ePrivacy talks about "information stored in the terminal equipment", which includes any information you can get from the device. For example the user agent, location, and operating system. It's not about the information itself being essential or not, but what you do with it: is it for essential purposes (consent not needed) or non-essential purposes (consent needed).
Yes: the location information on the browser. You cannot access it for non-essential purposes without user consent. See
Article 5 / Statement 3 in the ePrivacy directive[1]
The eDirective states that the browser and device information (like the URL) is private data and you need a permission to access it for non-essential purposes such as analytics. This is why Simple Analytics also needs a cookie banner, contrast to what their marketing says.
Really curious to hear your findings! We're happy users of Badger, but we have never looked it's internals. I guess you can list the differences you've found without using a bad mouth. Thanks in advance.
https://volument.com might be a good pick since it focuses strictly on conversion optimization. It attempts to measure the more general conversion flow, known as the AIDA funnel (awareness, interest, desire, and action).