If you have spent any time on the web, chances are you have encountered Analytics. These free, easy-to-use services measure traffic and interactions with your website. Companies like Google, Adobe, and more provide analytics tools that you can use to pinpoint what works best on your website. While there are many tools in the space, here is a list of a few to get you started.
Web analytics can be a tricky topic. After all, how do you measure the success of your website if it’s based on traffic from social media or other highly variable channels? In today’s post I want to take a look at some helpful web analytics tools that can make your life easier. It’s unlikely you will use all these tools, but hopefully this post will get you thinking about what data you really should be tracking, and which tools will provide that data.
What is Web Analytics?
Web analytics is the process of gathering, processing, and evaluating data from websites. It is also known as online analytics as it improves customer experience over the internet and enhances the business prospects of any company.
Web analytics has many applications like it shows web navigation patterns, time-specific website traffic, search engine data, visitor data, etc. With the help of web analytics, successful and effective marketing campaigns, online sales, advertisements, and a boost in profit are also experienced by users.
(Must check: Effective marketing techniques)
There are mainly two types of web analytics:
- On-site web analytics tracks visitors’ behavior once they arrive at the website. As an example, consider measuring the performance of your website.
- Off-site web analysis is the measurement and analysis of a website regardless of whether it is owned or maintained. Measurement of visibility, comments, prospective audience, and so on, for example.
Working of Web Analytics:
Now that we know the basic definition and types of web analytics, let us learn how web analytics work from Wikipedia and optimizely.
- The web analytics process starts with the collection of elementary data. Typically, these statistics represent counts of several items. Then, the collected information is processed. This stage generally takes counts and converts them to ratios, but some counts may still be present. The goal of this stage is to convert the data into information, especially metrics.
- Most analytics solutions ‘tag’ their web pages by adding a piece of JavaScript into the code of the web page. The analytics tool uses this tag to track each time a visitor or a link is clicked on a website. The tag can also collect other information such as device, browser, and geographic location (via IP address).
- Cookies may also be used by web analytics firms to monitor individual sessions and pinpoint repeat visits from the same browser. Because some users erase cookies and browsers have varied limits on code snippets, no analytics platform can guarantee the complete accuracy of their data, and different programs provide somewhat different findings at times.
- The process then moves on to the following stage, which mostly focuses on leveraging the ratios (and counts) and infusing them with business strategy, referred to as key performance indicators (KPI). KPIs frequently, but not always, address conversion issues. It is determined by the organization. Finally, an online strategy is prepared to depend on the goals and objects of the company.
- Experiments are another important feature established by analysts for website improvement. In online contexts such as web development, A/B testing is a controlled trial with two versions. A/B testing’s objective is to find and recommend modifications to web pages that improve or maximize the influence of a statistically tested outcome of interest.
the following list are the important options in the market:
- 1. Google Analytics
- 2. Hotjar
- 3. Matomo
- 4. Mixpanel
- 5. Crazy Egg
- 6. Clicky
- 7. Clicktale
- 8. Mouseflow
- 9. Kissmetrics
- 10. Fathom
- 11. Countly
- Wrap Up: Learning about Website Traffic with Web Analytics Tools
1. Google Analytics
Web analytics tools can track and measure website activity, offer recommendations, and prepare timely reports for review.
In this sense, Google Analytics is perhaps the most well-known and popular tool available today.
It allows you to analyze various factors, including website traffic, bounce rates, and conversions.
With its well-organized dashboard for ease of use and viewing of important metrics, Google Analytics remains one of the better free tools to track and analyze web traffic data.
It is a great option for anyone, including beginners and small businesses. For advanced features, try the paid version, Google 360.
2. Hotjar
If you want to know what your website visitors are doing and why, Hotjar can help.
Hotjar is a website analytics tool combining traditional analytics with website visitor behavior data.
A visual display, or heatmap analysis, and session recordings provide valuable insight, alerting you to areas in your content that need reviewing.
This web tool is easy to set up and easy to use.
Start with their free plan, which allows up to 2,000 pageviews per day. If you need more, consider adding the Hotjar Business version starting at $99 per month.
3. Matomo
Matomo is an open-source analytics tool you can use to measure your website’s traffic and gain information on your visitors’ behavior.
With key metric tracking capabilities and a customizable dashboard, you stay involved in the process, pulling the information you need the most.
Matomo also allows you to store customer data in-house on your own server, protecting the privacy of customers, as opposed to the cloud-based storage with Google Analytics.
