Website Analytics Tools Shortlist
Here’s the list of the best tools that I’ll cover in this article:
- 2. Google Analytics — Identify your best-performing channels and learn what your visitors do on your website
Website analytics tools enable us to understand what’s happening with our websites. They provide insights into how our audience interacts with our content, and reveal improvement or optimization opportunities.
Digital marketers rely on data to develop successful marketing campaigns. And analytics tools provide the data they use to tailor their marketing efforts to a brand’s target audience.
Read my review to discover the best website analytics tools you can use to track visitor stats in 2023. The review includes a short description and screenshot of every tool that made the list, and a brief comparison chart so you determine which tool could help you run your website.
What is Website Analytics Software?
Website analytics software is a branch of customer intelligence software. Website analytics software is a tool that tracks and analyzes website traffic, user behavior, and other metrics related to website performance. This software collects data on website visitors, such as their geographic location, device type, pages visited, and length of time spent on the site. Website analytics software also provides insights into user engagement, such as bounce rate, conversion rate, and click-through rate, which can help businesses optimize their websites for better user experiences and conversions.
Comparison Criteria
What do I look for when I select the best website analytics software? Here’s a summary of my evaluation criteria:
- User Interface (UI): I look for tools that have a clean and straightforward interface, so you don’t have to waste time trying to find the right functionalities and reports.
- Usability: I look for analytics tools that are friendly toward novice and intermediate users. You should be able to use the solution’s basic visitor tracking functions after a short onboarding or training period.
- Integrations: I look for solutions that integrate with other software in your web development or marketing stacks, such as website builders, social media analytics solutions, SEO platforms, user experience software, or advertising solutions.
- Value for $: I look for web analytics tools that enable you to track all the stats you need to achieve your business objectives. This should help you create detailed strategies to reach those objectives, so you would get a great return on your investment.
Website Analytics Key Features
- Performance insight: The tool should allow you to track multiple variables and offer detailed insights into your website’s performance.
- Data filtering and manipulation: The solution should enable you to filter out unnecessary data, such as the data you and your team generate, so it won’t interfere with your results. It should also enable you to manipulate the data so you can visualize and segment it.
- Reporting: The software should have strong reporting features, so you can generate reports on how your customers interact with your website and present them to management, shareholders, or clients.
- Real-time analytics: The tool should track your visitors’ activity in real-time, so you can immediately spot any behavioral changes when you update your website.
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Overviews Of The 10 Best Website Analytics Tools
Here’s a brief description of each website analytics platform to showcase each tool’s best use case, some noteworthy features, and screenshots to give a snapshot of the user interface.
Mouseflow
See and record how your users interact with your website
Mouseflow is a behavior analytics tool that creates a visual map of the actions your website visitors take, so you can gain a better understanding of user behavior. The solution is easy to use and it enables you to identify weak conversion points and improvement opportunities.
One of the great things about using this software is that it’s built around strong privacy principles. Another one is that it enables you to target your session recordings very narrowly, based on multiple variables, such as traffic source, or previous behavior. This helps you keep the number of recording sessions down, which, in turn, allows you to subscribe to a more affordable pricing plan.
Mouseflow integrates with multiple solutions, including Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, Segment, HubSpot, WordPress, Wix, Kiss metrics, Shopify, and Unbounce.
Mouseflow costs from $39/month (unlimited users). The platform offers a free trial for 14 days.
The solution also offers a free-forever version with limited functionalities.
Google Analytics
Identify your best-performing channels and learn what your visitors do on your website
Google Analytics is the Michael Phelps or Usain Bolt of web analytics. It’s the O.G., the superstar. When you mention web analytics in random conversations, people automatically think of Google Analytics. Google Analytics is a great free analytics software that excels at helping you determine who your audience is, the path your audience takes to land on your website, and what their behavior looks like when they get there.
Google Analytics has a steep learning curve, but Google offers free training courses you can complete in your own time to learn how to get the most out of this solution. You can also find detailed answers to any question you may have about this software on forums or YouTube.
Google Analytics integrates with a large variety of apps, including all the Google Webmaster Tools, Google Search Console, Google Ads, Google Optimize, Google Data Studio, WordPress, Shopify, Marketo, and CRMs.
Google Analytics offers two plans: a free-forever plan and Analytics 360. Analytics 360 starts at $12,500 per month and provides more integrations – including a BigQuery integration – custom variables, and dedicated support.
