In a world of ever-evolving technology and new ways to grow a business, analytics tools have never been more important.
If you own a website or online business it is more than likely you already know how important analytics tools can be.
An analytics tool allows us to analyze website data to see how our website is performing and compare it to the competition.
Sophisticated analytics tools collect a vast amount of data including how many visitors come to your website, how long they are there, what they have looked at, and what percentage of them made a purchase.
After the data is generated we can make use of the valuable insights to help drive our business further.
This might all sound great, but to get the most out of an analytics tool you have to choose the right one.
Not every tool fits everyone’s needs and with so many to choose from things can get tricky.
To make things easier, we have done the hard part for you. We have compiled a list of the best analytics tools and even included a useful guide to help you choose.
Without further ado let’s dive into the list!
Google Analytics
The first analytics tool on our list is Google Analytics.
The Google Analytics tool is the most robust analytics platform in the world with over 30 million users currently using its software to improve their websites.
Easily the biggest analytics platform in the world, this tool offers free and paid features that let you effortlessly use the data they obtain to gain a deeper understanding of your customers and their different behaviors.
The beauty of Google Analytics is that it doesn’t matter what website you own.
Whether it be a travel blog or retail store, Google Analytics can provide a complete, comprehensive view of how your customers engage with your content.
The free plan is perfect for small and medium-sized businesses. It comes packed with neat features such as data analysis, reporting, data management, data collection, and much more.
Google’s paid package is called Google Analytics 360. This tool is perfect for larger businesses that want to use everything the platform has to offer.
With access to different levels of data manipulation and filtering such as segmentation and funnel analysis, this platform will help you get the best out of collected data.
Key Features
- Full performance insight.
- Data management.
- Data implementation.
- Comprehensive reports.
- Hassle-free integration.
- Organizational tools.
Pros
- Free tools – There are plenty of impressive tools that are free to use.
- Easily integrated – Google Analytics can be easily linked to your website.
- Suggested solutions – This tool shows you how to make improvements.
Cons
- Unwanted data – Google Analytics can occasionally collect data you don’t want or need.
Clicky
If you want an easy-to-use tool that packs a punch,
Clicky is a powerful website analytics tool that uses a simple, yet detailed user interface to present you with real-time data in regards to the activity on your website.
This analytics tool has been up and running for the last 13 years, helping business owners monitor online performance at any time.
Monitoring data in real-time gives users the opportunity to see how their site works at certain times throughout the day.
Clicky is usually described as the perfect user-friendly alternative to Google Analytics. This is because it has many of the same features but in a much clearer dashboard.
This could be good if you’re a beginner to data tracking tools who wants an easier way to track performance.
When we took a look at
Information such as the visitor’s location, where they were referred from, how much time they spent on each page, and what actions they carried out were all available in real-time.
Even better,
Available for free and paid, there is no reason you shouldn’t give
Key Features
- API (Provides easy extraction, analysis, and storage of website data).
- Bounce rate monitoring.
- Detailed content reports.
- Visitor heatmaps.
- Twitter analytics tool
Pros
- Clean interface – The dashboard on
Clicky is super easy to navigate and make sense of. - Detailed reports – You will receive detailed reports about each visitor and the most active pages on your website.
- Real-time data – Having access to real-time data gives you a better understanding of how your website is performing throughout the day.
Cons
- Not as many features – Suiting beginners and smaller businesses more,
Clicky doesn’t have as many features as Google Analytics.
Finteza
The next analytics tool on our list also provides website traffic data in real-time. Finteza, a cloud-based analytics tool provides its users with an all-in-one website traffic analytics solution.
It helps businesses improve their knowledge and understanding of how their customers behave and how they can control advertising campaigns more successfully.
Our favorite aspect of Finteza is how they tackle some of the biggest issues when it comes to web traffic analysis. An example of this can be seen in Finteza’s bot detector.
Finteza’s bot detector will automatically identify bad traffic, spam, and scammers to ensure that your performance data will only be real visitor information.
