We may be enjoying the best time ever in terms of opportunities for digital marketing. Thanks to the evolution of digital analytics tools, we’re able to stay up-to-speed with everything that’s going on with our website and use all the data available to us in order to make better decisions. How do you know which web analytics tools are the best web analytics tools 2021? You need an expert opinion.
There are so many different web analytics tools available for free, it can be difficult to find the best ones. Very recently I was comparing the top web analytics tools to find the ones that offer the most benefit to your site, and while doing this I compiled a list of what I think are the best web analytics tools. The great thing about the list is that the top web analytics tools were all free to use.
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.
Crazy Egg
Crazy Egg is a popular tool that can help you increase traffic and get more sales, with some unique features. This is a good choice for people who would rather look at videos than cold numbers.
One of the most interesting ways to see how your users are interacting with your site is called user recordings, which records entire user sessions. This allows you to see what your visitors are doing on your site through video playback so you can identify pain points in order to ensure a pleasant experience for your visitors. You can also view users by new, mobile, or most active to see how different types of customers interact with your site. Crazy Egg also allows you to view heatmaps of user data and gives you access to a helpful A/B testing tool to put your data findings into action. Pricing: The premade Crazy Egg plans range from $24/month to about $249/month, with the option to customize a more extensive plan if necessary. Good for: Finding pain points in website flow using visual mapping.
CLICKY
Clicky is easily one of the most popular web analytics tools available. If you search for alternatives to Google Analytics, chances are, every single page you open will include it on their list. There’s a very good reason for this: Clicky is one of the strongest tools on the market for web analytics, and unlike many of its competitors it offers real-time updates. The main dashboard might be a little overwhelming for beginners, but you’ll soon learn to love the variety of available statistics. This includes a link report, which tells you exactly which external sites and pages are actively directing users to your own. We’ve mentioned the importance of backlinks many times, and this tool helps you see exactly why.
Just like BBClone, Clicky also provides search data comprising of all the incoming search query keywords being used to direct users to your site from the SERP. Where Clicky overtakes BBClone in a big way is that the tool also comes with the Sheer SEO tool. Sheer SEO helps you to see how well your keywords are ranking, which is valuable information to have and understand.
Another interesting feature is Twitter Search Tracking, which lets you monitor Twitter tags, keywords, and retweets on the social media platform. ClickyTouch, the iPhone app, also allows you to stay up to date with all your analytics while on the go. Clicky is inherently free of charge and is available as a WordPress plugin too. If you need to use it on multiple sites, or your site generates more than 3000 views a day, you’ll start having to pay a minor fee though.
ADOBE ANALYTICS
Adobe is a leading name when it comes to software: Photoshop, Illustrator, the most popular PDF reader, and many other programs bear the company name. Adobe Analytics lives up to the stellar reputation held by Adobe. One of the many difficulties encountered with other web analytics tools is managing your custom tags. This process often requires altering the existing analytics code to allow registered users to be tagged as well. But with Adobe Analytics, you won’t need to involve an IT team (or hire an expert) to set up a dynamic tag management system.
Adobe Analytics also offers real-time analytics, which is incredibly important if you need to make a pitch to potential investors and advertisers “on the spot.” You’ll also be able to track user activity on social media, third-party data integration, for your videos, and for mobile users. These are often not covered sufficiently by Google Analytics (mobile user analytics in particular, as mentioned in the previous section). The use of mobile browsers is at an unprecedented high, and optimizing your site (and your SEO strategy) for these users has never been more important than now.
Adobe Analytics’ advanced segmentation makes understanding your aggregated data much easier. This feature allows you to spend more time on implementing new and improved strategies rather than trying to figure out what those strategies should be. While it’s a tool everyone will want to use, Adobe Analytics is certainly an enterprise solution. You’ll need to contact their support team for a quote, but you can expect it to be in the $5,000 per month range.
COREMETRICS
Often used by ecommerce websites, in particular, CoreMetrics was acquired by IBM in June 2010. It now also goes by the name of IBM Digital Analytics but is not to be confused with IBM Unica NetInsight—which we’ll get into later on as well.
This tool boasts an easy-to-use interface and offers detailed data statistics that are also highly customizable. No matter what your business type and model, IBM have taken the original CoreMetrics module and ensured that there’s a little something for everyone. With the increased personalization, users can better convert the analytics reports into actionable marketing plans. In this way, the company promises to extend your customer lifecycle by helping you find ways to retain existing users as well as attract new ones. Furthermore, they boast that this also gives you a higher return for the money you spend on marketing.
It’s for this very reason that the web analytics tool is so popular with online sites. You can see this more clearly when you realize that, unlike most of its peers, CoreMetrics also gives you a comprehensive report on the abandoned cart value—how much a client was going to spend, but didn’t. If nothing else, its popularity also proves just how invaluable CoreMetrics can be to an e-commerce business. With a price range starting at around $5,000, it’s not a viable option for small start-up companies. If you plan to use a premium web analytics tool alongside a free one, this tool remains a fantastic choice.
Visual Website Optimizer (VWO)
Visual Website Optimizer (VWO) gives you the tools to perform experiments by A/B testing different graphical and textual on-page elements.
It also gives you the ability to record visitor sessions for playback analysis. For example, one company used the live user recording feature of VWO to discover a critical shipping error that appeared randomly throughout the day. As a result, the bounce rate on that page decreased by almost 45 percent.
VWO offers a free trial of its web analytics tool and asks you to contact them for pricing.
ClickMeter
Determining the ROI of various marketing channels can be tough. ClickMeter gives you the ability to create pretty URLs and then track and analyze them by looking at over 100 different parameters.
ClickMeter integrates with Google Analytics and will allow you to redirect, track, and analyze website traffic.
It also gives you the ability to understand the true value of your marketing efforts and eliminate those traffic sources that aren’t converting.
Pricing starts at $29/month and tops out at $349/month.
Conclusion:
These top web analytics tools cover all the essentials required for web analytics. For the beginner, it is straightforward to set up. For the professional, it covers everything needed to gather and analyze data. Online businesses are quick to accept the fact that web analytics tools are a must if they want to get better results. However, it’s equally important for them to choose the right analytics package, which does not necessarily need to be expensive.