Alternatives reporting tools to Google Analytics
Managing a website without visitors tracking solution such as Google Analytics is kinda like groping in the dark to find out where and how visitors interact with your website.
Google Analytics being free and a great product by itself should be sufficient for most web masters. However, for anyone wishing to be “Google” free or looking for alternatives to Google Analytics can check these products listed below. Take a look at some free and some premium alternatives products out there :
1. Mixpanel.com
Mixpanel differs from Google Analytics by focusing on measuring actions rather than pageviews. Google Analytics stills focus on providing “traditional analytics data” while Mixpanel allows you to peek deeper into the user experience and behavior.
Most web masters or app developers use Mixpanel to track and measure engagements by their users. Engagements such as listening to which music video, reading which article or invite a friend via social media. The data collected by Mixpanel such as what the users are doing before and after they sign up can assist web or application owners to determine their strategy and create content that increase engagement.
For example, Mixpanel can tell you how many users that arrive from an advertisement campaign that end up booking a hotel room or purchase something from your website.
First heard of Mixpanel from a mobile app developer and that guy is praising Mixpanel all the time. Pretty sure something good that Mixpanel have over Google Analytics for measuring mobile app users. For me, one thing that I like about Mixpanel is the ability to send notifications to the users. It does help to bring users back by saying the right thing and the right moment. :-)
2. Statvoo.com
Statvoo is another analytics product that aims to provide real time analytics for your websites. Integrating Statvoo to your website is simple and it has many plugins for popular platforms such as Wordpress, Prestashop, Joomla, Drupal and Ghost.
It claims to provide features such as uptime monitoring, automatic trending reports( you don't need to setup anything ) and alert notifications whenever goals are met. Mostly targeted at e-commerce sites. These features certainly can be very useful for web site manager and this makes it a good add-on to Google Analytics.
Yes, you can opt to use couple of analytics tools together, but remember not to stuff too much otherwise it will slows down your users browsing experience.
Optimizely has an array of features that a web/application manager should at least get to know about. You can use Optimizely to perform testing on how users interact with your website and gain actionable insights. One thing that I really like about Optimizely is that they are aware not all of their customers are technically savvy. They provide tools that are highly visual with drag-n-drop feature to help the less technically savvy customers to get the right reports.
Do check out how some of the big names such as Sony and Electronic Arts use Optimizely to increase checkout funnel, pre-orders and profits. (https://www.optimizely.com/case-studies/)
For those looking for totally free and open source alternative check out OpenWebAnalytics.com. From the first glance, it seems to look like a Doppelgänger to Google Analytics. The look and feel part of OpenWebAnalytics looks like Google Analytics.
The product is written in PHP programming language. Deploying OpenWebAnalytics, getting it up and running can be challenging for the non-technically savvy person. Nevertheless, help is always available at http://forums.openwebanalytics.com
Without signing up, you can explore how Open Web Analytics work by visiting http://demo.openwebanalytics.com/ . This will give a taste how Open Web Analytics works and see if you need the features for your website.
In order for Open Web Analytics to work, you will need to host it on your server. Might not be suitable for those looking for easy few lines of JavaScript codes integration.
5. Gauges
This article won't be complete without mentioning Gauges. Why? Because Gauges user interface is just so nice to look at! As a website owner looking at analytics report almost daily, I would prefer to read or look at well designed report. It has minimalist design and user friendly user interface to monitor your sites at once.
Ok, nice interface aside. Gauges is not a free analytics product, but you can try them out for 7 days.
The product will give you real “Real Time” analytics. What is real “Real Time” analytics? Err... it means it will automagically refresh without you having to press any button to refresh the dashboard. All data are live streamed to your computer screen.
Apart from that, you get to see exactly where your live traffic come from, with a pin on the location on a one single full-screen map.
If you are tired of looking at dull report, do check out Gauges.
6. Parsely.com
Not all analytics products are build to cater for generic or e-commerce website and no .. Parsely.com is not trying to sell vegetable to you.
Parsely.com is designed specifically for publishers. News or content websites such as socketloop.com will benefit from Parsely.com offerings. It allows you to compare which authors or articles are performing better and also able to forecast future traffic based on the content on your site and worldwide trend. This feature certainly will be helpful to editors/authors when formulating strategies to create content that will increase readerships instead of shooting in the dark over which content to create. Something that other analytics aforementioned not able to do yet.
However, Parsely.com can be pricey as the pricing model is base on number of unique visitors to your website. Might not be suitable for those looking for free or fix price monthly subscription alternatives, but if you really want to gain deeper understanding of your content readers and have a crystal ball to tell what is up ahead, do consider Parsely.com
Summary
Each alternatives to Google Analytics have their own pros and cons. Do give the services a try and see if you want to use them as replacement or add-on to Google Analytics.
By AdamNg
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