FullStory
Track interactions and recreate the journey your prospects take to become users
Fullstory is a website and mobile app analytics software that helps businesses get an overview of how well their solution is performing in real-time. The platform is great at allowing you to identify the problems your visitors encounter on your website or app, so you can use it in A/B tests with great results.
The highlight of using Fullstory is its ability to track interactions. This helps you understand where your ideal clients come from, identify the pages they land on and the steps they take to contact you.
Fullstory integrates with a lot of apps, including Magento, Drift, BigQuery, BigCommerce, Chameleon, and Qualtrics.
Fullstory offers custom pricing upon demand. You can access a free 14-day trial.
Hotjar
Discover how users interact with different page elements
Hotjar is a product and website analytics software that helps you understand how your website visitors interact with specific website pages. The solution creates interactive heatmaps that allow you to identify conversion killers and replace them with optimized elements.
One of the highlights of using this solution is its ability to perform screen recordings that are GDPR compliant. The screen recordings allow you to see how your visitors interact with different elements of the page, which can be a huge asset when running A/B tests.
Hotjar integrates with a variety of tools, including Slack, Google Optimize, WordPress, Zapier, ClickFunnels, and Optimizely.
Hotjar costs from $31/100 daily sessions/month. The software offers a free-forever version with limited capabilities.
Clearbit
Learn more about your prospects by combining data from multiple sources
Clearbit is a web analytics software that helps B2B companies and marketing agencies learn more about their prospects and obtain accurate contact data. The solution has a simple interface and it’s easy to set up, so your team should be able to learn how to use it with minimal training.
Clearbit is not a Google Analytics alternative. It’s a data analytics solution that combines all the information you collect with other tools and uses it to create and attach detailed contact fields to your prospects. One of the good things about this platform is that it enhances the quality of data you collect.
You can use advanced filters to enrich your contact fields with business emails, phone numbers, and other information, such as business size or the prospect’s recent funding.
Clearbit integrates with dozens of solutions, including Gmail, Pardot, Segment, Marketo, Slack, HubSpot, Salesforce, and Zapier.
Clearbit offers custom pricing upon request.
Pendo
Collect and track data for product roadmaps
Pendo is a product experience and web analytics platform that helps product teams understand how their users find their solutions and map out user journeys. The solution has a clean layout that’s fairly easy to navigate.
Pendo’s product analytics offer valuable insights into the behavior of your users. This helps you determine whether a website visitor can find what they’re looking for or if you should improve your customer journey to improve accessibility.
Pendo integrates with multiple solutions, including HubSpot, Jira, Salesforce, Zendesk, Twilio, Figma, and Drift. Pendo offers customized pricing upon request.
The platform offers a free-forever version for one web app key and up to 1,000 monthly active users.
Screpy
Monitor your website performance and your SEO efforts with a single tool
Screpy is a SEO monitoring and web analytics tool that’s specially designed to help you rank well in search engines. The platform has a simple interface that’s easy to navigate, so you don’t need to be tech-savvy in order to use it.
Screpy stands out from its competition thanks to its intuitive AI system. The AI monitors your marketing efforts and sends you custom notifications when it detects areas you could improve. The AI is also helpful for novice users, as it creates step-by-step tasks you could complete to improve your website’s search engine ranking.
Screpy does not offer any API access plans at the moment. Screpy costs from $2.5/month. You can access a free 7-day trial.
Heap
Present your visitor analytics in neat reports
Heap is a website analytics tool that can help you discover insights into your visitors’ digital journey. The software has a nice interface that allows you to switch views and examine different metrics of your website traffic with ease.
Heap’s dashboard makes it the best web analytics tool for marketing teams that need to present their efforts to management or clients. The dashboard compiles all your data in neat reports that are easy to understand, allowing you to focus on telling your story.
Heap integrates with multiple tools, including Segment, Salesforce, Walkme, Optimizely, and Shopify.
Pricing details for Heap are available upon request. The software offers a free-forever version with limited capabilities, as well as a 14-day free trial.
SAP Analytics Cloud
Make informed decisions with predictive analytics
SAP Analytics is a web analytics tool that collects your data, segments it, and provides a detailed analysis so you can make informed decisions. The software offers great predictive analytics features, allowing you to create analytical applications from the ground up.
