Sublim Analytics vs Google Analytics

The default installation is not GDPR-compliant

Out of the box, GA4 sends user data, including IP addresses and browsing behaviour, to Google's servers in the United States. Since the Schrems II ruling in 2020, such transfers without adequate safeguards have been considered illegal under GDPR.

Between 2022 and 2024, the data protection authorities of France (CNIL), Austria, Italy, the Netherlands, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway all issued rulings finding that standard Google Analytics usage violated GDPR. Several French companies received formal orders to comply.

GA4 can be made compliant, but it takes real effort

Following the adoption of the EU-US Data Privacy Framework in July 2023, the legal basis for transatlantic data transfers was partially restored. GA4 can now be used in compliance with GDPR, but only when all of the following conditions are met:

• Implement Google Consent Mode v2 (mandatory in the EU/EEA since March 2024)
• Obtain explicit, purpose-specific opt-in consent before any GA4 tag fires
• Sign a Data Processing Agreement with Google
• Disable Google Signals and unnecessary tracking features
• Set data retention to the minimum available (2 months)
• Publish a privacy policy that explicitly discloses international data transfers

The structural problem with cookie-based tracking

Google Analytics relies on cookies to identify and track visitors. Under GDPR and the ePrivacy Directive, sites must obtain explicit consent before setting non-essential cookies. In practice, 30–40% of visitors either reject the consent banner, use ad blockers, or browse in privacy modes, and their entire session disappears from your reports.

This isn't a configuration issue you can fix. No amount of GA4 optimisation recovers data from users who refused consent. Your acquisition channels, conversion rates, and traffic trends are all calculated on an incomplete dataset, which means every business decision based on GA4 data has a structural blind spot.

Sublim uses cookieless, privacy-preserving measurement techniques that don't require consent to count a visit. Every visitor is counted, anonymously and legally, giving you a complete picture of your actual traffic.

What GA4's AI actually does

GA4 includes several AI-flavoured features: anomaly detection that flags unusual traffic spikes, predictive metrics like purchase probability and churn probability, and occasional insight cards in the dashboard. These are useful starting points, but they stop short of telling you what to do with the information they surface.

GA4's AI operates on your data in isolation and is primarily designed to feed back into Google's advertising products. The predictive audience models, for instance, are optimised for use with Google Ads, not for general marketing decision-making.

What Sublim's AI is designed to do

Sublim's AI layer is built around a different goal: turning observations into actions. It automatically identifies what's driving growth or decline, surfaces content opportunities, flags conversion bottlenecks, and connects those insights directly to your task management workflow.

The aim isn't to add a 'smart' label to a chart. It's to help your marketing team make better decisions, faster, without needing a data analyst to interpret the output.

Your data is the product

Google Analytics is free because your data has value to Google. Every event you send enriches Google's advertising infrastructure, refining audience models, improving ad targeting, and training the machine learning systems that power Google Ads. You're not the customer; you're the data supplier.

This is a trade-off many organisations are comfortable making. But it means Google Analytics and your business interests are not perfectly aligned: Google's incentive is to harvest as much data as possible, while yours is to get complete, accurate data without the privacy trade-offs.

The cost of complexity

GA4 is notoriously difficult to use correctly. Teams routinely invest in GA4 training, specialist consultants, custom Google Tag Manager (GTM) configurations, and Looker Studio setups to make the platform usable. These costs rarely appear on a balance sheet but add up quickly, especially when weighed against the ongoing legal risk of a misconfigured GDPR setup.

Sublim is designed to work out of the box for non-technical teams. No GTM required, no data layer configuration, no Looker Studio workaround. See how Sublim works in practice. Setup takes under 3 minutes.