Using Finteza, users can easily access data and customize filters to see specific data they are looking for.
Users can customize conversion funnels to create funnels for any page, UTM tag, source, and much more.
These customizations allow users to then observe the detailed behavioral analysis of their audience at any time.
As if that wasn’t enough, Finteza also gives its users detailed reports on the different characteristics of their visitors, including, the device they use, provider, location, IP browser, and language.
Not using data sampling allows Finteza to do all of this with accurate results.
Key Features
- Extensive audience analysis.
- Detailed real-time reporting.
- No risk of bot traffic.
- Page analytics.
- Customized funnels.
Pros
- Customizable funnels – This helps to easily identify where improvements can be made.
- No bot traffic – Finteza’s protection systems prevent any bot traffic from being recorded as true data.
- Real-time data – Like
Clicky , Finteza provides its users with real-time data.
Cons
- No free plan – After a 30-day free trial, every customer has to pay to use Finteza.
Chartbeat
Chartbeat is an analytics tool that was designed with global publishers and other similar organizations in mind.
If that sounds like you, Chartbeat could be your best option.
Chartbeat allows organizations to create a network of loyal customers. It helps to do this by using real-time data and historical analysis coming from other platforms.
Using Chartbeat’s very stylish dashboard and interface, each user has access to high-quality reporting systems, optimization tools, and headline testing.
The data collected by Chartbeat will give you a better understanding of your business’s value.
It will also give you a good idea of what kinds of video and written content keep your reader interested.
When we took a look at Chartbeat, one thing we loved was the automated reports.
We don’t always have time to go online and look at what data has been collected, but with Chartbeat that doesn’t matter.
Automated reports with all the imported analysis we need are sent directly to our inbox on a daily basis.
This is excellent because it gives us a chance to look back at data when we have time.
The dashboard that displays all our important data in one convenient place is also a nice touch and one that saves us lots of time.
Key Features
- Real-time data.
- Historical data dashboard.
- Heads-up display.
- Automated reports.
- Headline testing.
Pros
- Great for publishers – This tool is designed specifically for publishers.
- Helps to make decisions – The detailed data provided by Chartbeat helps users to decide what to put online and when.
- An abundance of features – The vast amount of features on Chartbeat is brilliant.
Cons
- Pricing is given on request – Pricing for Chartbeat can only be found upon request.
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is an excellent choice if you simply want to monitor and measure your customer’s experience.
This incredibly useful tool measures user experiences, analyzes the data, and provides the website owner with important insights.
With those insights, businesses can put things in place to help increase customer retention.
In terms of how it can help you, this analytics tool will track all the information you need in regards to how your customers have interacted with your site and document any purchases they may have made.
From this Mixpanel displays all of the essential data on an easy-to-use platform so that you can gain a better understanding of the behaviors your customers are showing.
With this information, you can easily identify current trends and anywhere you may need to make improvements.
Mixpanel focuses on individual users.
It is an event-based model that connects a specific interaction to a particular user in order to let you target the individual with appropriate messages that will boost your website engagement.
Along with impressive analytics, Mixpanel allows users to observe simple yet amazingly extensive reports on traffic.
From this traffic, users can build funnels, cohorts and so much more.
Key Features
- Prediction of user actions.
- Testing and messaging.
- Real-time data.
- Easy integration.
- Behavioral analytics.
Pros
- Free trial – Mixpanel offers a wide range of useful tools that you can access on a free trial.
- Customizable plan – You can customize your own plan to suit your budget and requirements.
- Powerful tracking tools – This analytics tool tracks an impressive amount of user data.
Cons
- No free plan – In the long term you will have to pay for Mixpanel, and in all honesty, it is quite pricey.
Choosing The Best Analytics Tool
With so many analytics tools to choose from, making your final decision can be hard.
To make things a little easier for you, below you will find some of the things to consider before using an analytics tool.
Your Needs And Requirements
When it comes to choosing an analytics tool by far the most important thing to consider is what you need.
