Web Analytics in France: GA4 Migration Status (2026)

The Post-Universal Analytics Landscape

In July 2023, Google officially sunset Universal Analytics, the tracking platform that had dominated the web for over a decade. Nearly three years later, our analysis of 1,877,252 French business websites reveals a landscape marked by slow migration, massive technical debt, a growing privacy-first movement, and — most critically — a staggering number of businesses that have simply given up on measuring their web presence altogether.

Of these 1.88 million sites, 1,276,749 (68.0%) use at least one analytics tool. That means nearly one in three French business websites operates with zero analytics instrumentation. But even among the 68.0% that do have analytics code, the picture is far from healthy: the majority still run dead Universal Analytics tags, and only a fraction have completed the migration to Google's replacement platform.

This study draws on IBLead's technology detection data to provide the most comprehensive view of analytics tool adoption in France. We cover Google Analytics (both UA and GA4), privacy-first alternatives, behavior analytics, tag management, A/B testing platforms, and the critical intersection between analytics tracking and cookie consent compliance.

The Universal Analytics Zombie: 999,868 Sites Running Dead Code

The most striking finding of this study: 999,868 French business websites (53.3%) still contain Universal Analytics tracking code. Since UA stopped processing data in July 2023, this code does absolutely nothing — yet it remains on more than half of all analyzed sites, nearly three years after the sunset.

To understand the scale: UA code is present on 78.3% of all sites that have any analytics tool. It is, paradoxically, the single most common "analytics" snippet in France — even though it collects no data and serves no purpose.

What does "UA still detected" actually mean? In most cases, it signals one of these scenarios:

• Complete neglect: The website has not been touched since before July 2023. No one removed the old code, and no one added GA4. The site is frozen in time from a tracking perspective.
• Partial migration (dual tagging): Some sites have both UA and GA4 code present. Google recommended dual tagging during the migration window (2020–2023) so businesses could build historical data in GA4 while UA was still live. The fact that many sites still have both suggests the cleanup step was never completed — the GA4 tag works, but the old UA tag was never removed.
• Abandoned by their agency: Many small businesses rely on web agencies to manage their analytics. If the agency-client relationship ended, the site often continues running whatever was last installed — indefinitely.
• Template/theme default: Some WordPress themes and page builders came with UA tracking fields pre-configured. If the business never cleared the field, the dead code persists even through theme updates.

This "zombie code" represents a significant technical debt across the French web. These orphaned tags add unnecessary JavaScript to every page load (the legacy analytics.js library weighs ~45KB), may trigger false positives in cookie consent audits (tools scanning for Google Analytics cookies will flag UA code even though it no longer sets cookies), and most importantly, signal that the business has had zero analytics maintenance in over two years.

For web agencies, this represents an enormous market opportunity: 999,000+ sites that need at minimum a basic analytics cleanup — and potentially a full GA4 implementation or migration to an alternative platform.

GA4 Adoption: Only 26.7% Have Made the Switch

Despite being Google's official replacement for Universal Analytics, Google Analytics 4 is present on only 26.7% of French business websites (500,641 sites). This means roughly three out of four sites have not properly migrated to GA4, nearly three years after the UA sunset.

The GA4 migration story is one of Google's most significant product transition failures. Consider the numbers:

• 999,868 sites still have UA code (the old platform)
• 500,641 sites have GA4 code (the new platform)
• Many sites have both (dual tagging from the migration period)
• The overlap means that the number of sites with only GA4 (and no lingering UA) is significantly lower than 26.7%

Google provided a 3-year migration window (GA4 launched in October 2020, UA sunset in July 2023). They offered automatic GA4 property creation, migration assistants, and extensive documentation. Despite all this, the majority of French business websites either ignored the migration entirely or abandoned analytics altogether.

Why did so many fail to migrate? Several factors contributed:

• GA4's steep learning curve: The new interface, event-based data model, and different reporting structure confused many users accustomed to UA's session-based paradigm
• Small businesses don't check analytics: For many SMBs, the analytics tag was installed once (often by a freelancer or agency) and never looked at again. The UA sunset was irrelevant to businesses that weren't using the data
• GDPR friction: Some businesses, already wary of CNIL enforcement, decided the UA sunset was a convenient moment to simply stop tracking rather than deal with consent requirements for a new GA4 installation

The Complete Analytics Landscape

Beyond Google's ecosystem, a diverse range of analytics tools serves French business websites. Here is the full breakdown:

Analytics Tool	Sites	% of all sites	% of analytics users
Universal Analytics (dead)	999,868	53.3%	78.3%
Google Analytics 4	500,641	26.7%	39.2%
Matomo	122,471	6.5%	9.6%
Hotjar	33,640	1.8%	2.6%
Microsoft Clarity	18,772	1.0%	1.5%
Plausible	17,914	1.0%	1.4%
Fathom	2,776	0.1%	0.2%
Amplitude	2,561	0.1%	0.2%
Mixpanel	999	0.1%	—
Segment	639	0.04%	—
PostHog	593	0.04%	—
Umami	438	0.03%	—
Heap	316	0.02%	—

The dominance of Google's ecosystem is absolute: even counting only GA4 (the living product), Google Analytics remains the number one analytics platform by a factor of 4x over the nearest competitor. If we include dead UA code, Google-originated snippets are present on a staggering 80%+ of all sites with any analytics.

