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How is Meiro Events different from Google Analytics & Google Tag Manager

There are many tools today that can be used to track data and events. We want to track data and events because we want to understand our users better so that we can help serve them better. 

Google Analytics & Google Tag Manager

Google Analytics is the most popular website analytics tool: tracking data, storing it, and generating reports. It is free to use, but it does collect users' data to utilize it further. 

Google Tag Manager is a free software by Google that allows you to manage various types of code (tags) deployed to your website. 

Google Analytics has both front and back-end features while Google Tag Manager is a tool that helps to manage & measure the performance of tags from Google Ads, Google Analytics, Floodlight, and 3rd parties. Google Tag Manager does not have any reporting or data storage capabilities. It is mostly helpful for managing multiple tags through a unified abstract data layer.

On July 1 2023 standard Google Analytics (Universal Analytics) will no longer process data and new data will only flow into Google Analytics 4 properties.

Learn more: about Google Analytics, Google Tag Manager and GA4

Meiro Events

Meiro Events is the first layer of the Meiro CDP stack in reaction to the recent privacy changes. It is simply a JavaScript library used for collecting customer events from a website’s visitors. 

Learn more: about the Meiro Events.

Google Analytics vs Meiro Events


So how different are they from each other and how do they work to track data on your website?

1. Types of data collected

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

Meiro Events is very specific and customizable to the client’s use case. 


In Meiro Events, it is possible to track these types of events:

  • Pageviews

  • Outbound link click

  • Google client ID sync

  • Facebook client ID sync

  • Web banner impression

  • Web banner click

  • Custom Event

  • Contact Form submit

All the events sent by SDK may be enriched by additional data on the ME backend server:

  • Cookies

  • Geolocation

  • Headers

  • Referer parts

  • URL parts

  • User agent

Learn more: about which events you can track here.  



Example:

You can collect data from any form with the contact_form_submit event. You can set data collection on any custom event you want. It is fully customisable and not only limited to simple pageviews or sessions. You can have predefined fields or fields that are fully customized which allows you to track any information you want. Custom_event is also available where website administrators can define what events they want to track. 


Learn more: full list or custom_event available here, read more about Meiro Events here. 


Google Analytics tracks data through: 

  • automatically collected events (pageviews, bounce rates, sessions, durations)

  • enhanced measurement (e.g. scroll, file download, etc.)

  • recommended events

  • custom events

Google Analytics collects events that contain information about URL, device, sessions, and generates a custom analytics report about it. 


Reports available through Google Analytics contain mostly website traffic, devices used, etc.


Due to privacy legislation, Google doesn't allow the collection of personally identifiable information (PII). Recent development in this field, suggests that using U.S.-based cloud services might be illegal altogether.



Learn more: full list of Google Analytics events here.

   

Remember: GA4 collects the same data as Google Analytics.

2. Cookies

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

Meiro Events offers flexible, customizable deployment models.


It is possible to deploy Meiro Events with user id as the 1st party cookie (either on the client's server or domain where the owner sets DNS). In addition, the expiration of the cookie is also longer, up to 2 years. (refer to the different browsers: here). 

Google Analytics assigns Google Client ID. 


Google Analytics collects events in the main Google domain.  

For this reason,  Google Analytics ID is often set as a 3rd party cookie. Therefore, browsers can easily block any tracking events and the cookie expiration can be short (like 7 days for Safari), depending on the browser. 


Because data is sent to a different domain (Google) than the website, Google Analytics can be easily blocked. The script is fetched from Google public domain, so everyone knows its location hence it can be blocked easily.  


Google Analytics can also be set as a 1st party cookie, but via document.cookie on javascript.


With document.cookie command, you can include any content and domain (can be on meiro.io fetching 3rd party data javascript, can be fetching data from Google Analytics via Google domain). 


This shows that with document.cookie, anyone can set a 1st party cookie on any website.


But even though it is possible, javascript cookies are not as trustworthy compared to http cookies (used by Meiro) that are set by the server where the domain is configured and it is easy to determine if the server domain matches the website domain.

That's why document.cookie expires after a few days on some browsers.


Remember: GA4 is set by default as a 1st party cookie via document.cookie in JavaScript. But even 1st party JavaScript cookies expire in browsers around after 1 week, depending on the browser. The HTTP Cookie deployed by Meiro lasts 2 years in all devices and browsers.

3. Domains, Meiro Events  vs Google Analytics

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

If you deploy Meiro Events on the client owned domain(same as tracked application - 1st party data): 

  • Longer lifetime & more precise tracking.
  • Will not be blocked by browsers or extensions as the most used and basic methods.
  • Privacy (only accessible via the domain that created it). If you deploy Meiro Events to meiro.io domain (different from track application - 3rd party application).
  • Personalisation (get relevant content, ads, etc).

Google Analytics can be blocked if added to the privacy blocker blocklist. If blockers are enabled, this will not allow Google Analytics to use tracking codes.

4. Sessions and identity stitching in Meiro Events vs  Google Analytics

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

Meiro Events, Google Analytics, and GA4 generate a unique session ID for each user upon visiting a website or app. Subsequent events from the same user within the next 30 minutes will have the same session ID. If a session ID does not exist, it is created and stored in cookies. Through an identity stitching algorithm, Meiro, Google Analytics, and GA4 may assign multiple sessions to a single customer profile.

Meiro Events' session expiration behavior is universal and remains the same. If the user is inactive for more than 30 minutes (i.e., when no Meiro Events event is sent), a new session ID will be generated during the next visit. 


Besides, Meiro Events uses a long-lasting first-party cookie to ensure the recognition of the same person across multiple sessions. 

If a user returns after 30 minutes of inactivity, Google Analytics will start a new session. Session expiration behavior may vary depending on several factors. For example, if a user arrives from a different source, such as an organic or paid search, GA may split the session into two.

 

Remember: there is no maximum duration for a session in GA4, which means that a session will continue until the user logs out or closes the browser.

5. Data sampling

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

Meiro Events does not sample data, so you get a complete picture of your data. 

The free version of Google Analytics begins sampling data for non-default reports that exceed 500,000 sessions; Google Analytics 360 for reports that exceed 100 million sessions. 

This means that analyzed is only a sample of your data, which does not say about the whole database. 


Remember: In GA4 it is possible to send data to the analytic tool Big Query, which can ease work with data.

6. Real-time data

Meiro Events 

Google Analytics

Meiro Events processes data almost in near real-time.

For the free version of Google Analytics to get data, it takes up to a few hours to more than 1 day. 

For Google Analytics 360 (paid version) it can be approximately 4 hours.


Remember: Near real-time reports are available in GA4, though their usage is very limited







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