Fathom Analytics

As a website owner looking to optimize for conversions, finding the right analytics platform to track user engagement is a necessity. I started Conversion Bridge because I wanted to get away from Google Analytics and use a solution that was both easier to use, could help me get away from needing cookie banners, and could provide important metrics I needed. After hearing a lot of mentions about it on Twitter, I gave it a try to learn why so many had been heaping praise on it.

Features of Fathom Analytics

What is needed in an effective analytics platform for website owners? Here’s what Fathom focuses on to provide a quality solution:

Simple and Clean Dashboard

Fathom Analytics prides itself on its intuitive and clutter-free dashboard. Unlike other analytics platforms that overwhelm users with complex interfaces (let’s be real, I mean Google Analytics here), Fathom presents key metrics in a straightforward manner. With easy-to-understand dashboard layout, users can quickly access the data they need without any unnecessary distractions or endless clicking hoping to stumble across the right setting or section to find what they need. Where there are week long classes on how to use Google Analytics, most users should be able to understand Fathom in only a few minutes on their own.

Privacy-Focused Analytics

Privacy is at the core of Fathom Analytics. Instead of relying on intrusive tracking methods like cookies, Fathom prioritizes ethical data collection practices that respect visitors’ privacy rights. By anonymizing data and providing transparent tracking, Fathom ensures that website owners can gather valuable insights without compromising the privacy of their audience.

Accurate Data

Because Fathom blocks bots, scrapers, and spam traffic, you can be assured that the visits you are seeing are more accurate. You can also setup a custom domain to use as the source of your tracking script which means less ad blockers will stop your tracking script, again meaning more accurate stats.

Real-Time Data Tracking

Real-time means real-time with Fathom. When building Conversion Bridge, it was easy to test because conversion tracking data was in my dashboard before I could even switch tabs and hit refresh. There is no lag or delay in seeing your website stats

Customizable Reports

Tailor your analytics reports to suit your specific needs with Fathom’s customizable reporting features. From choosing which metrics to track to adjusting the time frame and formatting of your reports, Fathom gives you the flexibility to create reports that provide the insights you need to drive growth and engagement. You can even have a summary emailed to you on a recurring basis making it easy for stakeholders to stay up to date.

Multi-Site Management

For users with multiple websites or clients, Fathom’s multi-site management feature is a game-changer. With a single dashboard, you can track analytics for all of your websites, making it easy to compare performance metrics and identify trends across your portfolio.

Cookie-free Tracking & GDPR Compliance

Fathom invented the now industry standard for cookieless tracking which means you don’t need to use a cookie consent banner just by using Fathom. Combined with anonymized data, no personally identifiable information is ever tracked making Fathom GDPR compliant out of the box.

Google Analytics Migration

Many site owners hesitate to use a new analytics platform because they would lose years of data in Google Analytics. However, Fathom has a simple import tool that allows you to bring all that data with you. No lost data so you can continue running comparisons to past years.

Who Should Use Fathom Analytics?

Fathom Analytics is suitable for a wide range of website owners, from small businesses and startups to bloggers and content creators, and even medium to large e-commerce websites. The Dashboard being so easy to understand, getting they key insights

SEOs and PPC professionals can also rely on the data collected by Fathom to make informed decisions on what is and isn’t working in their efforts.

Pricing and Plans

Fathom Analytics offers transparent pricing plans with no hidden costs. Plans start at $15 per month where you get all their features and scale up based on the number of overall page views that are being tracked across the entire account. Being able to track unlimited domains (first 50 at no additional cost) on a single account makes it a great option for multisite owners or agencies.

Is Fathom Analytics Good for Conversion Tracking?

I believe Fathom Analytics is a good option for most small to medium sized businesses (which are most websites on the web today). Fathom allows for simple conversion tracking like form submissions and account sign ups, but also e-commerce specific conversion tracking. This means you can currency amounts can be recorded with conversion data and then shown in your reports. And yes, Conversion Bridge makes full use of this feature for all the e-commerce WordPress plugins that are currently supported.

Where Does Fathom Struggle?

While the conversion tracking features of Fathom exist, they are not the most advanced. Custom events are not allowed to send additional metadata which can help provide more fine grained stats about your conversions. The reports also lack more advanced filters, but this is because there is no metadata to filter through.

Conversion Bridge does overcome this by working within the abilities of Fathom. For example, when tracking a purchase conversion, ideally we would want to send the items purchased as metadata for the order itself (as of right now, we can only pass the order amount) so we could learn what our most popular products purchased. Conversion Bridge has an option which allows you to track individual purchased items as separate conversion events. While not ideal, it still allows you to learn the source of which ad campaigns and sources get customers to buy specific products.

Do I recommend Fathom Analytics?

While I may not recommend it for enterprise level e-commerce sites with million dollar monthly advertising budgets, I would recommend it for everyone else – which is pretty much every website on the web. The ease of use, focus on privacy and not needing a cookie banner just for using it, and it’s affordable cost make it a solid analytics platform.

Feature comparison for Fathom Analytics

Derek Ashauer is the lead developer of the Conversion Bridge WordPress plugin. He has helped build hundreds of custom websites using WordPress and helped business grow using marketing strategies and various analytic platforms. He now focuses his energy and experience to build highly-rated and helpful WordPress plugins.