Best Web Analytics Tools to Track Your Growth

Today’s growing demand for content has made every business a publisher. The Internet has become a repository of knowledge, and the more customers know, the more likely they’ll pay for a product or service.Because of this, seeing how different content on your website, social media page, or other channels are performing can help you improve future campaigns.

A web analytics tool gives you real-time updates on the number of new and returning visitors, your website’s bounce rate, and more.

Right now, you might have a web analytics tool in mind. The question is, does it have the solutions your campaigns will need?

Why Do You Need Web Analytics Tools?

Efficient Campaign Monitoring

Once you have your campaign up and running, you’ll want to know how it’s doing. You can compare this situation to driving a car. The more accurate your fuel gauge, speedometer, and other similar tools, the better you can estimate the time you’ll arrive at your destination, gauge the performance of your vehicle, and find ways to make it perform better.

Nowadays, many web analytics software offer real-time monitoring. You can see how many clicks your recent social media post received. You get accurate readings on how much time people spent reading your recent post and the links they clicked before they made a purchase. Data like these allows you to retain strategies that are working well and get rid of ones that aren’t.

Identify Competitor Strategies

You might not know it, but most digital marketers audit the competition’s website before starting work on your campaign. Their reasoning: if their site is performing well, they’re probably doing something right!

One of the key roles that web analytics tools play is sniffing out and recording these effective practices. It could also help you look for opportunities that the competition may have missed. From there, you can use the data to your own advantage and modify the tactics to surpass the competition’s campaign.

Growth and Evolution

Some avoid web analytics tools because they find Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) products intimidating. In reality, SaaS products are more effective than traditional end-user products because developers can easily add updates and additional features without requiring you to buy a new version or spend any more than the monthly subscription amount.

6 of the Best Web Analytics Tools Existing Today

Although there are plenty of web analytics tools today, these six are the cream of the crop when it comes to top-notch features, usability, and reliability in tracking your digital campaign’s performance on different areas.

Google Analytics

If you’re using Google to search for top web analytics products, you’re likely to see Google Analytics on first place. In all cases, Google Analytics deserves the top spot because of its high-quality features that any business can use FREE of charge.

That’s right, you won’t need to spend a dime (although they offer advanced and specialized features for $150,000 for a year). Google Analytics can track your video views, social networking sites, applications, and every aspect of your website.

If you’re willing to pay for their premium feature, you can get complicated analytics such as the customer’s comprehensive journey across search engines, social media, and blogs linking back to your website.

Parse.ly

Parse.ly has the best dashboards when it comes to analytic reports. Its algorithm aligns its reports with the goals you and your team have set.

Additionally, Parse.ly will focus on recording your customers’ activities while interacting with your website’s different content — from links to the items they highlight and click.

These small details, while seemingly negligible, play a huge role in helping you keep your customers engaged on your website for longer periods of time.

Parse.ly is effective for many small businesses because it has special rates depending on your business needs. So, it’s not just a one-price-fits-all approach.

Chartbeat

If you’ve got a website with plenty of content, then Chartbeat is definitely for you. This web analytics tool’s purpose is to see the actual number of people you have at any given page (which they call “concurrents”).

Additionally, Chartbeat has a “User Experience Data” feature that allows you to test multiple content headlines without affecting your workflow. This feature is rich because it gives you insight on improving audience engagement in the near future.

Many news sites use Chartbeat for their publications. However, it can be a bit expensive at $7,000 per month.

Crazy Egg

Crazy Egg’s most popular and biggest feature is its visual web analysis. It allows businesses to see the “hottest” spots on their web page. This visual data representation is helpful because it allows businesses to see where users tap, which browsers they use, their social media usage, and more.

While quite a simple feature, Crazy Egg’s visual analysis is helpful if you’re looking to smoothen the customer’s journey aesthetic- and function-wise. Additionally, Crazy Egg also captures user mouse movements, which allows analyzers to determine their prospective customer’s thoughts at any given point in their customer’s journey.

UserTesting

This analytics tool is the simplest to use yet it yields information that improves your overall campaigns. UserTesting offers up to 15 video sessions per year for just $49, which is a cheap price.

UserTesting records a real website tester on video. This tester is close to the audience likely to visit your website. These individuals will voice out what they find annoying or useful about the website as well as their overall experience.

Sometimes, actual feedback from an ideal audience works best rather than just numbers and figures.

Snowplow

SnowPlow is not a popular choice among businesses because of its unintuitive interface. However, if you’re all about functionality, SnowPlow is definitely the platform for you.

SnowPlow Insights tracks your customers across all platforms and channels. It then creates a summary of data similar to typical analytics tools. In addition, it builds a single customer view where you can peruse data and analyze the customer’s behavior based on your interpretation.

Other platforms such as Google Analytics suggest certain customer profiles based on data, a feature that is absent in SnowPlow. However, given its price point and capabilities, it’s definitely worth using.

Final Thoughts

Web analytics tools open up a whole new world of customer perspective. Even if it costs a bit every month, these tools make it easy to improve on your existing campaigns.

Author Bio: Callum Mundine is part of the marketing team at One Egg, adwords management agency based in Australia. He is an Amazon marketplace & white hat link building specialist, and has launched multiple successful brands on Amazon.com.