Most small businesses have analytics installed and get nothing from it. The dashboard exists, nobody opens it, and when someone does they cannot connect any number to a decision.
That is rarely a tool problem. It is usually that nobody decided what question the analytics was meant to answer. Pick the question first and the tool choice becomes obvious.
Start With the Question, Not the Tool
Analytics tools cluster around four different questions:
“How many people visit and where from?” — traffic analytics. GA4, Plausible, Fathom.
“What do people actually do on the page?” — behaviour analytics. Hotjar, Microsoft Clarity.
“Which marketing actually produced revenue?” — attribution. Harder, and where most small businesses genuinely need help.
“How do users move through my product?” — product analytics. Mixpanel, PostHog, Amplitude.
Installing a traffic tool when your question is attribution produces a dashboard nobody can act on. That is the most common failure in this category.
The Twelve
1. Google Analytics 4
Free, ubiquitous, and the default. GA4 replaced Universal Analytics, which stopped processing data in 2023 — an important note because a great deal of advice online still describes the old interface and metrics.
GA4’s event-based model is more flexible and considerably less intuitive than what it replaced. Many small businesses find it harder to answer simple questions than before.
Suits: anyone needing free, comprehensive traffic data and Google Ads integration. Watch: a real learning curve, and privacy considerations covered below.
2. Plausible
Lightweight, privacy-focused, open source, EU-hosted, and simple enough that a non-analyst can read it. No cookies, which means no cookie banner is required for it specifically.
Suits: content sites, small businesses wanting numbers they will actually look at. Watch: less depth than GA4; no free tier beyond a trial, though self-hosting is free.
3. Fathom Analytics
Similar proposition to Plausible — privacy-first, simple, cookie-free, with EU isolation options.
Suits: the same audience. Choose between them on interface preference.
4. Microsoft Clarity
Free, with no meaningful usage limits, offering session recordings and heatmaps. That combination is unusual — this is genuinely free behaviour analytics.
Suits: anyone wanting to see what users actually do. There is little reason not to install it alongside whatever traffic tool you use.
5. Hotjar
Heatmaps, session recordings, on-site surveys and feedback widgets. More polished than Clarity with better survey tooling.
Suits: teams doing conversion work who want qualitative feedback alongside recordings. Watch: priced by sessions; Clarity covers much of the same ground free.
6. Matomo
Open source, self-hostable, with a hosted option. Full-featured traffic analytics where you own the data outright — which matters for some compliance positions.
Suits: businesses with data residency requirements or a preference for owning their stack.
7. PostHog
Product analytics with session recording, feature flags and experiments, open source and self-hostable, with a generous free tier.
Suits: SaaS and product-led businesses. Watch: overkill for a brochure website.
8. Mixpanel
Event-based product analytics — funnels, retention, cohort analysis. Built to answer “where do users drop off?”
Suits: products with user accounts and repeat usage.
9. Amplitude
Similar territory to Mixpanel, strong on retention and behavioural cohorts.
10. Google Search Console
Free, and the most underused tool on this list. It tells you which queries you actually appear for, your position, your click-through rate, and which pages Google has indexed.
For anyone doing content marketing, this answers more useful questions than GA4 does. Everyone with a website should have this connected, and many small businesses have not.
11. Looker Studio
Free reporting layer that pulls from GA4, Search Console, Ads, Sheets and more into one dashboard.
Suits: anyone who needs a monthly report combining several sources.
12. Your platform’s own analytics
Named because it is routinely ignored. Shopify, WooCommerce, Squarespace, Mailchimp and your payment processor all report revenue data more accurately than a JavaScript tracker can, because they see the actual transactions rather than inferring them.
If your question is “how much did we sell,” start there, not in GA4.
How They Compare
| Tool | Question it answers | Free tier | Cookie-free | Self-host |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GA4 | Traffic and acquisition | Yes | No | No |
| Plausible | Traffic, simply | Trial | Yes | Yes |
| Fathom | Traffic, simply | Trial | Yes | No |
| Microsoft Clarity | On-page behaviour | Yes, fully | No | No |
| Hotjar | Behaviour + feedback | Limited | No | No |
| Matomo | Traffic, data ownership | Self-host | Configurable | Yes |
| PostHog | Product usage | Generous | No | Yes |
| Mixpanel | Funnels and retention | Limited | No | No |
| Search Console | Search performance | Yes | N/A | No |
| Looker Studio | Combined reporting | Yes | N/A | No |
Pricing across paid tools is typically by monthly pageviews, sessions or events and changes regularly. Verify current pricing against your real volume.
