Alternatives to Google Analytics: Low-Cost Web Analytics Solutions

Published May 9th, 2009 by Adam Ware Analytics, Ecommerce No Comments »

When I discuss web analytics options with most marketers, I find the common perception is that there are generally two options: Google Analytics, or a paid solution. Usually the paid solutions considered include Omniture, WebTrends, and Coremetrics; not necessarily all three, but one or some of those. Now, obviously I have spoken with plenty of people that are aware of the other low-cost or free options available, and many that know of the other middle-tier solutions like ClickTracks, Unica, and Fireclick, but the “main-stream” seems limited in their understanding of what else is available in-between. I’ll touch on a few that I think offer quite a bit of value, and may offer your organization a way to get more complete analytics reporting, for far less than the cost of the premium offerings. I know most analytics consultants agree that fantastic data can come out of any solid platform, and the real value comes from how that data is analyzed and acted upon; if you aren’t employing someone to derive that value, then you might as well have Google Analytics running on auto-pilot.

Yahoo! Web Analytics

Yahoo! Web Analytics is the platform formerly known as IndexTools. About 6 months before Yahoo! purchased IndexTools, I conducted a relatively thrurough analysis of available platforms for a client, and we grouped IndexTools with HitBox, as solutions offering less capabilities than an Omniture or Coremetrics, at about 50-75% the cost of those solutions. Yahoo! has finally released the solution for Yahoo! Merchants If you run an ecommerce site, and you aren’t satisified with the merchandising reporting that you get from Google Analytics, I highly recommend you try out this solution for free, or a low-cost, in the next few months. It will enable you to establish relatively robust reporting on your ecommerce catalog. Merchandising aside, the solution has several other cool features, including enhanced demographic reporting, rich custom reporting, real-time analysis on certain metrics, and integration with the 3 major PPC platforms (AdWords, Yahoo!, and MSN).

Mint

I’m including Mint because it is the best low-cost installed analytics platform, it is not a hosted solution. There are many reasons not to use an installed solution, and some Mint users have voiced complaints about the resources consumed by having thier analytics data stored and analyzed on their web servers. However, for many intranet sites, installed solutions are often the only option, and most options are antiquated, expensive, or rigid and bland with their reporting. Mint allows you to customize your reporting with an abundance of “Pepper”, the Mint term for plugins. Beyond intranets, another major benefit of using an install like Mint is complete control of your data.

Woopra

Woopra is new, in beta, and it’s cost is yet to be determined. But I’m guessing it will be between $50 and $100 a month for the premium level. Currently, beta testing is limited to sites with less than 10,000 page views per day. If real-time analysis is important to you, you will love Woopra. The data is hosted and analyzed by Woopra, but a reporting application is installed locally on your machine. The interface is clean and dynamic, and switching between reports is very fast. Woopra has generated a lot of buzz with the WordPress community, and integrates well with the popular CMS. One fantastic feature is it’s tracking of your registered, or commenting, visitors. If you’re running a WordPress site, even if it’s just the blog portion of your organization’s site, Woopra is great to run in parallel with your main analytics platform.

I’ve left some other great solutions out of this conversation, like local favorite Clicky. The three that I’ve highlighted are excellent solutions for certain needs. Analytics platforms never seem to suit syour needs completely, so with the low-cost of these offerings, it’s great to run two solution togther. If you’re running Google Analytics on your ecommerce site, you might also consider Yahoo! to compliment that data. If you’re running Omniture on your brand site, and you have blog or forums running on WordPress, you might benefit from having Woopra on those portions of your site. Be open-minded about what is available, and don’t be afraid to add another set of tags to your site.