How Google Analytics Falls Short for Lead Attribution

Every DTC brand I talk to is running Google Analytics. And every one of them is making decisions based on incomplete data.

GA4 is great at telling you what happened. Page views, sessions, bounce rates, all that. But it's terrible at telling you what actually drove revenue.

I've watched brands spend $15K/month on Meta ads that GA4 said were "working"—only to find out later those campaigns had never generated a single profitable customer. The problem? GA can't track the full customer journey.

Here's why that matters, and what you should use instead.

Problem #1: GA Only Tracks Sessions, Not People

GA groups your visitor activity into "sessions"—basically, everything someone does within 30 minutes on your site. If they leave and come back later? New session. Different device? New session. Cleared cookies? New session.

For DTC brands with multi-day consideration periods, this is a disaster.

Real example: Someone clicks your Facebook ad Monday morning. Browses. Leaves. Comes back Tuesday via Google. Buys Wednesday via a retargeting ad.

What GA sees: Three separate, unconnected sessions. It has no idea these are the same person.

What you see in reports: Google gets credit for the sale (last-click). Facebook looks like it "didn't convert."

What actually happened: Facebook introduced them, Google reinforced the brand, retargeting closed the deal.

You need all three channels. But GA just told you to cut Facebook.

Problem #2: GA Can't Track What Happens Off Your Website

Here's what GA can measure:

• Website visits
• Page views
• Button clicks
• Form submissions

Here's what it can't measure:

• Email opens and clicks
• SMS responses
• Phone calls
• In-store visits
• Sales calls
• CRM activity
• Anything on social media that doesn't result in a website click

For most DTC brands, 30-60% of your customer journey happens in places GA can't see.

Example: Your customer sees your ad, clicks through, doesn't buy. Later, they get an email with a discount code, open it on their phone, screenshot the code, then buy in-store using that code.

GA shows: One website visit, no conversion. Email campaign and that discount code? Invisible.

You'd conclude the email didn't work. You'd be wrong.

Problem #3: iOS and Ad Blockers Are Killing Cookie-Based Tracking

GA relies on cookies. Cookies are dying.

Safari blocks them by default. Firefox blocks them. Chrome is phasing them out. iOS 14.5+ lets users opt out. Ad blockers kill them entirely.

Current estimate: GA is missing 20-40% of your actual traffic because of cookie blocking.

So not only is GA showing incomplete customer journeys—it's also missing huge chunks of visitors entirely.

You're making budget decisions based on data that's missing almost half the picture.

What This Actually Costs You

I worked with a wellness brand doing $180K/month. They were using GA4 to measure everything. Based on GA's reports, they decided to:

• Cut their Facebook awareness campaigns (GA showed "low conversions")
• Double down on Google Shopping (GA showed "high ROAS")
• Kill their email nurture sequence (GA showed "minimal direct attribution")

Three months later, revenue dropped to $120K/month. They lost $60K/month in revenue by trusting GA's attribution.

What went wrong? Facebook was driving new customer discovery. Email was nurturing leads. Google Shopping was capturing demand that Facebook and email had created. But GA only gave credit to the last click.

They cut the top and middle of their funnel, then wondered why the bottom stopped working.

What You Need Instead of GA

For DTC brands running multi-channel campaigns, you need a tool that can:

1. Track people, not sessions
Follow the same person across devices, channels, and days—not just 30-minute website visits.

2. Connect ad clicks to actual revenue
Not just "conversions." Actual dollars. Which campaigns are profitable vs. which are burning money.

3. Work across channels
Facebook, Google, email, SMS, organic—all in one view so you can see the complete customer journey.

4. Use server-side tracking
Stop relying on cookies that 40% of your visitors are blocking. Track on your servers where iOS and ad blockers can't interfere.

5. Show multi-touch attribution
Give proper credit to awareness, nurture, and conversion—not just the last click.

GA4 doesn't do any of this well. It's a website analytics tool trying to be an attribution platform. And it fails at the second part.

Should You Still Use GA4?

Yes—but not for attribution.

GA4 is great for:

• Website traffic analysis
• Content performance
• User behavior on-site
• Technical SEO metrics
• Funnel drop-off points

Keep using it for that. Just stop trusting it to tell you which marketing channels are actually making you money.

For attribution, you need something purpose-built to track revenue across channels. Something that connects your ad spend to actual profit, not just to last-click conversions.

The Brands Winning Right Now

The DTC brands I see scaling profitably aren't the ones with the best creative or the lowest CPMs. They're the ones who can accurately answer this question:

"Which $10K in ad spend made us money, and which $10K lit cash on fire?"

GA4 can't answer that. It'll show you traffic and sessions and bounce rates all day. But it won't tell you where to cut spend and where to double down.

If you're doing $50K+/month and running multi-channel campaigns, you're flying blind with GA alone. And every month you wait, you're burning thousands on campaigns that don't work while under-investing in the ones that do.

Fix your attribution. Then fix your budget allocation. Revenue follows.