I am going to list out some of the best web analytics tools in this post. This will help you get started with doing web analytics for your WordPress website. In this post, I am not only going to discuss the best tools but also share a few tips about which tool you should choose for which purpose.
Are you new to web analytics? Have you been taking baby steps but could use some pointers from someone who has experience navigating web analytics tools? Check out this ever-expanding guide of web analytics best tools.
Here are some of the top 10 tools that you can use to gain more understanding about your website traffic.
1. Google Analytics.
Google Analytics is one of the best free tools that any website owner can use to track and analyze data about Web traffic. You get to see what keywords are bringing the most visitors to your pages and what aspects of your designs are turning them off. This tool will generate a report for your website that includes information about visitors, traffic sources, goals, content and e-commerce. The downside of Google Analytics is that it can take time to update. (The real-time version is still in beta testing.) There are other tools that offer real-time updates of your data now.
2. Spring Metrics.
Spring Metrics has taken the analytics tool and made it simpler. You don’t have to be a professional data-miner to get the answers to your questions. You get real-time conversion analytics, top converting sources, keyword analytics, landing-page analysis, e-mail performance reports and simple point-and-click configuration. Unlike Google Analytics, Spring Metrics tracks a visitor’s path through your website from the time he landed to the time he left. All of this is included in Spring Metrics’ Standard Plan for $49 a month. When you first sign up, you get to try it free for 14 days. The simplicity of this tool has a lot of website owners switching over from Google Analytics.
3. Woopra.
Woopra is another tool that offers real-time analytics tracking, whereas Google Analytics can take hours to update. It is a desktop application that feeds you live visitor stats, including where they live, what pages they are on now, where they’ve been on your site and their Web browser. You also have the ability to chat live with individual site visitors. This can be a great feature for your e-commerce site to interact with customers. Woopra offers a limited freebie plan as well as several paid options.Sign up to stay ahead with our once-a-week Newsletter, Business Class: The Brief. Expect handpicked insights and inspiration for small businesses – straight to your inbox.By providing your e-mail address, you agree to receive the Business Class: The Brief Newsletter from American Express. For more information about how we protect your privacy, please read our Privacy Statement.
4. Clicky.
Clicky also offers a free service if you have only one website and a Pro account for a monthly fee. You get real-time analytics, including Spy View, which lets you observe what current visitors are doing on your site. Clicky’s dashboard is simple to use and presents all the information you want to see clearly. They also have a mobile version that makes it easy for you to check your stats anywhere.
5. Mint.
Mint is an analytics tool that is self-hosted and costs $30 per website. You get the benefit of real-time stats, which you don’t get with the free Google Analytics. You can track site visitors, where they are coming from and what pages they are viewing. And Peppermill, a part of Mint, lets you make any adjustments to make it more compatible for your use with tons of free add-ons.
6. Chartbeat.
Chartbeat lets users get the most from their data with instant information. They keep constant watch on your visitors and what they are doing on your website. This gives you the information you need in order to make the adjustments necessary to your content or design. You get a free month when you sign up and after that plans start at $9.95 per month.
7. Kissmetrics.
Kissmetrics is another analytics tool that allows clients to track the movements of individual visitors throughout their websites. You can see how behaviors change over time, identify patterns and see the most typical and recent referrers, among other stats. It offers a “Timeline View” of visitor activity in an easy-to-understand visual format. You can try this service free for 30 days. Plans start at $149 a month, depending on how many events are tracked.
8. UserTesting.
UserTesting.com is a unique way to gather information about site users. You are paying for a group of participants of your choosing to perform a set of tasks on your site. The user and his activity will be recorded on video. In about an hour, you will have your feedback. You get to hear the actual thoughts of users in your target demographic. The cost is $39 per participant you choose. You may choose anywhere from 1 to 100 testers.
9. Crazy Egg.
Crazy Egg uses the power of Heatmap technology to give you a visual picture of what site visitors are doing on your Web pages. It shows you where people are moving their mouse on the page and where they click. There is a link between where people put the mouse and where they are moving their eyes. So, this kind of tracking helps you see what areas are catching the most attention and interaction from users. There is a free one-month trial with this service, and prices start at $9 month for 10 Heatmaps.
10. Mouseflow.
Mouseflow is somewhat of a combination of UserTesting and Crazy Egg. You can see video of users interacting with your website, including every mouse click and movement, scrolling and keystrokes. You also get to view heat maps from different time periods so that you can see the effect of changes that you make on your page. Pricing varies depending on how many sites you want to cover and how many sessions you want. For a single site and up to 100 recorded sessions, there is no cost. Over that, prices start at $13 a month.
What analytics tools have you tried out for your website? What do you like best?
John Jantsch is a marketing consultant, speaker and author of Duct Tape Marketing and The Referral Engine and the founder of the Duct Tape Marketing Consultant Network.
