Each day users visit and leave websites. Some users complete a conversion while others
leave right away or after conducting research.
Measuring these actions through analytics should be an important
initiative for every company. Analytics
can help a business understand their successes and opportunities for the
future. There are multiple tools in the
industry that allow people to track these statistics. Google Analytics and Clicky are two tools
that are well known and used by many websites.
Below is information on both of these tools that can help show their
value.
Google
Analytics
Google Analytics has four general components that allows it
to provide information. The system
collects, processes, configures, and reports on the data captured (How Google,
n.d.). When viewing data in the
platform, the tool is setup with three main categories of reporting.
Audience
This section of Google Analytics allows companies to
visualize their overall traffic numbers.
In addition, companies can analyze their data to learn more about the users
interacting with their website. This
includes information related to a user’s demographics, interest, geo, behavior,
and device (Denyse, 2015). Understanding
the trends in data can help companies identify changes that need to be made on
their website.
Acquisition
The acquisition section will allow companies to understand how
users got to their website. This
information can be bucketed into categories such as search, social, referrals,
and direct. Companies can also dig
deeper into each category to understand the specific domains and sometimes keywords
that drove users to their website (Denyse, 2015).
Behavior
Companies can learn more about their user’s interactions on
the website. This will include the pages
they visited and metrics such as time on site and bounce rate. The information in this section can help
people understand their audience’s interest and the performance of each page
(Denyse, 2015). One report offered by
Google that can be very effective is the goal funnel. This will allow companies to understand the
path each user takes to a conversion. In
addition, companies can see where customers left if they didn’t finish with a
transaction. This information can be
very useful for putting together a strategy to optimize a website.
Overall Google Analytics is a powerful tool that can provide
businesses with actionable data. The
platform is setup in an easy way for customers to navigate to their desired information. The image below shows the general setup of
the platform which has tabs on the left hand side that are used to navigate to
the different section of data.
Clicky
Clicky is a competing web analytics tool with a lot of the
same capabilities as Google Analytics.
Companies are able to see their overall traffic and split it down into
more granular reports. This includes
understanding how users reached their website and the actions taken once they
arrived. Since companies can gather a
lot of the same data, the question becomes what makes Clicky different from
Google Analytics?
User Interface
The first page people see in the Clicky interface showcases
a lot of actionable information. In
platforms such as Google Analytics, users would have to navigate into deeper
pages for the same data or create custom views.
Below is an image that shows how the homepage looks in Clicky (Cleary,
2014).
Heatmaps
Visualizing data can allow companies to analyze information
quicker. Clicky has the ability to
showcase certain information on a heatmap allowing companies to understand
where they need to focus their attention (Cleary, 2014). Items like this can save people time which is
always a plus when trying to figure out what data is important.
Twitter Analytics
Clicky can provide information that may not be from your
website. In this case, the company is able
to track activity from Twitter. This
could include # tags, senders, recipients, and links (Clicky vs Google, 2013). It’s always helpful to have as much
information in one place to make analyzing data easier.
Visitor Detail
Clicky allows companies to understand more information
related to individual users. Companies
can look at these individuals and understand their exact path to the website as
well as items such as their IP address, location, and the platform they are
using (Cleary, 2015). This can help
companies get more granular on certain analysis projects.
Metrics
There are certain metrics that are calculated differently in
the two platforms. All the features each
platform provides is important but companies must understand the data in front of
them. There are five main metrics that
are different in the two platforms (Dealer Inspire, 2015).
·
Visits: Historically, Clicky has done a
better job of getting rid of bot traffic.
Therefore, Clicky may have a lower amount of visits when comparing to Google
Analytics.
·
Bounce Rate: The two programs calculate bounce
rate differently. Clicky only counts
users that have visited one page and leave before being on the website for 30
seconds. Google Analytics doesn’t take
into account the amount of time a user has been on the website.
·
Actions: This metric is called pageviews in
Google Analytics. However, actions in
Clicky combine’s pageviews and other actions such as downloads.
·
Unique Visitors: In the Google Analytics platform
this is called users. The two platforms
will show different numbers as Clicky calculates this metric with one day’s
worth of data. Therefore, if a visitor
comes to the website two days in a row, they will be counted as two
visitors. Google Analytics looks at this
metric over a longer period of time.
·
Time on site: When there are multiple pages
viewed, Google Analytics stops calculating the time on site when a user reaches
the last page of their visit. However,
Clicky continues to ping the server allowing it to include the time a user spends
on the final page of their visit.
Pricing
Google Analytics has two available packages. One package is free and comes with all the
general features described in this article.
However, companies can also purchase the premium service which includes
higher data limits, additional variables, and more support. This package starts at $150,000 per year
(Google Analytics, n.d.).
Clicky also has different levels of service available. Similar to Google, they provide a free
service to companies. However, companies
can upgrade to packages with additional features. This can include items such as the heatmaps. The price ranges are $79.99, $119.99, 159.99,
and a custom option. A lot of this
depends on the amount of websites that will be tracked and the amount of
traffic seen on the websites (Pricing, n.d).
Conclusion
Google Analytics and Clicky provide companies with powerful
data to help drive decisions. The unique
features available in each platform could separate the tools but this depends
on the needs of a company. Therefore,
it’s important to research each tool to understand how their platform fits
within your company needs. Overall,
either one is a great start to ensuring companies have the right data to make
good decisions.
References:
Cleary, I. (2014, May 5). 4
Extremely useful Google Analytics Alternatives or are they? Retrieved November 21, 2015, from http://www.razorsocial.com/google-analytics- alternatives/
Clicky vs Google Analytics. (2013,
June 11). Retrieved November 21, 2015, from https://clicky.com/compare/google
[Dealer Inspire]. (2015, April 14).
Understanding the Differences in Clicky and Google Analytics. [Video File]. Retrieved
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lR3DBvKiq1s
Denyse, N. (2015, July 10). A
Beginner's Guide to Google Analytics. Retrieved November 21, 2015, from
http://blogs.constantcontact.com/google-analytics-training/
Google
Analytics Price & Cost. (n.d.). Retrieved November 22, 2015, from http://www.actualmetrics.com/google-analytics-price/
How Google Analytics works. (n.d.).
Retrieved November 21, 2015, from https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/6081186?hl=en&ref_topic=6080724
Pricing. (n.d.). Retrieved November
22, 2015, from https://clicky.com/help/pricing
Walgrove, A. (2015, January 8). The
Top 5 Free Content Analytics Tools. Retrieved November 22, 2015, from https://contently.com/strategist/2015/01/08/the-top-5-free-content- analytics-tools/
No comments:
Post a Comment