Please Stop Using Google Analytics
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- Опубликовано: 3 дек 2023
- Google Analytics got us far, but it's time to move on.
CHECK OUT POSTHOG (AND TELL THEM I SENT YOU): posthog.com/theo
CHECK OUT PLAUSIBLE: plausible.io
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S/O Ph4se0n3 for the awesome edit 🙏 
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So excited to have Posthog as a channel sponsor, if you heard about it from me be sure to let them know ;) posthog.com/theo
I'm planning to use PostHog now, I was so scared of the docs before, but turns out Its easy to setup with their Nextjs setup.
I’m excited for that outrageous curve to the end of your stash. It’s fantastic.
Great stuff, please make them implement a way to delete specific events. It is super annoyinf if you get events that you regret sending in. It will now live in you system for ever.
@fille.imgnry capturing everything is intentional as a "post hoc" analytics platform. But yeah i found it annoying at first but there are plenty of ways to filter out any events you put in by accident. Mainly, you can mark "internal users" and theyll be filtered out automatically from your insights.
awesome analytics tool, will definitely check out, congrats on partnership with them :)
I feel like Theo at some point will make a video about "you need to stop watching theo"
I've already made 2 of these videos and helped multiple other creators make similar ones lmaooo
He already did! I've seen him saying "don't listen to me" at least once before.
My brain is now obsessed with the idea of a playlist of "stop watching / trusting me" videos 😳
@@ludologicaltom scott made one, kurzgesagt made one, but those are all i remember
Watching Theo is KILLING YOUR GAINS
90% of every front end job is adding Google analytics, meta pixels, adobe, and 8 other analytics platforms to even the most basic sites and then get yelled at when it loads too slowly. You’ll never be able to convince marketing teams to stop forcing you to add these to sites. It’s never the choice of a developer to add these, it’s business teams especially marketing requiring this. Your only saving grace could be something like partytown to at least help with load times. I just don’t think I could ever convince them to use anything other than the biggest platforms for analytics in the world.
Can't upvote this enough.
Only SaaS app developers and technology product can really use such solutions. Most of us are stuck with banging our heads to implement the ones you mentioned.
Literally this 💯😅
And then ask you "why is the site slow?" and then I show them Lighthouse complaining that 3rd party JavaScript needs to be reduced and most of the time Google's services appear at the top of that list.
And regarding Google Analytics in particular, I'd say it's popular because it's free and has existed for a long time. People don't want to pay for analytics service if they can just put GA on the site and be done with it.
Well, in digital marketing those pixels are really essential if you are running ads on a bunch of platforms. Might be ugly to add a bunch of JavaScript that tracks behavior's, but tell me... how else are you planning to measure how successful is a campaign? How will you be able to make data driven decisions and optimize campaigns?
Let's also not forget that well optimized campaigns are what makes a business successful.
Of course it's not the choice of the developer to add these, he won't be the one that will utilize them to increase campaign effectiveness and drive more revenue 😉.
Truuuue
Don’t use google use my sponsor, don’t use this anymore use my sponsor, seems to be the themes to a lot of these videos. Sometime some useful insight but mostly use my sponsor
That's the only thing I don't like about Teo.
The quality of his content is really great, but he does really try to push out his sponsors, in this case, at a dumb extend.
You can't go tell the marketing teams to stop using GA4 because there's an "open-source" alternative, or another alternative which would take developers months to make it slightly close to what GA4 can offer.
Let's not forget who really utilizes these analytics tools.
GA4 is far superior for marketing teams, as when it is used right it can become a very powerful tool.
LOVE IT! I think this is _exactly_ what I've been looking for, and it even includes "A/B" split-testing!
Plausible is not fully open-sourced anymore, it's approximately 90% open. Recently, they introduced a Business tier, which includes features like funnels, that are not available in the self-hosting option.
That's why I don't like to jump so quickly into these new solutions; they have immense potential to change many things and how they operate
Posthog seems amazing, but I feel like a „list“ of good Google Analytics alternatives without mentioning Matomo is incomplete. It might not be as fancy as Posthog is, but it’s for sure a viable alternative to Google Analytics which can be self hosted and fully complies with GDPR.
Is Posthog fully compatible with GDPR? Do I need to show an annoying modal that lets the user know we're using cookies or whatever?
