The value of web analytics for our organization lies in the same realm as the value of Plausible over any third party analytics: The Funnel.
We're a membership driven organization, and by "membership" I mean we rely on donations to fund our content creation (Though whether you're a member or not you have the same level of access to our content). We care about raw traffic numbers, because it relates directly to our mission of informing people. It tells us how many people we inform day to day.
So yeah we care about those raw numbers, and those numbers are difficult to get w/out javaScript r/n because caching and the terrible log retention of our hosting providers.
Raw traffic numbers only tell part of the story though. We want to know the path people take from first landing on the site to becoming a donating member so that (in theory) we can do more of the things that promote that behavior in more people. That's The Funnel, and that's where orgs like Plausible are best. They're first party tracking, so the data stays with us. Also since they're first party tracking we can track a person's overall relationship with our site, from the first news story they read to the moment they first hit our donation page 3 years into the relationship or whatever.
We should be able to do that with our GA set up, but one of the reasons I want us to shift to Plausible is for its simplicity.
We're a membership driven organization, and by "membership" I mean we rely on donations to fund our content creation (Though whether you're a member or not you have the same level of access to our content). We care about raw traffic numbers, because it relates directly to our mission of informing people. It tells us how many people we inform day to day.
So yeah we care about those raw numbers, and those numbers are difficult to get w/out javaScript r/n because caching and the terrible log retention of our hosting providers.
Raw traffic numbers only tell part of the story though. We want to know the path people take from first landing on the site to becoming a donating member so that (in theory) we can do more of the things that promote that behavior in more people. That's The Funnel, and that's where orgs like Plausible are best. They're first party tracking, so the data stays with us. Also since they're first party tracking we can track a person's overall relationship with our site, from the first news story they read to the moment they first hit our donation page 3 years into the relationship or whatever.
We should be able to do that with our GA set up, but one of the reasons I want us to shift to Plausible is for its simplicity.