GA4 vs Hitprobe: Which tool gives you the insights that really matter?

Google Analytics 4 is powerful, no-one can deny that.

But in 2025, it’s also confusing, overwhelming, and often brings more noise with it's inaccuracies than data signals that you can always trust 🤔

If you’ve ever opened your GA4 dashboard and thought “where do I even start?”, you’re probably not alone.

GA4 shows you everything - but that’s exactly the problem 👎

It’s designed to be everything, to everyone, from data scientists to app developers, and if you’re just sitting there trying to understand your general marketing performance, it’s like using a rocket ship's control panel to check your car’s fuel gauge…a little OTT no? 🚀

More options, buttons, reports and metrics to track doesn’t necessarily mean “better”.

That’s why so many marketers are turning to third-party analytics tools - tools that simplify, clarify, and give you the essentials you need, not a confusing data dump.

Whether you need a snapshot of your current campaign performance, an analysis of time spent on pages where visitors enter and exit, insights into ad engagement, or to weed out fraudulent clicks, simpler, clearer (and cleaner) tracking tools bring the truth. And you’ll get there faster.

In this article, we dig into why relying solely on GA4 might just be holding you back (and what smarter tracking looks like in 2025).

Let’s get into it 👇

Analytics for everyone, clarity for no one

It’s clear that GA4 wants to be your one-stop-shop for everything analytics, but let's be real for a minute…unless you’re a certified GA4 pro, it’s a tad overwhelming.

The interface is pretty complex, the data gets scattered in far flung corners of the software, and unless you’ve got a data science degree (and how many of us actually do?) it's pretty tough to extract exactly what matters.

In a world where you probably just want to know the answer to “Are my ads working?”, you’re probably too busy wrestling with menus, filters, toggles and confusing reports to be able to accurately answer your own question 🔍

Here’s where third-party software like Hitprobe helps to skip the complexity, as we’re laser focused on giving you the essentials:

• Which of your campaigns are actually driving performance
• What visitors are doing after their initial ad click
• Where your conversion opportunities are dropping off, and why?
• Whether the clicks are real or fake

No fluff, just answers that actually drive action.

Guesswork, without the instant, clean data

It’s a well known fact that GA4 fills in data gaps with their “modelled insights”, but this is just a fancy way of saying there’s some guesswork and assumption involved. For you, that means:

• Some of your numbers aren’t actually real
• Reports can (and do) change once the data catches up
• You can’t always be fully confident in what you’re seeing

But, you don’t have to accept guesswork as a standard working practice of the platforms you’re using - if you’re spending real money on traffic, you want real data, right? 💸

But why does this matter?

Because every gap in data is a gap in decision making - and those gaps add up real fast.

Here’s how Hitprobe keeps it clean:

• No data stitching or modelling - what you get is what we see
• No estimations - because how can you make data-driven decisions based on guesswork?
• No surprise adjustments (because playing catchup with data isn’t ever going to be helpful)

We track what happens. We show it to you. That’s all 👌

When the same company that sells you ads is also reporting on them, having a third-party view isn’t just smart, it’s essential.

Data that’s fully trustable, right?

Lets stop for a minute to connect the dots:

✅ Google runs the ads

✅ Google measures the performance

✅ Google decides what you see in the reports

That’s a whole lot of control coming from one source.

In a world where your news feed is constantly surfacing stories about disappearing conversions, duplicate clicks, traffic surges that make no sense, invalid and fake clicks that slip through the cracks and changes to how ad platforms attribute clicks - trust in your data has never been more important.

To be clear - it’s not about deception. Google is doing its best to help advertisers succeed, but let’s not forget, if your ads don’t perform, they still earn their revenue💰

That right there is a possible conflict, and when your bottom line depends on being able to understand what's really going on, “doing their best” isn’t always going to cut it for advertisers.

Hitprobe was built differently, designed to help shine a light on:

• Real-time fraud detection and blocking 🚫
• Traffic (risk and engagement) scoring 🚦
• Behaviour tied to real individuals, not inflated session counts or clicks 📱
• Deep session data (we’re talking how long users were on your pages, where they clicked, drop off points etc) 📈

You can’t fix what you can’t see, and some might think that GA4 hides more than it shows through its own product technicality.

Privacy & tracking concerns

Back in November 2024, Google announced they were testing the waters with their own first-party data solutions within GA4, such as Customer Match, to help improve targeting.

While these solutions do anonymize the data by hashing (essentially obscuring) customer PII (personally identifiable information) such as emails or phone numbers, GA4 still relies heavily on cookies for tracking, which brings with it a host of privacy risks and compliance challenges.

Sure, it’s a step forward, but the mixed approach leaves a lot to be desired for when it comes to clean and compliant tracking.

Here’s how Hitprobe takes privacy to the next level:

• Unlike GA4, Hitprobe doesn’t rely on cookies to track user behavior. Instead, we use a simple JavaScript tag that respects privacy and keeps things anonymous 🍪
• Built for the future - As cookies phase out and privacy regulations tighten, no technical changes will be needed once our JavaScript tag is installed
• No personal data. No risk. We don’t collect, store, or associate any personal information, so you get the insights you need, without compromising user trust

Complexity at the cost of…everything?

GA4 is highly flexible, but at a cost.

You’re going to have to go through a pretty steep learning curve or hire someone who lives and breathes digital ads, and for small businesses or those with tight budgets, that’s just not viable.

