Google Analytics 4 is the default choice for millions of websites, but it was designed for traditional websites tracking page views and form submissions. If you are building DeFi applications, GA4 cannot answer the questions that actually matter: which wallets are converting, where your highest-value users come from, or how campaigns perform from first touch to final transaction.

Formo is an analytics platform built specifically for DeFi product and marketing teams. It unifies offchain web data with onchain wallet data, giving you crypto-native insights into user behaviour, attribution, and revenue without requiring complex infrastructure or an in-house data engineering team.

This comparison breaks down the functional differences between GA4 and Formo across tracking capabilities, data integration, metrics, and use cases.

Feature Comparison at a Glance

The Core Difference: Web2 vs Web3 Analytics

The gap between GA4 and Formo is about what each platform was built to measure.

What GA4 Was Designed For

GA4 tracks user behaviour through cookie-based sessions and event-driven tracking. It excels at measuring page views, bounce rates, session duration, conversion funnels for form fills and purchases, traffic sources and campaign performance via UTM parameters, and cross-platform tracking across web and mobile.

This model works well for e-commerce sites, SaaS landing pages, and content platforms where the conversion happens within the browser.

What Formo Was Built For

Formo tracks the full user journey from offchain engagement to onchain conversion. Instead of cookies, it uses wallet addresses as the primary identifier. This enables wallet-level behaviour tracking across sessions and devices, smart contract interactions and transaction volume, onchain attribution connecting marketing touchpoints to transactions, and Revenue Per Wallet (RPW), the DeFi equivalent of LTV.

The practical difference: GA4 tells you a user visited your site and clicked "Connect Wallet". Formo tells you that wallet later executed a $2,300 swap, holds 15 ETH across three protocols, participated in a Merkl incentive campaign, and came from a Twitter campaign you ran two weeks ago. One is a session. The other is a rich user profile with actionable data you can use to drive growth.

Where GA4 Falls Short for DeFi Applications

GA4 was designed for a world where conversions happen fully in the browser. For DeFi apps, this creates structural blind spots that no amount of custom event tracking can fully fix.

The Cookie Problem

GA4 relies on cookies for user identification. When users switch devices, clear their cookies, or use privacy-focused browsers (as many crypto users do), GA4 treats them as new visitors. This fragments your data and makes attribution unreliable.

Formo uses wallet addresses as persistent identifiers. A user who visits your site on mobile, connects their wallet on desktop, and executes a transaction a week later is tracked as a single user across the entire journey.

The Onchain Data Gap

GA4 has no native support for blockchain data. You can track a "wallet_connect" custom event, but GA4 cannot tell you what crypto wallet was used or what that wallet did in DeFi before and after connecting: no wallet metadata, no transaction tracking, no revenue tracking, no retention tracking. GA4 can measure interest (clicks, connects), but not outcomes (revenue, retention, LTV). For DeFi apps, conversions happen onchain, not in the browser.

Manual Event Tracking Overhead

To track wallet events in GA4, you need to manually instrument every wallet interaction (connect, sign, transaction) via Google Tag Manager or custom code, configure custom dimensions for wallet addresses, and build custom reports to visualise the data. This is a big engineering effort with many edge cases, from compatibility issues with multiple wallet providers to identity stitching multiple devices and wallets. Formo's SDK comes equipped with autocapture and automatically handles wallet connects, signatures, and transactions for all major wallets (Metamask, Phantom, Privy, Dynamic, and more) out of the box.

What Formo Enables That GA4 Cannot

Wallet Intelligence

Formo enriches wallet addresses with contextual data pulled from onchain activity (token balances, DeFi positions) and public profiles (ENS, Lens, Farcaster). This turns anonymous addresses into actionable user profiles. Wallet intelligence surfaces net worth across chains, transaction frequency, DeFi protocol usage, token holdings, social handles, and wallet labels. GA4 has no equivalent capability to offer for DeFi teams.

