We often came across this question. After all, having google analytics or similar should cover all your analysis and reporting needs, shouldn’t it?

I am afraid this is not the case.

Take google analytics. It is the most used web analytics tool, and like most of the web analytics tools it focuses on analysing how visitors on your website behave by gathering data organising it and presenting it.

Google analytics is the main data source used in Causalytics. But it is one source amongst others, and here lies part of the explanation on the difference between both.

What analytics tools are for?

Web analytics tools gather website information data. They will tell you how many visitors your website had and from where did they visit. They also allow you to know which pages are most visited, as well as which convert better.

You likely do not need to be convinced of using web analytics, but in case you do here are some reasons why you should:

• Gather useful data. Web analytics gathers a lot of data, about the website traffic, users and conversions. They usually have good statistical tools to help you visualise those numbers but they fall short in providing insights.
• Understand your demographics. The data gathered allows you to have enough information to understand who your visitors are.
• Know where your visitors come from. To be able to optimise your advertising, content and marketing strategies it is better to track where do the visitors come from. How did they end up browsing your website, and what sources should you focus on.
• See what content converts best. Allows you to find out what kind of content your visitors are interested in and which of it converts the best.

Why web analytics tools are not enough?

You should not (you cannot) stop at the basic level of web analytics. Using google analytics alone will not give you a full understanding of your digital marketing efforts. It will surely not give you actionable insights because of the following reasons:

• Siloed data. Only partial digital marketing data ends up in the analytics tool. Even though you will be able to identify demographics, visitor sources and conversion trends you will not be able to have a clear vision on the ROI overall or per marketing channel.
• Complexity. Web analytics tools are becoming more and more complex. Most of those tools are built for professionals which makes them hard to access for many stakeholder.
• One data source. Your digital marketing data is scattered in many different places. While web analytics can give you an indication of traffic from other sources to the website, it will not allow you to understand and optimise other digital marketing channels.

How is Causalytics different?

Causalytics uses Google Analytics as one of its main data sources, but following are key differences of purpose between both:

• Data consolidation. Causalytics aims to be a hub for all marketing data sources. We start by offering the integration of Google Analytics, Google Ads and Facebook Ads integration. We will be adding more integrations continuously.
• Insights rather than only analytics. Go beyond the (usually complex) statistics and numbers into understanding why do the numbers look the way they do and how did they happen. Understand them better as Causalytics shows them in a humanly understandable way.
• Suggested Actions. Do not stop at the mere constatation of a situation, Causalytics suggests actions, fixes and tips you can try to optimise the situation.

The best way to have an opinion about this is still to try it out yourself. Feel free to signup for a trial or contact us for a demo at akram@causalytics.ai or give us a call at +358 40 167 0096.