Question

A client doesn't want to give me Google analytics access , which tool would you use for traffic tracking?  

Answer 1

That’s weird don’t work with them

Answer 2

I like clicky

Answer 3

What service are you doing for them? if a client doesn't wanna share analytics read access at least, tell them to pound sand

Comments

@fluidize3696 agreed

Answer 4

Cancel the contract

Answer 5

Why not? Just gonna make your job harder, and a client that willingly wants to make your job harder is not a good client to have anyway.  

Comments

They're just a bit paranoid, governmental website and all. But the work can technically be done with GA (Content + Link generation) so I think it's fine.  

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@concavoconvex What Government? Work with a few different Gov’s and never an issue with read only access.  

Answer 6

They can make you a user role that lets you see but not have full account access or change anything.  

Answer 7

They won't even give you read-only access?  

Answer 8

Ask them to share data studio report with limited information

Answer 9

For tracking traffic of competitors i use similar web, its 95% accurate

Comments

That was my first thought, but seems like they've changed their pricing structure lately.  

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@concavoconvex oh it's too costly. For traffic metrics you can Signup for free

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@inflationism Thanks, appreciate your help.  

Answer 10

Get a different client.  

Answer 11

 

Answer 12

Tell them to jog on. If they don’t trust you they will be a pain in the ass and give you the flick at the smallest of excuses. It’s like asking a mechanic to fix your car but you won’t give them the keys cos you think they will steal it

Answer 13

Like others have said, there's no reason to work with a client who won't give you GA access. Just tell them any agency is going to request GA access to measure and report. Sure, you could use Clicky, but this is a big red flag. I would tell the client to come back when they're actually ready to grow their business. Try to just get read only access or something like that.  

Answer 14

Remove it and put your own in lol otherwise have a talk to them about trust as all you need is view only access via your account not theirs

Answer 15

Stop working with Client. Trust is everything

Answer 16

Install another analytics code.  

Comments

Something tells me, if they have an issue with GA, they won't give me GT@cyn8 access :P

Answer 17

Tell them without GA your fee will be 40% higher.  

Comments

I sort of did that. lol

Answer 18

You. people are funny, they won't give him GA access and you think they will give him code level access to the site? Move on. Some people can't be worked with unless they pay an idiot fee.  

Answer 19

I tell these restrictive clients to move on and the best of luck! You literally want me to shoot an arrow 2 miles at a moving target blindfolded in the dark. The worst is they usually are the first to complain when things aren't working or traffic drops hmmm how would I know I don't have access to the analytics lol

Answer 20

Client probably has bad experience prior. Just ask for a view, give your email and ask the client to add you as a user to his GA account with restrictions he wants to impose. I am pretty sure it wouldn’t hurt anyone.  

Answer 21

It doesn’t help anyone that you don’t have access

Answer 22

If the client doesn’t want to help themself . Walk away . Sounds like a headache all the way

Answer 23

Just make up numbers on progress. They’ll be happier

Answer 24

Tell them to create you a Datastudio report which only shows you the data you need to see and not everything else

Answer 25

If they won't give you access to GA, chances are they won't give you GSC access either. Ask the client if they drive their car blindfolded - they're essentially asking you to do the same. If they think that's ok, move on - you can't teach those that don't want to learn

Answer 26

No access no work

Answer 27

Ask them to share a few screenshots maybe. ask them to coordinate if they can't share. Or you can use Ubersuggest and Ahref for traffic details i guess

Answer 28

Just setup another tool with authority to access the stats withing GA. I use rankactive. £40 a month, unlimited sites. 10, 000 keywords.  

Answer 29

Client is incompetent. Stay away.  

Answer 30

The tool to fire that client.  

Answer 31

walk away !  

Answer 32

Try to understand why they act like that. Just ask them. Ask for read only access so you can see what's going on. If they don't trust you then why would you even work together? Mutual trust!  

