SEO & Analytics
Published: 19 December 2025 | Updated: 19 December 2025 | Reading time: 12 minutes
By Clwyd Probert, CEO & Founder, Whitehat SEO
Effective website analytics tracking in 2025 requires combining Google Analytics 4 (GA4) for behavioural insights with HubSpot for revenue attribution, whilst implementing privacy-compliant measurement strategies that account for signal loss from iOS restrictions and cookie consent requirements. The era of perfect tracking has ended—GA4 now powers 43% of analytics-enabled websites, yet only 23% of businesses report full adoption. B2B companies achieving reliable attribution in 2025 are those embracing probabilistic measurement, first-party data strategies, and multi-platform integration rather than chasing the impossible goal of complete visitor visibility.
This guide covers everything you need to track your website's organic presence, traffic sources, and performance metrics in 2025. Whether you're struggling with GA4 configuration, HubSpot attribution setup, or understanding how privacy changes affect your data, you'll find practical strategies backed by current benchmarks and real-world implementation guidance.
In this guide:
Google Analytics 4 has replaced Universal Analytics entirely, with 14.8 million websites now running GA4. The platform fundamentally changed how we measure website performance—most significantly, bounce rate has been replaced by engagement rate, which considers a session "engaged" if the visitor spends 10 or more seconds on site, views two or more pages, or completes a conversion event.
Most GA4 implementations suffer from misconfiguration that leads to incomplete or misleading data. Before trusting your analytics, verify these critical settings:
2025 B2B Analytics Benchmarks
| Session conversion rate | 2.3% |
| Engagement rate | 52-55% |
| Average session duration | 2-3 minutes |
| Pages per session | 2.5-3.5 |
At Whitehat, we configure GA4 as part of our HubSpot integration services to ensure marketing and sales teams work from consistent data. The most common mistake we see is businesses running both platforms in isolation, leading to conflicting metrics and attribution disputes between teams.
Traffic source attribution in 2025 faces unprecedented challenges. Google removed all attribution models except data-driven and last-click in September 2023, iOS App Tracking Transparency reduced attribution accuracy by up to 70%, and "dark traffic"—visitors from sources that don't pass referrer data—now accounts for a significant portion of what appears as direct traffic.
When someone shares a link via Slack, WhatsApp, or text message, or clicks a link in a mobile app, the referrer data is stripped. These visitors appear as "direct" traffic in GA4, even though they were referred by another source. Normal direct traffic—people typing your URL directly—should be 10-20% of total traffic. If your direct traffic exceeds 25-30%, you have a dark traffic problem that's hiding your true channel performance.
The impact is substantial: Facebook's business lost an estimated $10 billion annually from iOS privacy changes alone. For B2B companies, dark social is particularly problematic because decision-makers frequently share content through private channels like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and email threads.
Despite attribution complexity, understanding your traffic sources remains essential for strategic marketing decisions:
Need help with attribution?
As a HubSpot Diamond Partner, Whitehat specialises in building multi-touch attribution systems that connect marketing activities to pipeline and revenue. Our HubSpot integration services include attribution setup, Salesforce bi-directional sync, and CFO-ready reporting dashboards.
The analytics landscape has been fundamentally reshaped by privacy regulations and browser restrictions. Understanding these changes is essential for accurate measurement and compliant data collection.
In a surprising reversal, Google announced in April 2025 that third-party cookies would remain in Chrome rather than being deprecated as originally planned. However, this doesn't mean the old tracking methods work reliably:
The companies achieving reliable analytics in 2025 have shifted to first-party data strategies. This means collecting data directly from your own website and CRM rather than relying on third-party tracking pixels. Customer Data Platforms (CDPs) reached enterprise maturity in 2024, with 90% of users reporting satisfaction and 91% expressing confidence in their compliance capabilities.
For B2B companies, HubSpot serves as a practical first-party data hub. When properly configured, HubSpot tracks the entire customer journey from first touch to closed deal using your own domain's cookies, sidestepping many third-party tracking restrictions. Whitehat's HubSpot onboarding services include privacy-compliant tracking setup that maximises data collection whilst respecting user consent preferences.
Core Web Vitals are Google's standardised metrics for measuring user experience. They became an official ranking factor in 2021 and continue to influence search performance—though Google describes them as a "tie-breaker" between pages with similar content quality rather than a dominant ranking signal.
In March 2024, Google replaced First Input Delay (FID) with Interaction to Next Paint (INP), creating a more demanding interactivity standard:
| Metric | Good | Needs Improvement | Poor |
|---|---|---|---|
| LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) | ≤2.5 seconds | 2.5-4 seconds | >4 seconds |
| INP (Interaction to Next Paint) | ≤200ms | 200-500ms | >500ms |
| CLS (Cumulative Layout Shift) | ≤0.1 | 0.1-0.25 | >0.25 |
Current global pass rates show significant room for improvement: 57% of desktop pages and 50% of mobile pages pass all three Core Web Vitals thresholds. The new INP metric is particularly challenging—47% of websites fail INP, making it the most common point of failure.
