I’ve used both on real projects. Some small. Some loud and messy. I’ll tell you what actually worked for me, and what made me groan.
(If you’d like an even nerdier comparison, I also put together my separate deep-dive comparing Google Analytics and HubSpot that’s packed with screenshots and setup notes.)
Quick backstory
I run a small online shop for my sister’s bakery. I also help a local nonprofit track donors and email sign-ups. For both, I used Google Analytics (GA4) and HubSpot. Same laptop. Same coffee. Different goals.
Funny thing? Both tools are strong. They just don’t try to do the same job.
If you’ve ever scratched your head because the numbers in each platform don’t line up, HubSpot’s own explanation of why HubSpot and Google Analytics reports don’t match is a quick sanity check that helped me understand the quirks.
What I needed (and why)
- For the bakery: I needed to know where sales came from. Instagram? Google? Email? I also needed to see which pages made people leave fast.
- For the nonprofit: I needed to track sign-ups, donations, and email opens. Names, timelines, notes, calls. One place. Not three different spreadsheets.
Setup: The real “how it went” bit
With Google Analytics, I used Google Tag Manager. I set events for “Add to Cart” and “Checkout Start.” I also used UTM links on Instagram Stories, like:
?utm_source=instagram&utm_medium=story&utm_campaign=pumpkin_spice
But social shares don’t stop with mainstream platforms; people also pass around product links inside chat apps like Kik, sometimes in NSFW threads. If you want a concrete sense of what’s circulating there, the Kik nudes collection offers a snapshot of real user-generated content and can help you understand why a sudden spike from “kik.com” might appear in your referral report.
Similarly, niche review sites for adult-oriented local businesses can surface in your analytics without warning. Peek at a city-specific board such as this Rubmaps guide to massage spots in Casper to see how these hyper-focused directories look on the front end and to grasp why a referral labeled rubmaps.com might be driving curious (and sometimes irrelevant) visitors to your site.
(For anyone still deciding whether they really need Tag Manager on top of GA, here’s my real-life take on GTM vs. Google Analytics that walks through the pros, cons, and a few gotchas.)
That week, Stories drove 41% of visits and about 28% of sales. Not bad for a flavor that people joke about.
With HubSpot, I pasted their tracking code on the site, turned on forms, and built one simple workflow: “If form is filled, send a welcome email.” I also synced Gmail. Now I could see this neat timeline for each person—page views, emails, notes, and even calls. It felt like a base camp.
Where Google Analytics clicked for me
- It showed how people moved on the site. Home → Menu → Cart. You can see the flow and fix the exits.
- It nailed channel tracking. I saw search, social, email, and referral traffic cleanly.
- I loved the real-time view during sales. On our Friday cookie drop, I watched active users jump and saw the exact pages hot right then. It helped me move a banner higher, and clicks went up.
- Cost? Free for most folks. That still feels kind of wild.
(If you’re comparing GA to enterprise options, my hands-on story about the trade-offs between Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics might help you spot which reports you’d miss—or gain.)
If you’re curious about turning those engagement numbers into concrete revenue insights, check out Scout Analytics for a deeper dive.
What bugged me:
- GA4 terms felt odd at first. “Engagement rate” made sense later, but I missed “bounce rate,” I’ll be honest.
- Data can feel slow or fuzzy on small sites. Sampling shows up sometimes and makes charts feel wobbly.
- It’s not a CRM. That’s not a bad thing. It’s just not built for contacts, deals, or emails.
(Open-source alternatives are popping up, too. I compared one of the buzziest—PostHog—to GA in this hands-on take if you’re curious about keeping data fully in-house.)
Where HubSpot clicked for me
- Contacts, timelines, forms, email—together. I can pull up “Maya R.” and see her form fill, the welcome email, her click on “holiday pie,” and the note I wrote after a quick phone chat.
- The email tool is friendly. Our nonprofit’s “Thank You Tuesday” email got a 5.9% click rate one week. I could see who clicked, and then send a follow-up to just them.
- Forms just… work. I swapped the site’s old form with a HubSpot form. Submission rate went from 2.4% to 4.1% after I cut two fields and added a tiny note about privacy. It shows small tweaks matter.
- Workflows save time. New donor? Tag them, send a warm note, and alert the team in Slack.
What bugged me:
- Price. For real. The free plan is fine to start. But Marketing Hub Professional kicked us to about $800 a month plus onboarding. We had to justify it with real revenue.
- Reports can feel like a rabbit hole. You can build custom stuff, but it takes patience.
- If people block cookies, tracking gets spotty. That’s true anywhere, but you’ll notice it with contact timelines.
Two real examples that stuck
- The pumpkin spice weekend
- GA showed me Instagram traffic spiking and “Menu” page time going up. I moved the pumpkin spice banner to the top and added a “Order Now” button.
- HubSpot sent a short email to past buyers. 31% opened. 7% clicked. Those clicks helped push a sellout by Sunday. I could see those orders tied to contact records. That’s the part GA just can’t do.
- The donor follow-up month
- GA showed peak traffic after a local news mention. Lots of new visitors. But many left on the “Impact” page.
- In HubSpot, I built a follow-up: if someone viewed “Impact” and then filled the form, they got a short story email with a photo from last year’s drive. Donations rose 18% that week. GA proved the traffic spike. HubSpot turned it into action.
Head-to-head, plain and simple
- Use Google Analytics when you want to understand behavior on your site. Traffic sources. Pages. Events. Funnels. It’s your map.
- Use HubSpot when you want to manage people, not just visits. Forms, emails, contacts, deals, and follow-ups. It’s your address book plus your megaphone.
For a crowd-sourced, feature-by-feature rundown of where each platform shines (and where users get frustrated), the TrustRadius comparison of Google Analytics vs. HubSpot Marketing Hub is a handy cheat sheet.
Things no one told me, but I wish they had
- Make UTM links a habit. Use simple tags on social and email. Your GA reports will finally make sense.
- Keep forms short. Three fields beat seven. HubSpot will thank you with more leads.
- Don’t chase every report. Pick three: traffic by source, top pages, and conversions. Check weekly. Breathe.
- Cookies and consent matter. That tiny banner changes your numbers. Be clear. People respect clear.
(If privacy and user recordings are on your radar, here’s my honest take after using Microsoft Clarity alongside Google Analytics—spoiler: heatmaps tell stories bounce rates can’t.)
Costs, the part that makes you squint
- Google Analytics: Free for most. If you’re huge, there’s GA360, but I didn’t need it.
(For organizations deciding between GA360 and Adobe’s paid suite, I broke down both in this Adobe Analytics vs. Google Analytics 360 story to see which fees actually turn into wins.) - HubSpot: Free to start, then it climbs. We moved to Marketing Hub Professional at around $800/month plus a setup fee. Worth it for the nonprofit. For the bakery? We stayed lower and spent money on photos and packaging instead.
What I use now
- For the bakery, GA does 70% of the job. I pair it with a simple HubSpot free setup for forms and basic email.
- For the nonprofit, HubSpot runs the show. GA backs it up