types of users and their access methods like language, location, new or old users, network, browsers they accessed, mobile device, etc. We can also observe the user behavior and set goals accordingly.

Cons
There must be a way to directly highlight the analytics or display the number of users on the website, that have visited the site. No cons as such as I truly believe this is a wonderful integrated tool and can be used everywhere to track and monitor website data instantly.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 10/10

Pros
I have a long history with this software and its really been an awesome journey. As we running a coupon and offers website so I need to track each user's activity. This tool provides accurate and crucial information which can help us to design the best strategies to grow business. Google Analytics has helped us to improve our Search engine ranking by providing actionable insights. The tool provides information in depth which helped us to grow our business more quickly. Most important part of this tool is that it provides real-time users which are really helping to know what user is looking for. Google Analytics also tells about the location, demographics and time user spent on the website. It's a free tool provides by Google so we don't have to take any risk. In this tool, we can also check devices which customers are using to reach us where we can bring some changes in the design. The tool also provides information for every webpage to make your more specific. There are many other important features which really helped us to grow our website search ranking and business as well.

Cons
Tool got multiple features so at the beginning I could understand how to use it. Any beginner must require some time or training to use it perfectly. Every feature provides different information so it's tough to understand at an initial level but after that it becomes a cake walk for everyone.

Rating breakdown

Likelihood to recommend: 8/10