May 13, 2016

Google Analytics VS Tracker. What to choose?

When talking about online marketing, the incoming traffic data is very important information to be evaluated. Essentially, knowing your consumers’ needs is one thing, but understanding their online behavior and keeping them involved with your service or product is another. And this is exactly why performance marketing can’t go without custom-built tracking tools and platforms like Google Analytics. There is no way to avoid using them. In fact, it’s more about the choice you make that saves time, money, and let you stay on top of things.

If to use a tracker and GA in combination, you are far more likely to succeed. Of course, it might seem not as easy as it sounds. But once you hook into the process, you will be getting the most invaluable data.

First of all, Google Analytics and trackers are totally different tools because they provide distinct analytical data. So, it really depends on the information and metrics you need.

A good thing about GA is that it’s free. This platform has many benefits that worth attention—you can get the general on-site audience data that covers user behavior, referral sources and consumed content on the site.

Basically, GA provides:

– Average number of visited pages

– Number of visitors

– Overall conversion rates

– Keywords used

– Demographics (location, language, etc.)

– Other technological data (device, browser, etc.)

That works well for a small business and websites with few traffic flows.

But is it enough to make big money online? Quite frankly, not!

GA doesn’t show complete information about your audience behavior once the user leaves the site. And that’s because GA mainly focuses on what happens on the website. More to it, you are able to redirect visitors only to a flat link which doesn’t take into account any GEO data.

And that’s the point when trackers get in the picture. Tracking software gives more control and provides deep insights onto traffic analytics. As an affiliate who distributes traffic, you might be interested in such traffic data as keywords, referral IDs, and conversions, days after the click even when the user leaves the page. GA doesn’t show these metrics but tracking systems like AdsBridge analyze them in full extend.

Apparently, if you are a website owner or blogger, GA will perfectly fit your needs. However, if you purchase traffic on any traffic source, then you will definitely need a tracker. It helps to track banners, URLs, target traffic, shows real-time reports, handles financial metrics, and enables traffic optimization.

Essentially, that’s what makes tracking solutions different from GA. The latest tracks visitors’ data only on specific websites with a script inserted, whereas, for instance, AdsBridge platform tracks all redirects from these websites. Let’ take a closer look.

Stats and reports

Google Analytics always relies on Cookies. All users who have disabled them won’t be considered by the system. Besides, Google is more likely to sample its reports rather than make deep data analysis. Even though there is a feature with real-time stats, it basically functions as a fancy counter. Plus GA can’t actually track the time user spends viewing your ad or site’s page, and if the visitor closes the browser window without moving to the next page, it won’t be counted at all. The stats usually are a few hours behind, which is useless when you want to improve conversions and redirect traffic right away. In any case, most tracking platforms will show the most exact statistics. For instance, AdsBridge provides real-time reports on all your traffic flows, ad campaigns and visits.

Financial metrics

This is another critical data that can’t be completely covered by GA. Unlike tracking software, it doesn’t count the cost of traffic. Plus there is no way you can import cost data from other engines. And again, the tracker shows all financial performance metrics and gives the full picture of conversions and revenues.

Traffic optimization

No one would argue that the main purpose of any analytical tool is to provide data necessary for making smart decisions that drive the better outcome. Turns out, GA doesn’t consider actionable metrics to help you increase profit. With the given stats and overall information from Google, you won’t be able to optimize your traffic flows on the go. Not to say more about the mistakes you can avoid while running traffic. And again, if to use the tracking platform, you can easily evaluate and improve online performance and increase visits in the shortest time possible.

Now, to crown it all…

Both tools GA and tracker are helpful, though the functional principles and information they provide really vary. And that’s exactly why you would want to use them in combination. Especially, if you are an affiliate or advertiser. Because it’s that case when the time and effort you invest in them plays to your benefits.

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