The best thing about using this solution is its ability to simulate scenarios so you can create plans based on predictions. This can help you leverage data in your decision making process and be prepared for whatever comes next.
SAP Analytics Cloud offers costs from $36/user/month. The platform offers a free trial for up to 90 days.
Funnel
Track marketing data from dozens of apps and save time with automatic reporting
Funnel is a marketing analytics tool that gives you a bird’s-eye-view of your marketing efforts. The software collects all your marketing data in one place and enables you to create comprehensive reports on multiple channels from a central location. Funnel has a bit of a learning curve, but the support you get through the onboarding process is great.
The platform combines the data from multiple sources into a centralized location, so you can slice and dice it in any way you see fit. The highlight of using this app is that it enables you to switch from manual to automatic reporting. For a marketing agency, this switch represents huge potential time savings.
Funnel integrates with dozens of solutions, including Google Analytics, LinkedIn, Twitter, HubSpot, Google Ad, Instagram, Mailchimp, Stripe, Shopify, and Salesforce. Funnel costs from $399/5 users/month.
You can book a free demo.
The Best Website Analytics Tools Summary Table
| Tool | Free Option | Price | ||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mouseflow See and record how your users interact with your website | 14-day free trial + freemium plan available | Plans start at $39/month | Visit Website |
| 2 | Google Analytics Identify your best-performing channels and learn what your visitors do on your website | Not available | From $12,500/month | Visit Website |
| 3 | FullStory Track interactions and recreate the journey your prospects take to become users | 14-day free trial available | Plans start at $299/month | Visit Website |
| 4 | Hotjar Discover how users interact with different page elements | 15-day free trial available | Plans start at $39/user/month | Visit Website |
| 5 | Clearbit Learn more about your prospects by combining data from multiple sources | Not available | Pricing Upon Request | Visit Website |
| 6 | Pendo Collect and track data for product roadmaps | Free version available | From $7,000/year | Visit Website |
| 7 | Screpy Monitor your website performance and your SEO efforts with a single tool | 7 Days Free Trial | From $2.5/month | Visit Website |
| 8 | Heap Present your visitor analytics in neat reports | 14-day free trial + free demo | Pricing upon request | Visit Website |
| 9 | SAP Analytics Cloud Make informed decisions with predictive analytics | 90-day free trial | From $36/user/month | Visit Website |
| 10 |  Funnel Track marketing data from dozens of apps and save time with automatic reporting | Free trial available | $399/month/account | Visit Website |
Other Web Analytics Tools Options
Here are a few more website analytics systems that didn’t make the top list.
- Leadfeeder - Web analytics and lead generation tool that helps you identify where your website visitors work.
- Datadog - Analytics platform that allows you to observe what your visitors do in real-time.
- New Relic One - Analytics tool that helps you track your visitors’ actions and make better business decisions.
- Dreamdata - Web analytics software and customer intelligence platform that gives you insight into the customer journey of B2B clients.
- LogRocket - Analytics and performance monitoring tool that helps you identify conversion-stopping elements so you can replace them.
- Lucky Orange - Web analytics and conversion rate optimization tool that helps you understand how your visitors interact with your pages so you can improve them.
- Indicative - Product and web analytics platform that helps growth teams track interactions so they can improve retention and increase conversions.
- SegMetrics - Analytics and revenue attribution software that enables you to understand the value of each of your funnels.
- Pipedrive - Web analytics and consumer relationship management tool that allows you to segment your visitors and turn them into leads.
- ClickStory - Web analytics solution that helps businesses track and analyze user behavior data.
- TapClicks Smart Marketing Cloud - Digital marketing and web analytics platform that consolidates your data into a single dashboard and gives insights into your visitors’ behavior.
- Marketing Optimizer - Marketing optimization and analytics software that helps you improve the performance of your marketing campaigns.
Improve Your Marketing Efforts With Website Analytics Tools
Managing a website without an analytics tool is similar to driving a car without a dashboard. You don’t know how fast you are going, you don’t know if your engine needs service, and you can’t determine whether you have enough gas to reach your destination or not.
Analytics tools help you understand how your visitor use your website, so you can make decisions that improve your conversion rates. And data analytics can help you gain support for your vision. As Jan Hammond, Harvard Business School Professor, said:
“Using data analytics is a very effective way to have influence in an organization.[…] If you’re able to go into a meeting and other people have opinions, but you have data to support your arguments and your recommendations, you’re going to be influential.”
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