@mohamedyamani8502 it has EU servers which you choose when creating your account. This doesnt mean you can directly collect peoples data without consent, cookie banners are still required. To comply with GDPR any data you collect from consenting EU locals, must be stored on EU servers. Something you cant do with GA (maybe it has changed since i last checked).
Google would sunset ads if it could.
Theo what’s your opinion on the cookie settings piece when you land on a site?
Genuinely interested in the perspective of a thoughtful dev - because it’s always a pain for me to click “no” and then find my path through the dark pattern. But I love when products get better…
Yes! I’m interested too!
Interested too
Congratulations ! You've successfully watched an entire 10.58 minute long ad of Posthog.
That’s amazing, will be using on my project, thanks leo
What a timing, literally yesterday I moved to matomo, its privacy friendly (no cookies), open source and a nice dashboard. Super compatable with everything.
There are some paid plugins though
IANAL but GA is not illegal in Finland, the ombudsman just issued an reprimand to the library operator in helsinki for using it "unsafely". Its ok to use it as a private or public business, or even as a govermental agency if you just use it correctly :).
Google Analytics 4 is legal in Finland. It has never been illegal. It was Google Universal Analytics
would you mind sharing the difference between them?
As I mentioned in my previous comment which got deleted, GA is legal in Norway and all of EU as of July 2023.
Here is a reference to the privacy framework which is the legal framework for GA to run under as of July: www.dataprivacyframework.gov/s/participant-search
@@oliverhoff3794 it’s a bit more complicated imho when it comes to configuration (e.g consent, collecting IP addresses/fingerprinting) but you are mostly correct.
I wouldn’t be surprised if we see Max Schrems strike again.
Shrem will probably strike again, however GA4 doesn't collect IP. It's much more privacy centric than UA ever was
Yeah, you could make a great argument but then author just deletes it. RUclips very likely could censor too.
how about Microsoft clarity?
Awesome! That's really helpful! I was looking for page analytics
Thanks for including alternates.
Looks nice, how do I track ads doe?
Can that be done by Google ads alone? Or do I need some type of token that is related to one add campaign?
Query parameters/referrers usually get the job done if your using an open source analytics system this tends to be better. Google Ads and other ad systems are notorious for counting bots and fraud as conversions so better to have full control over the data they usually blackbox. I've rolled custom analytics/ used Matomo, Posthog, Lytx, and others to achieve this.
Hey Theo, are you interested in looking at a new self hosted analytics project I’m making that implements the entire vercel analytics backend into your next.js app with route handlers. Similar to Next auth with the setup / database adapters.
I’ll give it a try.
We integrated ga4 from the start, didn’t have to migrate. Though, it was such a pain to make sure it’s working properly. All the tutorials are not going to understanding how it really works, delay of data landing is random, charts are weak, even with custom reports
I had the miss fortune having to build GA integrations into a e-commerce saas platform and was constantly astounded at how little sense it all made. All the versions and the weird shit you have to do I am glad other solutions exist
Can uploadthing be used as photos storage for my real estate crm? I am looking for a storage service but don't want to get overcharged with data transfer in case of ddos or whatever.
Thanks for the info, I will try it soon.
I think Matomo is a better option if you want to self host
Thanks 🎉
Why's that?
@@nickwoodward819 ruclips.net/video/H8JsLadAL6Q/видео.html
how did I know that he had an alternative sponsoring him 😅
Great video! What about Fathom though?
Come on !! Put this video as Business promotion
Posthog seems cool, we've been mostly ignoring google analytics at this point because their UI is terrible, many people block it, their events are super confusing, their reports are always super obscure as to why some metrics can't be used, the data sometimes make no sense (it shows products that have been purchased whilenever been added to the cart ... fun).
As a quick workaround I just added a DB and an endpoint and basically repost there what we already post to GA just so we can useful reports on some stuff ....
But sure that does n't do a lot of the charts that we still use GA for, so using Posthog instead sounds like the way forward.
i never understood doing the analytics via a third party site with the context of adblockers now that they are baked in most users setups. the middleware approach make so much sense.
This partially true, in Austria it’s not illegal every website and agency uses it. If you integrate it right with anonymous IP and Cookie Banner etc. It’s ok.