Performance improvements drive measurable business results. Vodafone achieved an 8% increase in sales after optimising Core Web Vitals, whilst Renault saw a 13% improvement in conversions. These gains come from both direct user experience improvements and the indirect SEO benefits of passing Core Web Vitals thresholds. Whitehat's SEO audit includes comprehensive Core Web Vitals analysis with prioritised recommendations for improvement.
HubSpot and GA4 serve complementary purposes in your analytics stack. GA4 excels at understanding website behaviour, device analytics, and page-level performance. HubSpot excels at tracking the customer journey, lead source attribution, and connecting marketing activities to revenue. The most effective B2B analytics setups use both platforms together, with each handling what it does best.
HubSpot's attribution features vary significantly by subscription level:
One of the most common integration mistakes is enabling both Google Tag Manager GA4 tracking and HubSpot's native GA4 integration simultaneously. This causes every pageview and event to be counted twice, inflating your metrics by 100%. Choose one integration method and disable the other. As a HubSpot Diamond Partner, Whitehat's integration services include proper tracking configuration that prevents double-counting whilst ensuring comprehensive data collection across all customer touchpoints.
HubSpot's Prospects tool uses IP reverse lookup to identify companies visiting your website, even before individual contacts are known. This enables account-based marketing strategies where you can see which target accounts are researching your solutions, then prioritise sales outreach accordingly. The tool works best for B2B companies targeting mid-market and enterprise accounts with identifiable corporate IP ranges.
Video has become essential for B2B marketing—76% of B2B marketers now use video, with 89% reporting positive ROI. Companies using video in their marketing achieve 49% faster revenue growth than those who don't. But these results only materialise when video engagement is properly tracked and attributed to pipeline.
Move beyond simple view counts to understand actual engagement:
Both major B2B video platforms integrate deeply with HubSpot. Vidyard's HubSpot integration logs video views directly on contact timelines and enables lead scoring based on viewing behaviour—HubSpot's own BDR team achieved 77% click-through rates using Vidyard video emails. Wistia's integration similarly connects viewing data to contact records, enabling workflows that trigger based on video engagement. Video content embedded in emails achieves 96% higher click-through rates and 300% higher ROI compared to standard email campaigns.
Server-side tracking represents the most significant evolution in analytics architecture since the introduction of tag managers. Instead of firing tracking tags directly from the visitor's browser (client-side), server-side tracking routes data through your own server before sending it to analytics platforms. This architecture offers significant advantages for privacy compliance, data accuracy, and ad blocker resistance.
The architecture involves two Google Tag Manager containers working together:
Server-side tracking delivers substantial improvements in data quality:
Server-side tracking requires technical expertise and ongoing infrastructure costs. Google Cloud Platform hosting starts at approximately £90-120 per month for moderate traffic volumes, though third-party hosts offer options from £20 per month. Implementation requires JavaScript coding knowledge, cloud platform familiarity, and ongoing monitoring to ensure data quality. For businesses without in-house technical resources, this is best handled by an agency with server-side tracking experience.
GA4 replaced bounce rate with engagement rate. A session counts as "engaged" if the visitor spends 10 or more seconds on site, views two or more pages, or completes a conversion event. Engagement rate is the percentage of sessions meeting these criteria. For B2B websites, healthy engagement rates typically range from 52-55%.
High direct traffic often indicates "dark traffic"—visitors from sources that don't pass referrer data, including Slack messages, WhatsApp shares, mobile app links, and email clients that strip tracking. Normal direct traffic should be 10-20%. If yours exceeds 25-30%, you're likely experiencing significant dark traffic. Solutions include UTM parameter discipline, shortened links with tracking, and self-reported attribution surveys.
Use both—they serve complementary purposes. GA4 excels at website behaviour analysis, device analytics, page-level performance, and predictive metrics. HubSpot excels at contact-level journey tracking, lead source attribution, and connecting marketing activities to revenue. The most effective B2B analytics setups integrate both platforms, using GA4 for website insights and HubSpot for revenue attribution.
Privacy changes have significantly impacted tracking accuracy. iOS App Tracking Transparency reduced attribution accuracy by up to 70%. Safari limits cookies to 7 days (JavaScript) or 24 hours (tracking domains). Consent Mode v2 without advanced features causes 20-50% data loss. The solution is building first-party data strategies using your own website and CRM rather than relying on third-party tracking pixels.
Google considers Core Web Vitals a "tie-breaker" ranking factor rather than dominant signal. To pass, you need: LCP under 2.5 seconds, INP under 200 milliseconds, and CLS under 0.1. Currently, 57% of desktop pages and 50% of mobile pages pass all thresholds globally. INP is the most challenging metric—47% of websites fail INP specifically. Tools like Google PageSpeed Insights and the Chrome User Experience Report provide your real-world scores.
Whitehat is a HubSpot Diamond Partner specialising in analytics configuration, attribution reporting, and marketing-to-revenue measurement for B2B companies.
Book a Discovery CallClwyd Probert
CEO & Founder, Whitehat SEO
Clwyd founded Whitehat in 2011 and leads the world's largest HubSpot User Group (London HUG). He is a guest lecturer at UCL and specialises in helping B2B companies build predictable revenue engines through integrated SEO and HubSpot strategies.