Learn / Guides / Web analytics report
Top 20 web analytics tools from our survey of 2000+ experts
In our State of Web Analytics report, we asked 2000+ professionals to name the web analytics tools they currently rely on. Here’s a closer look at the results, including the: Top 9 traditional analytics tools, and 8 most popular behavior analytics tools Plus, we go one step further by introducing 3 new(ish) cookieless analytics options for you to consider.Best practices
Last updated
16 Sep 2021
Top 9 web analytics tools used by professionals
When the topic of analytics comes up, people might immediately think of the industry leader, Google Analytics; but that’s just the tip of a vast web analytics iceberg.
Here are the top nine web analytics tools used by over 2000 professionals, in order of popularity:
- Google Analytics
- Adobe Analytics
- Mixpanel
- Matomo
- StatCounter
- Yandex Metrica
- Amplitude
- Baidu Analytics
- HubSpot
1. Google Analytics
What it is: traffic analytics tool from Google
What it’s used for: analyzing website traffic, users, bounce rates, goal conversions, and real-time visitor count
Price: free
74% of the 2000+ analytics professionals we surveyed use Google Analytics (GA). This didn’t surprise us, since GA is by far the market leader in the web analytics space, used on at least 30 million websites according to BuiltWith. GA is free for everyone, but data sampling will occur at high volumes unless you pay for Google 360.
⏫ Power up: get more from your Google Analytics data by combining it with Hotjar’s heatmap, session recording, and feedback tools. Here are 5 ways to use Google Analytics and Hotjar together to grow your business.
2. Adobe Analytics
What it is: traffic analytics and multichannel data collection tool from Adobe
What it’s used for: an enterprise alternative to Google Analytics
Price: on request
4% of experts surveyed use Adobe Analytics. As an enterprise alternative to Google Analytics, Adobe Analytics is a specialist analytics tool, offering multichannel data collection spanning web, voice, OTT (over-the-top), and IoT (Internet of Things). The focus is on machine learning and predictive algorithms for advanced insights.
3. Mixpanel
What it is: advanced product and business analytics platform
What it’s used for: tracking customer behavior and KPIs across websites and mobile apps
Price: from free for 1,000 monthly tracked users
Another 4% of the analytics experts we surveyed use Mixpanel. Unlike traffic analytics tools, Mixpanel is designed to help SaaS and website owners get real-time data insights into how people interact with a product.
4. Matomo
What it is: free and open-source traffic analytics
What it’s used for: measuring website traffic and user behavior
Price: from free for self-hosted users
Used by 2% of polled experts, Matomo (formerly known as Piwik) is a privacy-focused free analytics platform. You can self-host Matomo on your own server or WordPress installation, or pay for a cloud account.
5. Statcounter
What it is: web traffic analytics
What it’s used for: tracking website traffic, sessions, pageviews, and real-time visitors
Price: from free for 500 pageviews
2% of analytics professionals in our survey use Statcounter. Data-points on the latest 500 pageviews are available for free, or users can upgrade to a premium account for more features, including landing page analysis and paid traffic tracking.
6. Yandex Metrica
What it is: free all-in-one website analytics from Russian search engine Yandex
What it’s used for: traffic metrics and user behavior data
Price: free
Another 2% of polled experts use Yandex Metrica as their web analytics tool of choice. Unlike GA, Yandex Metrica offers unsampled data, even at high traffic volumes. Yandex Metrica also includes behavior analytics tools, including session replays, click maps, and scroll heatmaps.
7. Amplitude
What it is: product intelligence.
What it’s used for: tracking product usage, user behavior, and funnel conversions
Price: from free for up to 10 million actions per month
1% of our polled analytics users chose Amplitude. Unlike GA, Amplitude is focused on tracking user experience and offers advanced features like behavior cohorting, and persona and user profile data.
8. Baidu Analytics
What it is: traffic analytics from Chinese search engine Baidu
What it’s used for: recording website visitors, traffic sources, and conversions
Price: from free
Another 1% of our 2000+ analytics experts use Baidu Analytics (also known as Baidu Tongji). Baidu Analytics offers standard traffic analytics data, integrates with Baidu’s PPC platform (Baidu Tuiguang) to provide ad performance metrics, and shows organic search keyword data from Baidu’s search engine.
9. HubSpot
What it is: marketing platform and sales analytics software
What it’s used for: measuring traffic, managing leads, email automation, and conversion rate optimization (CRO)
Price: from $40/month
Used by 1% of polled analytics professionals, Hubspot is an all-in-one customer lifecycle analytics tool. Hubspot has a lot of functionality, from landing page creation to social media mention tracking, email performance measurement, and lead nurturing.
🤓 Learn more: we teamed up with HubSpot to give you this free 30-minute lesson on how to speed up your website.
Top 4 free website analytics tools to use in 2021
Just getting started with web analytics? Then you’re probably looking to use a free tool while you figure things out and grow your site.
We took the most popular tools from our survey and created this list of the top four free website analytics tools to use in 2021:
CONCLUSION
Are you looking for the most effective web analytics tools, but don’t know where to start? This article will show you the best web analytics tools for your business.
There are a lot of tools that you can use for web analytics. From Google data studio to crazy egg and other softwares and plugins, there’s a lot of tools out there. Each tool has its own advantage and disadvantages but what if I told you there’s a website where you can see all the pros and cons of every software?