Google Analytics

Google Analytics (4, for those counting) is a free, powerful tool that every serious website needs.

There are other analytics tools you need. And you can layer on top other tools like the soon-to-be-even-more-Adobified SEMrush, or even Adobe's own "Adobe Experience Cloud". But GA4 is an essential part of the stack. And it's free. And it's quite the workhorse product.

If you aren't sure what the features and benefits and why I'm recommending this tool, then there's rabbit holes upon rabbit holes of "user lifecycle tracking"-esque places I can point you to. But suffice to say -- Google Analytics is good because it helps you understand what's working on your website, where things might be wrong, and how to surf the digital wave with Google, Meta, TikTok, Reddit, and all big dawgs.

The need for a near-universal dataset is why Google gave it away in the first place. So the altruism-eyed view of Google’s website analytics initiative isn’t quite naive, but I do view this free tool from rosy-nostalgia-infused-glasses which have transitioned into dark, pragmatic lens for seeing how web tracking really evolved.

And don’t forget Google Tag Manager to pull the whole surveillance gang together. Yes, it’s used for bad. But it’s also used for good. Learning to live with these tools is much better than condemning in totality that which you don’t understand.

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