Onchain Attribution

Formo tracks the full user funnel from offchain touchpoints to onchain conversions. If a user clicks a Twitter ad, visits your site, connects their wallet, and executes a $5,000 swap three days later, Formo attributes that revenue to the Twitter campaign, across devices and sessions using multiple attribution models including first and last touch. GA4's attribution breaks the moment the user leaves your site or clears cookies.

Revenue Per Wallet (RPW)

RPW is the total onchain transaction value generated by a single wallet, equivalent to customer lifetime value  (LTV). Formo helps you see which acquisition channels bring in the highest-value wallets by volume and revenue and how RPW changes over time. GA4 does not have volume or revenue tracking built-in.

When to Choose Each Platform

The Hybrid Approach

Many teams use both: GA4 for top-of-funnel metrics (traffic, referrals, content engagement) and Formo for middle and bottom-of-funnel metrics (wallet connects, transactions, revenue, retention) and wallet intelligence (net worth, token holdings, DeFi positions.) This gives visibility into the full user journey, but requires managing two platforms and consolidating data from multiple places. Formo's unified analytics eliminates the need for this by tracking web, product, and onchain events in one place.

Pricing and Setup

Migrating from GA4 to Formo

If you are currently using GA4 and considering Formo, migration is straightforward.

1. Install Formo: sign up, create a workspace, and add the Formo SDK to your site's <head> section (single script tag).

2. Map your events: Formo autocaptures standard wallet events. For custom GA4 events you want to preserve, Formo lets you map them to maintain reporting continuity.

3. Run both in parallel: validate that Formo is capturing the data you need. Most teams run both for 2 to 4 weeks before fully switching.

4. Sunset GA4: remove the GA4 script. Formo's unified analytics replaces both GA4 and any custom onchain tracking you built.

Real-World Impact: What Teams Say

"Exactly what I was missing while leading growth in DeFi. Using other tools with onchain data was clunky for analytics, especially in web3.."

Zachariah Zhang, Product Manager in DeFi

"Formo gave us valuable insight into our existing users - where they're finding us, how active they are across DeFi, and social connections where we can reach them for feedback."

Vince DePalma, CTO at Kairos Swap (processed over $200M in volume on Base)

"Formo is a strong fit for startups with a relatively narrow budget - it can be launched quickly, is straightforward to use, and covers most core metrics without requiring a complex data stack."

Will Fey, Founder at Ammalgam (backed by Lightspeed Faction and Framework Ventures)

The Bottom Line

For most DeFi applications, GA4 is a partial solution at best. It can tell you who visited your site, but it cannot tell you who converted, how much revenue they generated, or whether they came back. Formo was built to answer those questions.

Choose GA4 if your conversions happen entirely offchain and you need a free, proven solution for standard web metrics. Choose Formo if you are building onchain and your analytics need to extend beyond the wallet connect button, reaching the transactions, revenue, and retention that actually determine your protocol's health.

More in This Series

Evaluating your Web3 analytics stack? Read the other comparisons in this series:

FAQs

Can GA4 track wallet activity and onchain conversions?

No. GA4 can track a wallet connect event, but cannot see what happens onchain after that: no transactions, no revenue, no retention. For full-funnel onchain tracking, see Formo's onchain attribution.

Why is cookie-based tracking unreliable for crypto users?

Crypto users frequently use privacy-focused browsers and extensions that block or clear cookies, causing GA4 to fragment a single user across multiple sessions. Wallet addresses are persistent across devices and sessions. Read more about cookieless attribution.

What is Revenue Per Wallet (RPW)?

RPW is the total onchain transaction value generated by a single wallet, equivalent to customer lifetime value in Web3. GA4 cannot calculate it because the data lives onchain. Learn more about RPW and Web3 monetisation.

How does Formo measure retention differently from GA4?

GA4 measures retention by session activity on your site. Formo measures it by wallet activity on your protocol: did the user return and transact again? This reflects real protocol engagement, not just page visits. Explore Formo's retention analytics.

Which teams should still use GA4 alongside Formo?

Teams with significant content or marketing sites benefit from GA4 for top-of-funnel web metrics. Formo then handles everything from wallet connect onwards. See our Google Analytics alternatives guide.