The On-Premise version starts free but with the option to pay for advanced features. You can also choose to go with Matomo Cloud, which offers data hosting for a small monthly fee.
4. Mixpanel
Mixpanel is an advanced, scalable business analytics platform that tracks customer actions and behaviors along with your key performance indicators (KPIs).
An important feature of this tool is you can use it on all your websites and mobile apps to gain valuable insight across the board.
In turn, you can create or modify your content governance structure and make sure your messaging is consistent.
Additional beneficial features include team dashboards, interactive reports, and real-time data.
The free version for up to 100K tracked users per month, has some limited functionality. If you find you need more, go for a growth package starting at just $25 per month and add to it as your needs grow.
5. Crazy Egg
There’s power in knowing where your website visitors go.
Add to that the ability to view how they are interacting with the different pages, and you’ll know where you need to strengthen your content.
Crazy Egg is a visual web analytics tool designed to help you track, evaluate, and increase your conversion rates.
It comes with its signature Heatmap analytics tool, which shows you what your website visitors are doing, how they are interacting, and what is most popular.
Other valuable features include user recordings and A/B split testing.
Expect a low monthly cost, with the ability to add more whenever needed.
6. Clicky
Clicky is one of the better web analytics tools for getting real-time data and providing all the information you need to optimize your website and increase conversions.
Track where your visitors are staying longest and where they’re going next. Review page visit data and heatmaps. Customize your tracking.
You can even monitor your stats away from the office on Clicky’s mobile version.
While the basic version of Clicky is free, you can increase daily views and capabilities, including split testing or outbound link tracking, by upgrading to a paid plan.
7. Clicktale
Once a standalone tool, Clicktale has now joined forces with Contentsquare to offer a more robust web and mobile apps analytics tool.
The focus is on the digital interactions of users, offering insights to help optimize and improve not just your website but your overall digital marketing plan.
Patterns of web user actions and behavior are displayed utilizing intuitive heatmaps and session replays, bringing your customer behavior to life right before your eyes.
The visual analysis features simplify the process of determining where there are weaknesses in the buyer’s journey as it relates to your website, mobile app, or content.
With such information, you’ll know where to make improvements and help increase your conversion rates.
8. Mouseflow
Mouseflow is a behavior analytics tool providing replays of visitor experiences and alerting you to potential reasons why they leave or fail to convert.
User behavior tracking is presented in various ways, including session replays, heatmaps, conversion funnels, and form analytics.
Utilize these to pinpoint where you can strengthen your content strategy and optimize your website.
Start with the 14-day free trial. From there, you’ll have a variety of packages to choose from.
The pricing structure is based on pageviews and the number of websites, and range from $29 to $399 per month. They also offer an Enterprise level with unlimited page views and websites.
9. Kissmetrics
How a visitor moves through your website can provide valuable insight into how effective your content and design are and if they lead to conversions.
Kissmetrics excels at this, tracking individual visitors to your website and putting you on a personal level with that visitor to understand their behavior.
This data becomes highly beneficial for optimizing your marketing funneland getting visitors to click on that convert button.
Kissmetrics has a simple to use visual format and full tracking of website traffic, trends, and behavior changes.
This is a paid resource so try it out first for a month to be sure you’re comfortable with its interface and results. After that, you can select pricing based on your current needs.
10. Fathom
If you’re concerned about protecting the privacy of your customers or visitors, consider using Fathom as your web analytics tool.
Fathom doesn’t collect personal data of visitors, nor does it utilize cookies.
What it does do is collect the data needed to see how visitors are interacting on your website. You can also track your KPIs on its easy-to-use dashboard.
Fathom sends you a report via email every week, alerting you to the performance of your website. If you have several websites, you can track them all and receive reports on each one.
Plans start at $14 per month for up to 100,000 page visits.
11. Countly
Countly is an analytics platform you can use across all your websites and mobile applications. The focus is on improving the buyer’s journey by providing you with the data you need most.
Countly tracks individual online sessions in an effort to help you understand how your website is currently being used by visitors.
In turn, you can identify what content is working and where you need improvements.
An additional benefit of using Countly is that you can build your own plugins to add analytics unique to your business needs.
Countly offers both on-premises and cloud versions. Their Community edition is free, and their Enterprise Edition offers tailored plans to fit your requirements.
CONCLUSION
There are a TON of web analytics tools out there. Even so, too many marketers choose to ignore them and rely on their own intuition. There’s nothing wrong with doing this, but choosing a few reliable tools will help you optimize your time. Let’s take a look at some of the most important web analytics tools that every marketer should consider using.