The first thing you need to think about is what kind of data you need or want to track.
If you already have a good understanding of what data you need to track, then that’s great. If not, you need to take some time to think about what your website does.
If your website is designed to sell goods then you will need to think about what you need to know.
This could be what sells best, what your customers are looking at, or which product is sold the most, so clearly, you need an analytics tool that tracks this sort of data.
On the other hand, if your website makes money from advertising, you need an analytics tool that lets you track ad data.
This could be how many clicks the ad has, where the clicks are coming from, and whether or not it resulted in any purchases.
The Number Of Features
When deciding which analytics tool to use, it is important to think about how many features the tool has.
Generally, the analytics tool with the most features is the best. However, it may also be the most expensive.
While the tool with the most features may be the best for most people, it is also crucial that those features are suited to your needs.
An analytics tool may have hundreds of features but if it doesn’t have the one you need for your current project it won’t help you.
We recommend that you create a list of features that you think will be essential to you.
From your list, you can then start looking for a tool that has what you need. Doing this may also save you some money.
Budget
You will already be fully aware of how pricey things can get when running a website or online business.
Budgeting is vital when it comes to ensuring your business has the capability to run smoothly and also make a profit.
As a result of this, a lot of businesses don’t budget in the cost of an analytics tool. However, analytics tools are essential to increasing conversion rates.
To ensure you budget correctly when adding in the cost of an analytics tool you should ensure the tool you use can be afforded now and in the future.
If you use a free tool for 3 months and then it becomes $80 every month after that, make sure you can afford it.
With this in mind, only look for tools you know you can afford in the long term. It is worth noting this may impact the amount of features you can access.
Mobile Friendly
Despite the growing use of smartphones, not all analytics tools are capable of monitoring mobile devices.
This will impact you massively if your website relies on traffic from both desktop and mobile devices.
If you require data from mobile devices too, it is absolutely key that you find a tool that monitors both types of devices.
Luckily for you, every analytics tool on our list tracks desktop and mobile website data.
In our opinion, even if you think your website doesn’t rely on mobile visitors, you should still consider a tool that does both.
Mobile devices are used more and more all the time so you might be surprised as to how many of your customers actually use their phones to visit your website.
Frequently Asked Questions
How Hard Is It To Set Up Google Analytics?
Google Analytics is pretty straightforward to set up. It won’t take you that long at all. To set Google Analytics up you first need to register for a free account.
Once this is done you need to select the website you want to track. At this stage, you can choose the filters you want to apply to the data Google Analytics will collect.
Finally, add the tracking code Google Analytics has given you to your website so that Google can start tracking.
Which Analytics Tool Is The Most Popular?
Google Analytics is by far the most popular and biggest web analytics platform.
Used by over 30 million users from all over the world, the reason for Google Analytics’ huge popularity is its powerful tools and free plan.
The vast amount of tools available for free helps millions of businesses grow every year.
How Does An Analytics Tool Work?
The way in which an analytics tool works varies. Having said that, most tools tend to use the same process.
Most analytics tools ‘tag’ their web pages by placing a snippet of JavaScript in the users web page.
Don’t worry this snippet is inserted into the code of the page so it can’t be seen. It also doesn’t cause any issues to the page.
Using the tag, the tool will then count each time the page gets a visitor as well as other types of data, including bounce rate and link clicks.
Final Thoughts
Understanding your customer’s behavior and any needs they may have is crucial when it comes to improving and growing your business, especially when it is online.
Understanding how well your website performs and what changes you can make will turn the one-time visitors into long-term loyal customers.
Website analytics tools will help you maximize your website’s potential. By understanding what works well and what doesn’t, you can make positive changes before seeing how they work.
As you can see from our list, analytics tools do vary, but most offer the basic or advanced tools you need to grow.
The tools we have discussed all sit at the top of the analytics market, with each one offering excellent features to use.
We are sure that whichever one you choose to use will give you a completely new perspective of how your customers use your website.
Now you just need to narrow down our list and get started with your analytics journey.
