HubSpot vs GA4: Which Analytics Platform Should CMOs Really Trust?

Short answer: they solve different problems.

Smarter answer: if you want revenue, pipeline and contact-level clarity, the source of truth is HubSpot.

If you need channel performance, page behaviour and customer journey depth, the source of truth is GA4.

If you want the full picture — you use both.

1. Why CMOs Compare HubSpot and GA4 in the First Place

Most teams hit the same wall:

• “Why don’t HubSpot and GA4 match?”
• “Which numbers do we report to the board?”
• “Which tool is ‘right’?”
• “Why does GA4 show more users but HubSpot shows fewer leads?”

These questions always show up when marketing, sales and finance rely on different numbers from different platforms, even though they’re all looking at the same activity. HubSpot and GA4 are built on completely different data models — identity-based vs event-based — which means their outputs are never meant to match, but instead complement each other. Understanding that difference is the unlock that stops internal arguments and creates cleaner reporting for stakeholders.

2. What HubSpot Reporting Does Better

HubSpot wins when revenue matters.

HubSpot’s reporting engine is built around real people, real deals and real dollars. For CMOs, this removes the guesswork that usually comes with channel ROI because HubSpot nests all activity under a single contact identity.

a) Revenue Reporting (Native ROI Insight)

HubSpot tracks revenue to the contact, not to the device.

This means you get:

• Closed-won revenue by source
• MRR attribution
• Deal velocity
• Pipeline contribution
• CAC vs CLV calculations
• Channel profitability

Where GA4 provides directional signals, HubSpot gives commercial certainty because revenue is tied directly to deals and lifecycle stages. It’s the only platform where finance, sales and marketing can align on one view of “what actually made money.”

b) Contact & Lead-Level Reporting (Real People, Not Cookies)

HubSpot stores every contact’s:

• First touch
• Last touch
• Multi-touch path
• Every form submission
• Every email open/click
• Every meeting
• Every sales touch

This level of granularity gives CMOs the visibility they need to track the full lifecycle from anonymous visitor → MQL → SQL → customer. Because the data sits at the CRM layer, the contact timeline becomes the backbone of attribution and removes the ambiguity that comes with anonymous analytics data.

c) ROI Reporting Out of the Box

HubSpot ties:

• Ad spend
• Leads
• Deals
• Revenue

…into one view without extra engineering.

This eliminates the mess of stitching together spreadsheets, UTMs, and platform-reported conversions. A CMO can open HubSpot and know exactly which channels genuinely contributed to pipeline and which ones just generated noise.

3. What GA4 Does Better

GA4 wins when behaviour matters.

It provides a level of granularity around user behaviour that HubSpot is not designed to capture. While HubSpot excels in revenue intelligence, GA4 excels in optimisation intelligence.

a) Page-Level Reporting

CMOs use GA4 to answer:

• What pages convert best?
• Where do users drop off?
• Which channels drive engaged sessions?
• Which pages need CRO work?

This helps teams uncover friction points across the website experience. GA4’s event-based model means every scroll, click, interaction or abandonment event can be measured, which is essential for conversion rate optimisation across funnel stages.

b) Customer Journey Reporting Built In

You get:

• Multi-step funnels
• Time-to-event reporting
• Drop-off visualisation
• Page flows
• Event sequences

These exploration tools give marketers full visibility into how users move through the website, which helps identify where to improve UX, copy, design and CTAs. GA4 becomes the “behaviour microscope” that informs where to allocate CRO and media optimisation effort.

c) Ecommerce Reporting Power

For ecommerce operators, GA4 is essential:

• Product-level revenue
• Checkout behaviour
• Cart abandonment
• Cross-device attribution
• Real-time event analysis

GA4 becomes the heartbeat of ecommerce analytics. Its product-scoped reports help CMOs understand which products drive margin, which funnels underperform, and where users leak during checkout — all insights HubSpot can’t deliver natively.

4. So Which One Should CMOs Trust?

You trust HubSpot for revenue.

You trust GA4 for behaviour.

Use HubSpot when you need:

• Revenue source-of-truth
• Contact-level attribution
• Sales + marketing alignment
• Forecasting & pipeline clarity
• True ROI

HubSpot is the commercial foundation of the business. It aligns the organisation around one number and removes ambiguity about performance. For CMOs, this consistency is critical when dealing with boards, CFOs and CEOs.

Use GA4 when you need:

• UX/CRO insights
• Paid media optimisation
• Landing page performance
• Deep funnel/behaviour insights
• Ecommerce detail

GA4 becomes the operational engine that helps marketing teams sharpen their tactics. Where HubSpot tells you “what happened,” GA4 explains why it happened.

If you’re short on time

HubSpot is the safer “single source of truth.”

If you’re a channel manager

GA4 is non-negotiable.

If you’re serious about growth

You run both, and unite them in HubSpot (your CRM layer).

This two-platform strategy gives CMOs a system for governance (HubSpot) and a system for optimisation (GA4), which is the highest-performing structure for modern digital teams.

5. The Real Reason the Numbers Don’t Match

• GA4 counts events, devices, sessions.
• HubSpot counts people.

This mismatch is expected — and healthy. It’s the natural byproduct of each tool measuring different realities. GA4 spreads a single user’s journey across multiple events; HubSpot collapses that same journey into one identity. When CMOs stop trying to reconcile the two, reporting becomes cleaner and confidence increases dramatically.

6. What We Recommend to CMOs Today

1) Treat HubSpot as your commercial system of record

Board reporting, revenue, profitability and attribution — all live in HubSpot.

2) Treat GA4 as your optimisation environment

CRO, landing pages, channel performance, user journeys — all live in GA4.

3) Connect both into one ecosystem

HubSpot’s ad integrations + GA4 events + server-side tagging = a unified, privacy-safe measurement stack.

4) Stop trying to reconcile them

Use each tool for its purpose.

Trust the metric that fits the question.

Once teams accept this division of roles, accuracy improves, friction disappears and marketing becomes easier to defend commercially.

7. A Simple Framework for CMOs

If the question is “How much revenue did we generate?” → HubSpot.

If the question is “How do we increase conversion?” → GA4.

If the question is “Which channel deserves more budget?” → Use both.

This framework helps CMOs and marketing leaders assign the right tool to the right decision, lowering reporting noise and improving speed to insight.

8. HubSpot vs GA4 — Comparison Table for CMOs