Answer 33

SEMRush is good for traffic tracking ;)

Comments

@spotlight21 No rank tracking tool - not even Searchmetrics is good for traffic tracking

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@ocd98885 why? He wants to track traffic on website? SEMRush can do that? I do that to check on competitors ? Maybe i misunderstood his question ;)

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@spotlight21 no, semrush can not track traffic. They track rankings of a keyword set and estimate traffic based on rankings and search volume. They do not track traffic. They will not see if my SEO effort (especially the very really SEO, eventually on a young website) will result in an increase of longtail traffic of keywords they do not have in their keyword set.  

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Hey @ocd98885! We do have tools to track traffic  For instance, to analyse your competitor’s domain, we recommend you to have a look at the Traffic Analytics tool → bit. ly/34cpwZy. The tool provides estimations based on clickstream data that comes from multiple proprietary and 3rd party data sources. You can also measure your competitor's traffic using Organic Research tool. One other option for analysing your domain and view your organic traffic driven to the domain from every keyword is to try our Organic Traffic Insights tool, full guide → bit. ly/2YQLHDW. Hope this information is helpful!  

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@beghard/activity" class="qa-user-link">beghard Hey @beghard/activity" class="qa-user-link">beghard - that is also only an estimation that you are making from a variety of plugins not 2% of people using the internet are using. From these sample data you can draw some guesses and estimations - but you can not "track the traffic of a website". If however you are talking about the "Organic Traffic Insights" tool of yours - this requires to connect to Google Search Console and Google Analytics - which the @spotlight21 is not allowed to as his clients doesn't give him the access to it. So based on this - there is no way to do more than doing guesses on the traffic data of the client's website.  

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Thanks Marcus! Just sum it up and add some details: we make estimations, Domain Analytics makes estimations based solely on keyword positions and their estimated traffic (search volume X average CTR). Traffic Analytics, on the other hand, makes estimations based on analyzing clickstream data about all of a domain’s sources of traffic, not just from search. These tools works to measure your estimated competitor's traffic  You are right talking about that the best use of SEMrush is not to measure your own website’s traffic statistics. You should always use Google Analytics for your own website instead of other tools  

Answer 34

I understand that they do not want to give Google Analytics access . But they should grant Google Search Console access, not for traffic (while you can see organic traffic there) but for doing your job as an SEO.  

Answer 35

Tell them you'll have to charge more if they are expecting you to provide trafffic/CTR reports as you'll have to set up a whole new system or just use keyword rankings as a marker of results.  

Answer 36

Never heard the likes.  

Answer 37

And the back end of the site? Lol

Answer 38

Nachoanalytics was really really good For this purpose but too bad they shut down. I hope a new service like that comes soon.  

Answer 39

Question. If the client gives access to someone who is managing SEO for them, what are the chances they client can get scammed. How to gey secured on client's end?  

Answer 40

LUCKY ORANGE

Answer 41

If you can’t negotiate access to google analytics as a core part of your job. There is a bigger issue I would deal with first.  

Answer 42

Trust is everything , do something small first to get That trust. Or just give them directions to find you “all” your information and they will soon see that it may be beyond them  

Answer 43

@concavoconvex I don't understand why he is not giving the access. there is various level of access can be grant such as only read, edit or manage level (which can restrict from any problems. ) But still he is not willing to share the access then there are various tool which can track the website data by only adding the small script code on website (if client agrees).  

Answer 44

I just remembered that admin access use to be something we used with clients , anyone know if thats that’s still the case?  

Answer 45

Here u go  
https://youtu.be/ceLXtzyQoRw

Answer 46

So they won't give you GA access but they will let you put some other tracking code on the website? That makes no sense at all. Just put a second GA code on the site if that is the case. In any case, if a client refused to give us GA access, we would never have taken them on. Taking a look at the numbers is kind of an important part of coming up with a strategy. It's also critical in accessing where the client is and where they want to go. How could you possibly come up with a coherent strategy if you don't know the analytics? By the time we send out a proposal we already have access to everything we're going to need to do the the job. Otherwise, we wouldn't have sent out a proposal to begin with.