Privacy-First Alternatives: The Rise of Matomo, Plausible, and Fathom

Matomo (formerly Piwik) is present on 122,471 sites (6.5%), making it the third most popular analytics tool in France — and the second most popular living analytics platform after GA4. This adoption rate is significantly above global averages (typically 1–2%), driven by three key factors:

• GDPR compliance: Matomo can be configured for CNIL-exempt analytics (no cookies, no consent required) when self-hosted with the right settings. This is a powerful value proposition in a regulatory environment where 77.5% of sites lack a consent banner.
• French public sector mandate: Many French government agencies, municipalities, and public institutions have adopted Matomo following DINUM recommendations. The 122,471 figure includes a significant public sector component.
• Self-hosting option: Unlike GA4, Matomo can run on the business's own servers, keeping data entirely under their control — a strong selling point for data sovereignty-conscious organizations.

Plausible Analytics (17,914 sites, 0.9%) represents the new generation of lightweight, cookie-free analytics. Founded in 2019, Plausible is an EU-based service that provides essential traffic metrics without any cookies, no personal data collection, and a script that weighs under 1KB. Its growing adoption in France reflects the demand for analytics that work without a consent banner — a critical advantage given our finding that 77.5% of French sites operate without one.

Fathom Analytics (2,776 sites, 0.2%) occupies a similar privacy-first niche. Canadian-based but with EU data processing, Fathom emphasizes simplicity and privacy compliance. Its smaller footprint compared to Plausible reflects its later entry into the European market.

The fully self-hosted options tell a different story:

• PostHog (593 sites) — An open-source product analytics platform, popular with tech startups but rare among traditional SMBs
• Umami (438 sites) — A lightweight, open-source alternative to Google Analytics. Its tiny footprint suggests it remains confined to the developer community

Combined, all privacy-first alternatives (Matomo + Plausible + Fathom + Umami) represent 163,599 sites — 8.7% of all tech sites. This is still a small fraction compared to Google's dominance, but the trend is clear: privacy-driven analytics is a growing segment with real traction in France.

Behavior Analytics: Hotjar vs Microsoft Clarity

Hotjar (33,640 sites, 1.9%) and Microsoft Clarity (18,772 sites, 1.0%) occupy a distinct category: behavior analytics. Rather than measuring page views and traffic sources, these tools provide heatmaps, session recordings, and user interaction analysis. They are typically used alongside a traditional analytics platform, not as replacements.

The Hotjar vs Clarity dynamic is worth noting. Hotjar, the established player, charges for its service. Microsoft Clarity, launched in 2020, is completely free with unlimited traffic. Clarity has been growing rapidly, and our data shows it has already reached 54.6% of Hotjar's installed base in France. Given the price advantage (free vs paid), Clarity is likely to overtake Hotjar within the next 1–2 years — a pattern already visible in global web technology surveys.

Together, these behavior analytics tools are present on 52,412 sites (2.8% of all tech sites), suggesting that a small but significant minority of French businesses invest in understanding how users interact with their sites, not just how many visit.

Tag Management: GTM at 30.7% — Higher Than GA4

One of the most revealing data points in this study: Google Tag Manager is present on 30.7% of sites (576,442), while GA4 is only at 26.7% (500,641). This 4.0 percentage point gap means that at least 76,000 sites have GTM installed but no active Google Analytics.

What are these sites using GTM for without GA? Several possibilities:

• Ad pixels only: GTM is often used to deploy Facebook Pixel, Google Ads conversion tags, and other advertising trackers without touching the site's source code. Some sites removed GA but kept GTM for their ad campaigns.
• Orphaned GTM containers: Similar to the UA zombie code phenomenon, some GTM containers were installed once and never maintained. The container loads on every page but executes no tags.
• Third-party integrations: Chat widgets, A/B testing tools, and other services are sometimes deployed through GTM rather than direct code installation.

Tag Manager	Sites	% of all sites
Google Tag Manager	576,442	30.7%
Adobe Launch	27,946	1.5%
Tealium	7,965	0.4%
Commanders Act	2,604	0.1%

The tag manager market is overwhelmingly dominated by Google: GTM holds 96.4% of the tag management market (576,442 out of 597,103 sites with any tag manager). Adobe Launch (27,946, 1.5%) serves the enterprise segment, while Tealium (7,965) and the French-origin Commanders Act (2,604) cater to large organizations with complex data governance requirements.

