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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 cater to 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 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 useful with multiple trackers.

Learn more: about Google Analytics and  Google Tag Manager.

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 different types of events: 

  • Pageviews
  • Outbound link click
  • Custom Event
  • Contact form
  • Google client ID sync
  • Web banner impression
  • Web banner click

Learn more: about which events you can track here.  



Example:

You can collect data from any form with 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. 


(full list or custom_event available here, read more about Meiro Events here )

Google Analytics tracks only:

  • Page views
  • Bounce rates
  • Sessions
  • Durations

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


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

Due to Google privacy policy, Google Analytics does not track PII data (personal identifiable information).   

 

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) then 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.

 

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
  • 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.




 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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