Switching to Fathom Analytics: Simple accuracy without forgoing privacy

Fathom Analytics is one of many paid analytics solutions for digital marketers, but after taking advantage of their trial, I'm not only convinced of Fathom's ability, but the opportunities available to us through independent analytics platforms. If you're like me, Google Analytics was just what you did, everyone uses it, there are so many free resources available to supplement learning. However, I never thought about why I could use it for free, or why I have to click "accept" on so many website banners that try to convince me that cookies aren't evil. To find out there is a simpler way of collecting data without invading the privacy of others was shocking. Intrigued immediately, I read up on Fathom Analytics and started my free trial. It took seconds to install their tracking script on my website and start seeing data flow. Unlike GA4, Fathom has real time capability, it's a developers dream to test an event, refresh the page and see your event show up on the dashboard. Before I get into too much detail let me discuss the three biggest reasons to switch to Fathom Analytics.

Simplicity

Fathom's dashboard is INCREDIBLY simple. They spare you the nonsense and show you what matters, what will actually drive actionable insights. There is one page, only one page. You may think that is limiting, but upon further inspection you will find that every element on the page when clicked allows you to drill down. It's perfectly formatted to drive insights quickly and efficiently. Here's a portion of a dashboard from a truck service shop that I switched over from GA4 to Fathom Analytics. Every metric you see here can be clicked and drilled down, meaning, If I were to click on the "/truck-wash-bay" page, the dashboard would filter all metrics to represent data only for that page.

You can create events and receive code snippets per event to place on your website. You can easily filter these events by UTM parameters, page titles, referrers, you name it, it's all there on the dashboard. Here's the bottom portion of the dashboard I shared above. You can see the events and the UTM parameters nestled near the bottom. There's even a "Build" link for you to quickly create the UTM links for your marketing strategies.

This is where Fathom shines as it removes the layers of chaos that comes with Google Analytics 4. This platform is built for online entrepreneurs who need insights to optimize, but don't want to learn how to become a GA4 or Google Tag Manager guru at the same time. Anybody can install Fathom Analytics and get actionable insights immediately. Better yet, more accurate insights as well!

Accuracy

Fathom Analytics is far more accurate than Google Analytics for a number of reasons. First, Fathom Analytics only collects anonymous data, therefore they don't have to issue cookies. This means no more annoying cookie banners. Let's face it, no one is sad to see those go. It's nearly impossible to destigmatize a disclaimer saying you're collecting personal data. This may be seen as a downside for those who are convinced higher traffic counts are always better. Let's be frank, making decisions based on higher traffic counts is less efficient due to the fact a high percentage of your web traffic is bots. Additionally, most people utilize some type of ad blocker to stop their data from being sent over to GA in the first place. So what you're looking at with GA4 is a muddled mess of may or may not be human users. Not only does Fathom's implementation block bots, they also fly under the radar of ad blockers. Again, no cookies, and no personalized data. Therefore your data accuracy shoots through the roof when compared to GA4. Personally I'd rather make decisions based on data I know I can trust to be from humans, my actual customers that I'm trying to resonate with. Here's a screenshot of traffic from GA4 versus Fathom Analytics for the truck service shop website. Note the period of data was set to the last 7 days on both platforms, let's examine the "views" metric on both platforms as in theory they should be identical.

It's well known that advertising platforms like Meta and Google will overstate numbers to change the perception of performance. They're not lying to you, they're just not telling you that inside those 338 views, 100 of them may or may not be site crawlers, bots, altogether not humans... It's crazy to think that the amount of people using Google Analytics aren't getting the full picture, and on top of that, having to pay for more expensive solutions like server side tracking to facilitate some type of control over data accuracy. Some might say this argument holds no water if the platform is free, especially since the majority of online business owners won't need server side tracking, or audience segmenting. However, GA4 and other Google products are NOT free. You pay for it with your data. That's right, all the data you collect is sold.

Privacy

Fathom Analytics is a paid product. That might turn a lot of you away, but paying for something is not a bad thing. The cheaper something is, the less likely it will actually provide the value you need. Fathom Analytics lowest subscription tier is only $14 dollars CAD a month. And that's for up to 100,000 monthly page views! This is a small price to pay for accurate data, a simplistic dashboard with the most important actionable insights, and your data privacy. Just remember that Google will probably make upwards of 10x that cost when profiting off your data, that may even be a conservative estimate. Many won't care about this issue, but I know for a fact there are countless online entrepreneurs out there who would rather pay for an online product for this very reason.

Fathom Analytics isn't perfect, but I'm completely sold on the relationship between simplicity, accuracy, and privacy when it comes to this product. As a data-driven digital marketer I've spent countless hours dealing with changes and updates to Google Analytics, dealing with loss of data, inaccurate data, and frustration over learning the complexities of the tool. I've seen how clients have invested thousands of dollars into data gurus to figure out the magic world of Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, just to see their framework break time and time again. Heck, I'm one of those "gurus" who as built a living off building these solutions. However, I now see implementations like Fathom being a far superior analytics solution for the majority of online entrepreneurs. I'm completely aware of the necessity of data-driven insights and Fathom Analytics is the most cost effective way to get the insights you need to grow your small to medium sized online business.