A/B Testing: AB Tasty — The French Champion

A/B testing and experimentation platforms reveal which businesses are actively optimizing their conversion funnels. 92,290 sites (4.9%) use at least one A/B testing tool — a surprisingly high figure that signals a mature optimization culture among a subset of French businesses.

A/B Testing Tool	Sites	% of all sites
AB Tasty	55,744	3.0%
Google Optimize (sunset)	17,056	0.9%
Kameleoon	14,495	0.8%
Optimizely	3,644	0.2%
VWO	3,610	0.2%

AB Tasty dominates with 55,744 sites (3.0% of all tech sites, 60.4% of A/B testing market share). This Paris-founded company has become one of France's most successful MarTech exports, and its dominance of the French market reflects both home-field advantage and strong enterprise sales.

Google Optimize appears on 17,056 sites (1.1%) — but like Universal Analytics, this is zombie code. Google Optimize was sunset in September 2023, just two months after Universal Analytics. The 17,056 sites with Optimize code represent yet another layer of dead Google code that was never cleaned up. Combined with UA, this means many sites carry two dead Google products in their source code.

Kameleoon, another French-founded platform (14,495 sites, 0.8%), represents the enterprise end of the A/B testing market. Known for its AI-driven personalization and server-side experimentation capabilities, Kameleoon competes directly with Optimizely in the large-account segment. Together, AB Tasty and Kameleoon give France two homegrown leaders in the global experimentation market.

The 32.0% Analytics Desert: 600,503 Invisible Businesses

600,503 websites (32.0%) use no detectable analytics tool at all. These businesses are essentially flying blind — they have no way to know how many visitors come to their site, which pages perform, where their traffic comes from, or whether their marketing efforts generate any return.

This is not a minor gap. These 600,000 businesses have invested in building a website (often spending thousands of euros on design and development) but have zero visibility into whether that investment produces results. They cannot measure:

• Monthly visitor volume or trends
• Which pages attract traffic and which are dead weight
• Whether their Google Business Profile drives website clicks
• Conversion rates on contact forms or calls to action
• The ROI of any advertising spend directed to their site

Combined with the 53.3% running dead UA code (which collects no data), we can estimate that roughly 85% of French business websites do not have functioning analytics in 2026. Only the 26.7% with GA4 plus the ~9% with other live tools (Matomo, Plausible, Hotjar, Clarity, etc.) are actually measuring their web performance. This is perhaps the single most damning statistic in this study: the vast majority of French businesses cannot answer the basic question "is my website working?"

Analytics and Cookie Consent: A Cross-Study Analysis

As detailed in our GDPR Cookie Consent study, the relationship between analytics usage and consent compliance is deeply problematic. The cross-analysis reveals:

• 1,276,749 sites use at least one analytics tool
• Of these, only 297,637 (23.2%) also display a cookie consent banner
• The remaining 986,661 (76.8%) run analytics tracking with no visible consent mechanism

This means that 986,661 websites — 52.6% of all tech sites in our sample — are collecting analytics data without any apparent user consent. Under GDPR and the French ePrivacy Directive (as enforced by the CNIL), most analytics tools that use cookies require prior user consent before activation.

A small portion of these sites may use consent-exempt configurations (Matomo in cookieless mode, Plausible, Fathom), but the vast majority run Google Analytics — which requires consent. The compliance gap is not theoretical: it represents over 986,000 businesses potentially exposed to CNIL enforcement action.

For a detailed breakdown of consent tool market shares, the French vs international CMP landscape, and CNIL enforcement context, see our dedicated GDPR Cookie Consent study.

Key Takeaways

• 68.0% of French business websites use at least one analytics tool — but the majority of those installations are non-functional (dead UA code)
• 53.3% still have Universal Analytics zombie code — the single biggest untapped maintenance market for web agencies, representing 999,868 sites that need cleanup
• GA4 adoption stalls at 26.7% — Google failed to convert most UA users, with roughly 74% of sites never completing the migration nearly 3 years after the sunset
• Matomo at 6.5% (122,471 sites) — France significantly outperforms global averages for privacy-first analytics, driven by GDPR concerns and public sector mandates
• AB Tasty dominates A/B testing at 3.0% — French-founded platforms (AB Tasty + Kameleoon) hold 76% of France's experimentation market
• GTM (30.7%) is more common than GA4 (26.7%) — at least 76,000 sites have a tag manager with no active analytics
• ~85% have no functioning analytics — combining the analytics desert (32.0%) with dead UA code, the vast majority of French businesses cannot measure their web ROI
• 76.8% of analytics users track without consent — 986,661 sites face potential CNIL enforcement risk, as detailed in our cookie consent study

The French analytics landscape in 2026 is defined by inertia: the massive technical debt of dead Universal Analytics code, the stalled GA4 migration, and the persistent analytics desert among SMBs. For web professionals — agencies, consultants, and analytics specialists — this represents one of the largest untapped service markets in the French digital economy. For a broader view of technology adoption patterns, see our Web Technologies overview.