GA4 does not collect IP addresses
¿Is it a feature like google Analytics Reporting Embed API available in posthog?
Oh, God... thank you for saving me - I was about to jump through the window trying to set up something as simple as User ID on GA, breaking their application in the process, because they evidentally didn't expect to receive the "undefined" value. Now one of the reports (User Epxerience I think) crashes all the time and is useless.
I have question - is that Google search gives more priority and easy to rank on their search if you site has google analytics as it makes easy for google search to know more about your site
No, SEO doesn't work that way.. using GA has no impact on your SEO performance. However how it links to Search Console is pretty good
Are these compatible with services like Shopify?
holy shit I was just trying to answer this question today. thanks for the great timing.
What is a good analytics service for react native?
What browser are you using? I like the side tabs effect
He is using Arc Browser
The only reason I still use GA is because I like seeing analytics for my website through a different analytics tool I use. The current tool I use, Serpbear, is a lot more basic but it does everthing I need it to,and is self-hosted. GA itself is a mess to use
T3, a question
how do even you find that stuff?
sponsors
Posthog is sick! A lot of managed Ad providers require google analytics data to sign on which makes it difficult for blogs to move over without demonetizing themselves. :/
What about datadog? Is there something bad with it?
"Please Stop Using Analytics" - the sponsor of this video is Posthog. Ekhm, no thanks.
I was like „Theo is finally talking about analytics!” and then Ive noticed its sponsored. Oh well.
I wish this was made clear.
You have more sponsors than a Formula 1 team 😆🙌
Interesting take. Though, just being Open Source doesn't solve the problem of things heading towards the abandonware bucket. What would be more interesting in the future is having an Open Standard for data analytics so that you can export your data from one system, and import into the new system. Pipe dream? Possibly.
Is umami another good open source alternative?
Plausible doesn't mention a free tier in their pricing page?
0:08 My exact thought! I will now listen to anything else you say 😂
Play music shout out really got me. So with you man.
Universal Analytics was great, it was working without any problem on electron app, now GA4 is not working on file protocol
Lol guessed both of the tools you would recommend. My 2 favs too.
What is this browser?
What about analytics of cloudflare?
Personal really love Posthog and what its capable, usability ... such a gem
i have one question is it the best out htere or just a sponsor i don't want to use something based on someone else sponsor, money can chnage persperctive if u know what i mean !!
It really is good. I've used it for about 2 years now since GA was rumoured to be banned in the EU. Its a "post-hoc" method meaning it stores all event data so you can extract insights after the fact. Writing your own insights is pretty intuitive considering how much granular control you have. My favourite feature is probably the "screen recording", something usually youd need hotjar for... also love the dashboard builder you can display custom KPIs then share via URL or embed them as s (nice for the stakeholders). they also offer dedicated AB testing / feature flag views which again youd need other platforms to handle if you used google (since google optimize is now dead). The free tier covers everything an SME needs for a marketing site so cant talk about pricing. I also havent self hosted before. Basically it has everything you need for insights under one roof, while being GDPR compliant (if you choose their EU server).
When Theo grows the 3D holographic moustache from Silicon Valley
Vercel Analytics is server-side right? So can users even adblock it? I just use Vercel. :)
Isn't that like very expensive?
When Google Analytics forced the upgrade, I just stopped using them (for all my side projects). Thanks for giving suggestions on what to use instead.
Pirsch and Fathom are some other good alternatives. I think both have an open source offering but might be out dated.
Just look at the very sad state that the "Business Thingy" on the search page for businesses to have some very basic - most of the times not fitting to the particular business - things you can show when people are searching for businesses! The settings basically got severely downgraded from a bunch of proper sites in the generall settings to a tacked on modal dialog in Google Maps! I fully expect that they will graveyard this "feature" soon!
Thx for reccomending something :)
I had to build GA into a website for my work, it was needed for the product owner to see which parts of webpages needed to be redone in the major rewrite they’re planning to do, nothing else. They were already deeply baked into google services so it made sense to use GA, and it was incredibly easy to implement.
Imagine, a type safe analytics backend, tool customizable on the backend with auto completion on the dashboard tools… Oh, wait.
theo "its no secret" browne.
