How to Migrate to a Google Analytics Alternative for WordPress

Google Analytics 4 (GA4) is terrible. This is not a hot take as so many people agree with me:

There are also tons of memes expressing the frustration people are having in regards to GA4.

While wanting to move to privacy-first analytics for my WordPress website was a key reason to ditch GA4, the inability to migrate data from UA and the dumpster fire that was the new dashboard didn’t help either. Like everyone, I was forced to migrate to GA4 when Google announced it was shutting down the old tried and true Universal Analytics (UA). The moment I opened up the analytics dashboard for the first time I felt like I was in a not just a foreign country but a foreign planet. I have 20 years of building websites and looking at stats, but most of the simple analytics reports I was accustomed to using were stunningly hidden or confusing to interpret.

So, if like me, you are now fed up with GA4 and ready to migrate to an alternative I have some steps you can follow with the help of Conversion Bridge:

Selecting a WordPress Google Analytics Alternative

Because of the steaming trash pile that is GA4, many new alternatives are popping up and some older options are becoming more popular. Currently, Conversion Bridge works with 14 analytics platforms and will continue to add more over time. I’ve put together a comparison list of these to choose from:

Pricing for Google Analytics alternatives in WordPress

Alternative platforms do all have a small monthly fee associated with them. This can be a hard change to swallow after being used to free analytics for so long with UA. However, I think each one of these platforms justifies their minimal price tag with the amount of less time you will send trying to find and use the analytics dashboard.

Thankfully, many of these platforms offer a free trial! You can sign up and try out various platforms to see which one works best for you.

One great benefit of using Conversion Bridge is it’s ability to allow you to enable multiple analytics platforms at once and track conversions for each. This means you could test out every single alternative platform at the same time and see which works best for you without losing any tracking data in GA4 until you are ready to fully commit. I actually do exactly this when developing and testing Conversion Bridge and do not see any real load time issues since the alternatives all emphasize small JavaScript footprints.

Migrating Data from Google Analytics

This is the most challenging aspect of moving to a new analytics platform and I don’t have a great answer here for you, unfortunately. In the comparison chart above you will notice a few have a GA Import option. However, of the limited options that do have a migration tool there is very limited support for importing both UA and GA4.

Google did not allow you to migrate your data from UA to GA4 and that is the case here as well for most of these options. Starting fresh is not ideal but you can continue to keep your GA4 account open and use it for historical comparisons against any new platform you select, albeit in two different browser windows.

One other thing to consider is that Google is blocking access to UA starting July 1, 2024 as well. So you will be losing that data soon anyway unless you are able to migrate it to one of the alternative platforms.

Which WordPress Google Analytics Alternative is the Best?

This is completely subjective and similar to asking “What clothes look best?” Most of the platforms supported by Conversion Bridge are solid platforms, each with their own unique features. In general, they each have significantly easier to use analytics dashboards compared to GA4. Data is well presented on a single page and the info you need regularly is not hidden in some bizarre setting that has to be enabled.

If your site accepts e-commerce payments, I would recommend an option that accepts advanced e-commerce data along with the conversion events. This can give you more detailed insights into top performing marketing channels not just by total conversions but by total amount in sales.

I recommend reading the Google Analytics alternative reviews I have been writing to get a more in depth feel for which platforms may work best for you.

Derek Ashauer is the lead developer of the Conversion Bridge WordPress plugin. He has been involved with WordPress since 2005 and has worked with hundreds of clients to build custom websites. He now uses that experience to build highly-rated and helpful WordPress plugins.