The Privacy Question You Cannot Ignore
This is not optional housekeeping — it has produced regulatory action.
Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, analytics cookies generally require consent before being set. Several European data protection authorities ruled that certain Google Analytics implementations transferred personal data to the US unlawfully, and the EU-US Data Privacy Framework has since changed the legal basis for such transfers — but the underlying obligations around consent, lawful basis and transparency remain.
Practically, for a business with EU or UK visitors:
- You need a lawful basis for analytics, which for cookie-based tools generally means consent
- Your cookie banner must allow refusal as easily as acceptance
- Analytics should not fire before consent is given
- You need a data processing agreement with your analytics provider
- Your privacy notice must describe what you collect and why
This is part of why cookie-free tools like Plausible, Fathom and Matomo have grown — they are designed to avoid collecting personal data, which simplifies the position considerably.
Take advice for your jurisdiction and circumstances rather than relying on a blog post.
What Actually Makes Analytics Useful
One question per month. Not a dashboard review. “Which pages bring people who buy?” Answer it, act, then ask the next one.
Conversion tracking configured properly. Traffic numbers without conversions tell you nothing about whether anything worked. Set up your key events on day one.
Search Console connected. Free, and answers questions GA4 cannot.
Accept that attribution is imperfect. Ad blockers, cookie refusal, cross-device journeys and privacy features mean your data is a sample, not a census. Treat trends as real and precise numbers as approximate.
Compare against your actual revenue. If analytics says 40 conversions and your payment processor says 31, believe the payment processor.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
- Installing analytics without a question. The dashboard nobody opens starts here.
- Not setting up conversion tracking. Traffic without outcomes is trivia.
- Not connecting Search Console. Free, and more useful than GA4 for content marketing.
- Firing analytics before consent. A compliance problem in the EU and UK, and an easy one to get wrong.
- Trusting exact numbers. Blockers and consent refusal make everything a sample. Trends over precision.
- Ignoring your platform’s own data. Shopify and your payment processor see actual transactions.
- Running four tools and reading none. Two — one traffic, one behaviour — is plenty for most small businesses.
- Following pre-2023 GA advice. Universal Analytics stopped processing data in 2023. Much of what you will find online describes a product that no longer exists.
FAQs
What is the best free analytics tool?
GA4 for comprehensive traffic data, Microsoft Clarity for session recordings and heatmaps with no meaningful limits, and Google Search Console for search performance. All three are free and cover most small business needs together.
Is Google Analytics GDPR compliant?
It can be configured toward compliance, and it requires work: consent before firing, a data processing agreement, appropriate settings and a clear privacy notice. Several EU authorities have previously ruled against specific implementations. Cookie-free alternatives like Plausible and Fathom simplify the position considerably.
Do I need a cookie banner for analytics?
For cookie-based analytics with EU or UK visitors, generally yes, and it must allow refusal as easily as acceptance. Cookie-free tools designed not to collect personal data may avoid this requirement — check the specific tool’s documentation and take advice.
Why is GA4 so hard to use?
It replaced Universal Analytics with an event-based model that is more flexible and much less intuitive for simple questions. Anything written before 2023 describes the previous product, which adds to the confusion.
Should I use Plausible instead of Google Analytics?
If you want numbers you will actually read and a simpler privacy position, yes. If you need deep segmentation, Google Ads integration or free comprehensive data, GA4. Many businesses run a simple tool and check Search Console rather than fighting GA4.
How many analytics tools do I need?
Two, usually — one for traffic and one for on-page behaviour — plus Search Console. Adding more produces dashboards nobody opens.
Key Takeaways
- Decide the question before choosing the tool; that is where most implementations fail.
- Microsoft Clarity is genuinely free behaviour analytics — install it alongside whatever else you use.
- Google Search Console is free and answers questions GA4 cannot. Connect it.
- Analytics cookies generally require consent in the EU and UK, before firing.
- Your payment processor’s revenue figures are more accurate than any tracker’s.
Where to Start
Connect Search Console and install Microsoft Clarity this week — both free, both take minutes. Then write down one question you want answered next month and check whether your current setup can answer it.
For related decisions, see our guides to website builders and Ahrefs alternatives if search performance is what you actually want to understand.