Knowing how to use the right web analytics tools can help you drive more traffic and make more money. But it’s hard to get started analyzing your website because there are so many options available, which is why we’ve compiled a short list of our top rated web analytics software.
With so many web analytics tools out there, you may feel a bit overwhelmed by the number of choices you have. This is especially true if you’re new to online marketing. We understand and want to help with that!
There are many web analytics tools, but today I will show you those which I use to create this blog and other websites. With these tools I can track how visitors interact with my site, their location and geographic data, their operating system and browsers they use.
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.
10. Hotjar
What it is: product experience insights software
What it’s used for: heatmap analysis, and collecting and analyzing session recordings and user feedback to improve UX
Price: from free for 35 sessions/day.
Hotjar (hi there! 👋) is product experience insights software that helps you:
Understand why your users take certain actions on your site (or why they don’t), and get voice of the customer (VoC) feedback from real users through tools like heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys so you can build products that delight your customers.
We’re proud to be the most popular behavior analytics tool on the market, used on over 900k websites in 180+ countries.
🤓 Learn more: Hotjar is built to add depth to the insights you get from traditional analytics tools like Google Analytics.
When you use Hotjar and GA together, you can answer questions about the behavior and needs of your users—questions you can’t answer by using GA alone. Here’s a quick write-up from our team about why and how we think you should use Hotjar and Google Analytics together.
11. Crazy Egg
What it is: website optimization tool
What it’s used for: heatmaps, recordings, and A/B testing
Price: from $24/month (annual billing required)
Crazy Egg started off as a design agency and then relaunched as a website optimization tool, with the goal of helping businesses track, evaluate, and improve their conversion rates.
12. VWO
What it is: A/B testing tool
What it’s used for: split testing, and funnel and form conversion analytics
Price: from $99/month
VWO is a popular A/B testing tool that makes it onto our behavior analytics list due to VWO Insights, their visitor behavior analytics toolset.
13. FullStory
What it is: digital experience analytics tool
What it’s used for: conversion analysis, funnel visualizations, and page speed metrics
Price: from free for 1,000 sessions/month
FullStory describes their software as an easy-to-use digital intelligence platform that helps companies solve problems, find answers, and fine-tune their customer experience.
14. Lucky Orange
What it is: traffic and user behavior analytics
What it’s used for: viewing traffic data, conversion funnels, and visitor replays
Price: from $10/month.
Lucky Orange is a real-time analytics tool that helps online businesses identify issues and give usability support directly to individual users.
15. Smartlook
What it is: user recording and heatmap analytics
What it’s used for: visitor journey tracking, and event and funnel reporting for websites and mobile apps
Price: from free for 1,500 sessions/month
Smartlook is a behavior analytics tool that records user behavior on websites and mobile apps.
16. Clicktale
What it is: customer behavior analytics tool
What it’s used for: analyzing user behavior patterns on web and mobile apps with heatmaps and session replays
Price: on request
Clicktale describes their software as digital experience analytics and customer behavior analysis, with the goal of transforming digital interactions into insights and visualizations.
17. Mouseflow
What it is: behavior analytics tool
What it’s used for: tracking user behavior with heatmaps, session replays, funnels, and forms
Price: from free for 500 recordings/month
Mouseflow is a behavior analytics tool that allows users to replay the full visitor experience and identify pain points, boost conversions, and optimize websites.
CONCLUSION
1. Hotjar
What it is: product experience insights software
What it’s used for: heatmap analysis, and collecting and analyzing session recordings and user feedback to improve UX
Price: from free for 35 sessions/day.
Hotjar (hi there! 👋) is product experience insights software that helps you:
Understand why your users take certain actions on your site (or why they don’t), and get voice of the customer (VoC) feedback from real users through tools like heatmaps, session recordings, and surveys so you can build products that delight your customers.
We’re proud to be the most popular behavior analytics tool on the market, used on over 900k websites in 180+ countries.
🤓 Learn more: Hotjar is built to add depth to the insights you get from traditional analytics tools like Google Analytics.
When you use Hotjar and GA together, you can answer questions about the behavior and needs of your users—questions you can’t answer by using GA alone. Here’s a quick write-up from our team about why and how we think you should use Hotjar and Google Analytics together.
2. Crazy Egg
What it is: website optimization tool
What it’s used for: heatmaps, recordings, and A/B testing
Price: from $24/month (annual billing required)
Crazy Egg started off as a design agency and then relaunched as a website optimization tool, with the goal of helping businesses track, evaluate, and improve their conversion rates.
3. VWO
What it is: A/B testing tool
What it’s used for: split testing, and funnel and form conversion analytics
Price: from $99/month
VWO is a popular A/B testing tool that makes it onto our behavior analytics list due to VWO Insights, their visitor behavior analytics toolset.
4. FullStory
What it is: digital experience analytics tool
What it’s used for: conversion analysis, funnel visualizations, and page speed metrics
Price: from free for 1,000 sessions/month
FullStory describes their software as an easy-to-use digital intelligence platform that helps companies solve problems, find answers, and fine-tune their customer experience.
5. Lucky Orange
What it is: traffic and user behavior analytics
What it’s used for: viewing traffic data, conversion funnels, and visitor replays
Price: from $10/month.
Lucky Orange is a real-time analytics tool that helps online businesses identify issues and give usability support directly to individual users.
6. Smartlook
What it is: user recording and heatmap analytics
What it’s used for: visitor journey tracking, and event and funnel reporting for websites and mobile apps
Price: from free for 1,500 sessions/month
Smartlook is a behavior analytics tool that records user behavior on websites and mobile apps.
7. Clicktale
What it is: customer behavior analytics tool
What it’s used for: analyzing user behavior patterns on web and mobile apps with heatmaps and session replays
Price: on request
Clicktale describes their software as digital experience analytics and customer behavior analysis, with the goal of transforming digital interactions into insights and visualizations.
8. Mouseflow
What it is: behavior analytics tool
What it’s used for: tracking user behavior with heatmaps, session replays, funnels, and forms
Price: from free for 500 recordings/month
Mouseflow is a behavior analytics tool that allows users to replay the full visitor experience and identify pain points, boost conversions, and optimize websites.
3 new(ish) cookieless analytics tools to try
Privacy-focused analytics is a relatively new category that addresses two customer concerns that came up during our survey: privacy, and feature bloat.
When we asked 2000+ experts about their biggest challenges with traditional website analytics, their second most common issue was that the volume of data and options were overwhelming. Privacy concerns also popped in the ‘other (please specify)’ field, so we think both are worth addressing here.
Here are three simple, cookieless, and privacy-focused analytics tools to try:
1. Plausible
What it is: Plausible is a lightweight, open-source, cookieless website analytics tool
What it’s used for: collecting simple website traffic data like pageviews, bounce rate, and visit duration
Price: from $6/month for 10,000 pageviews
2. Fathom
What it is: Fathom is a simple, light-weight, privacy-focused analytics tool
What it’s used for: tracking basic website analytics data like unique visitors, bounce rate, and goal completions
Price: from $14/month for 100,000 pageviews
3. Simple Analytics
What it is: Simple Analytics is a basic, cookieless analytics tool
What it’s used for: tracking top-level traffic metrics like referral source, top pages, and visitor country
Price: from $19/month for 100,000 views.
CONCLUSION
There are many web analytics tools, but today I will show you those which I use to create this blog and other websites. With these tools I can track how visitors interact with my site, their location and geographic data, their operating system and browsers they use.