Setting up custom events, dimensions, complicated multi-step tagging setups and slicing and dicing data…but your real focus is just tracking a simple button click.

You’re also going to have to prepare yourself for some Google Tag Manager deep diving with a fair bit of trial-and-error.

Ask yourself, do you really have the time for this when you just want to focus on what’s important - your business ⌚

Time is money, so if you’re wasting hours navigating GA4’s labyrinth of settings, suggested changes, host of reports and changing data, you’re missing chances to act on what really matters.

Hitprobe brings some clarity to the chaos:

• Instant behavioural tracking
• No tagging headaches
• Key campaign signals, exactly where they should be: front and center

The waffle gets hidden and the important stuff gets spotlights - just the way it should be!

Signals or noise, you decide

GA4 opens the floodgates to every metric you could possibly want to track (and plenty you probably and realistically don’t need to bother with), leaving you guessing about what actually matters 🤷

But here’s the real problem: when everything is visible all at once, nothing stands out, so it’s hard to know:

• What should I be tracking?
• Which campaign should I be putting more effort into?
• How do I decipher which metrics matter most?
• What is the data actually telling me?

Unless you know exactly how to set up your views, filters, event parameters and reporting correctly, GA4 could lead you straight into a data fog that’s hard to reappear from 🌬️

Here’s how third-party marketing analytics tools like Hitprobe clears the path:

• We only track the essentials that actually drive ad performance
• Vanity metrics and inflated figures give misdirection, so we avoid them and you should too
• Creating events and conversion tracking should be frictionless, so we made ours that way
• We put your ads performance insights front and center so you can slice, dice and act fast

No complicated setup. No detective work. Just clean, decision-primed data that shows you the difference between what’s working, and what’s not.

Scattered data = lack of unity

Sure, the recently rolled out Meta Ads integration with GA4 is probably a welcome addition to anyone tired of stitching data together across different platforms.

But, let’s keep it real: that’s just one puzzle piece in a much bigger box 🧩

• Microsoft Ads? Still siloed.
• LinkedIn? No native GA4 love just yet.
• Amazon Ads? Forget about that one.

Even with Meta Ads now in the mix, GA4 doesn’t magically unify your campaign performance across all of the channels you’re investing in, so you’re still likely to be managing multiple tools, wrestling with potentially inconsistent attribution models and trying to make decisions with half of the dot-to-dot picture completed.

Third-party analytics tools like Hitprobe connect you to the full story, tracking all of your paid and organic traffic, matching sessions to real users spread across every channel you use.

One Javascript tag that doesn’t need a tech team on standby. One source of truth. One less headache.

All the clicks, at the cost of deciphering good or bad

Bots don't buy. Fat fingered accidental clicks don’t either. Neither do competitors clicking repeatedly on your ads.

GA4 struggles to filter out non-human traffic, but then again, Google’s primary focus is digital advertising, so maybe they’re leaving the door open (to the bots) and third-party solutions that can both fix the problem and report back to them with a plethora of data to support the claim, helping to refine and strengthen their own algorithms without really having to lift a finger...

Hitprobe’s designed to see them coming from a mile away:

• Using hundreds of data points to flag suspicious behaviour instantly ⚠️
• Allowing you to create custom rules to manage and block good and bad click interactions.
• Giving you the ability to keep your budget focused on real people with genuine intent 💵

Protect your ad spend whilst knowing what’s real.

Campaign-first, or page-first?

Back in the day, Google Analytics was all about web performance - page views, bounce rates, time on site…they kept it simple, clear and pretty focused.

But GA4 isn’t just a website tool anymore, it’s Google’s all-in-one, cross platform performance measuring machine, designed to track websites and apps using events, streams and a variety of models.

Sure…this sounds powerful, but for marketers with more simple needs? You could argue it’s a little overkill? 🤷

GA4 now speaks fluent developer, but if you’re running ads and trying to drive conversions, all that power creates more confusion than clarity (or conversions).

You’re not here to optimize screen views or debug app sessions, you’re trying to:

• Track every one of your campaigns performance, irrespective of the platform.
• Understand what converts, what doesn’t and importantly, why?
• Make smarter and faster budget decisions - when to double down, refocus or cut your losses.

That means thinking in campaigns, not just clicks or sessions.

The bottom line: Tracking smarter isn’t optional

Let’s face it - performance marketing has never been more competitive.

Ad costs are rising, platforms are constantly shifting their focus, and tracking is more fragmented than ever (especially given each platform has their own way of doing things).

In 2025, how you measure your results can make or break your growth 📈

GA4 is without doubt a powerful tool, but it’s not purpose-built for marketers anymore. It's bloated with data, wrapped in complexity and wired for (some) platforms, without necessarily focussing on your campaigns.

If you’re running paid traffic, you need answers fast:

1. Are your campaigns working? 🤷
2. Are you wasting spend on fake or invalid clicks? ⚠️
3. What’s your real ROI? 💰

You need the answers to those questions in plain English, not buried under layers of event tags and complicated reporting.

That’s why Hitprobe exists:

✅ We’re purpose built for ad performance

✅ We track exactly what matters, and skip what doesn’t

✅ Bots? We filter them out alongside clicks from click farms and other risk associated clicks.

✅ Real-time clarity? You got it.

In 2025, you can’t afford to guess. You need data you can trust, insights you can act on without having to dig them up first, and tools that work with you, not against you.

Ready to stop wrestling with GA4? Start seeing what’s really driving performance and get started with Hitprobe today 🚀