My biggest issue with GA4 is that it’s a major downgrade from UA. Like 50% of the features are gone or don’t work easily anymore
00:06 I absolutely feel the same
Thank you for this video 🤝
It's silly because I never considered there was another analytics solution other than Google
Open Source until it is not. I had seen this trend to jump into open source, make a product, and then switch the license.
It's no secret that theo starts vids with It's no secret
Great cast today analysis is important.
we can always rely on theo to tell us to stop using something
then tell us to stop using the replacement he gave us like 4 months later 🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I worked at a place where they had millions in ad spend and years of analytics across 50+ sites and all that historical information is gone.
It's not gone, it's in Segment/Amplitude, but It's gone from GA.
No it's not gone.. you have until July to save your data..which can be exported and imported in big query
@@chriscruzzz That's good I guess. Does Big Query have a cost?
The hassle of setting up 50+ projects doesn't seem worth it when you can easily switch to use something else.
@@adampatterson what "something else" are you going to use to export your historical data exactly?
@@chriscruzzz I didn't say easy to export the data, I said easy "to switch to something else"
The projects I was talking about were already useing Segment and it can replay historical data for other services, use anything else as a data warehouse or just be exported.
this is exactly the reason I built Hubalz Analytics lol
1:14 🇫🇮 Finland mentioned! TORILLE! 🇫🇮 (🇺🇲🇬🇧 = TO MARKET SQUARE!)
btw we have now independence day. (December 6th)
Actualy it is legal to use again, atleast in Denmark. After EU-US Data Privacy Framework, this summer.
But still, that. GA4 platform is absolutely horrible.
How about vercel analytics 😅
We use our own homegrown analytics tool that doesn't violate the gdpr and asks for the consent on page open and login. Most EU countries are going to be blocking analytics tool slowly, so build your own guys. Its literally as simple as adding one table in backend and increasing count.
I like umami a lot for self hosted solutions
Having only recently been exposed to Universal Analytics and had the unfortunate job of having to migrate to GA4 I am honestly astounded at how useless GA4 is.
Google seems to have no concept of UX, usability and on top of all it's less useful than the tool they are replacing.
For such a major player on the web it's surprising how bad their tooling is.
posthog and google analytics are for different usecases
I prefer mixpanel because its easy for devs and non-devs
google analytics is the only thing that works for me
i have a small budget, pretty much all blown on a server for hosting my website, which gets thousands of views a day during the week, millions of events in the past month, blowing all free tiers of these services
not only that, other people also host my website, so i can't self host analytics due to how my website works
instead of using google analytics, just hammer nails directly into your PC. you get the same experience, but you get to keep all your data! 😊
No, you get the complete opposite result: in one case you lose all your data, in the other google gets all your data stored in their servers for eternity
don’t you need to use google analytics for google ads?
No GA, Google Ads, And Google tag manager use the same javascript script with the exception of different events/configuration ie Ads will have a configuration with a AW I there string, GT for tag manager etc the library sends events to the relevant platform based on that config so if your only using the AW string for Ads your set to track.
Hey @@Richetechguy maybe you can help me out here. I thought you need to track at least your purchase events to Google Analytics for Google Ads to be able to perform "intelligently". Wouldn't not using Google Analytics have a negative impact on your Ads performance?
@@Ekatioz you can use other tools to embed the conversion tracking code. Some of them provide templates, some of them don't and you have to use the custom HTML/JS method.
Not gonna lie, this looks dope. I'm 100% going to start using it. I'm a google fanboy but even I can tell Analytics sux nowadays.
so they paid you to say this? Thanks
another banger video 🔥
Personally I go with goatcounter
SimpleAnalytics is also a nice and easy alternative
Mysteriously we are not talking about the dropping ranking for not having UA4 installed. Do you want to take a hit for these nominal gains? I'm not sure
Wait what?
@@canadian_0 this is nonsense
We all miss a Google product that's been shutdown, but nobody misses Google+ hahaha
I used to use it little
But I remember it whenever they mention scrapped projects
I was hoping the product he was trying to instill as an alternative was not sponsored but then it is sponsored the irony, nonetheless, learned something new from this.
good plug
analytics is not illegal is france lol
Is POSTHOG a chapo reference?
Posthog is semi-open source, doesn't have A/B testing, etc.
Post hog ergo propter hog
Interesting...
Frick google
I hate GA4 and don't use it for my own sites and clients.