Google Analytics may be the de facto standard for web analytics analysis these days, but did you know that there are a whole host of alternative products out there that are just as useful? Some of them are dashboards that aggregate multiple sources of analytics, others are meant to be used in addition to Google Analytics, and some even go the extra mile to provide really cool features that Google Analytics lacks.

Today we’re highlighting five of our favorite analytics apps that aren’t Google Analytics:

BringShare

BringShare combines multiple sources of analytics into one, single dashboard, with the goal of reducing or eliminating the need to run, aggregate and combine reports from different platforms.

These are the platforms BringShare currently supports: Google Analytics, Google AdWords, Constant Contact, Mail Chimp, Facebook, and Twitter.

We’ve evaluated BringShare and found it to be a really well-designed dashboard that brings together a lot of the information marketers need to look at on a regular basis in an affordable, easy-to-use product.

Crazy Egg

We’re a big fan of the “In Page Analytics” feature of Google Analytics that shows an overlay of click percentages on top your website, so you can easily see the click activity “hot spots” (and weak spots). That’s why we were really impressed by Crazy Egg, which beats Google’s act by miles. It’s an app that lets you “visualize your visitors” by generating visual heat maps of your website’s visitor activity.

Crazy Egg’s flagship product is Heatmap, which displays a beautiful-looking overlay on top your website pages that shows where site visitors click most often (see above image). In addition to Heatmap, Crazy Egg also offers Scrollmap, which shows how far down the page visitors are scrolling; Overlay, which is very similar to Google’s aforementioned In-Page Analytics; and Confetti, which segments your sites’s click activity by referral source so that you can more easily distinguish your most valuable site traffic. We liked Crazy Egg’s easy implementation, minimal setup steps and the fact that it’s reasonably affordable. It’s an especially valuable tool for web designers and advertisers.

Kissmetrics

Kissmetrics is a robust analytics platform that focuses primarily on increasing conversions and improving customer retention. It has a lot of great features that you just won’t find in Google Analytics, such as real-time activity summaries for website visitors, live debugging and funnel creation, and support for A/B testing.

Also, as Kissmetrics points out on its blog, it’s worth noting that Google Analytics does have its weak points. For example, hidden keyword referral data (thanks to Google’s encrypted search), direct traffic that appears to be missing, and lack of correlation between Google’s data and external social analytics from tools like bit.ly and HootSuite.

Bango

While Google Analytics can certainly track and segment mobile traffic, it cannot, however, track activity inside of a mobile app. Bango is an analytics platform that caters exclusively to mobile analytics, including mobile apps and mobile websites.

It enables you to track visitor activity within your mobile apps and get full app usage details, such as when users start and stop the app, session length, etc. You can also set up custom app events that can bet triggered for certain sections, pages, and videos within your app or site.

HootSuite Social Analytics

For brands who engage in social media on a regular basis, specialized social analytics have become just as important as web analytics.

If you’re using HootSuite as an all-in-one social media dashboard to manage your Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn accounts, you should consider adding HootSuite Social Analytics to your routine-it’s free for HootSuite Pro users. It will enable you to track the results of your social media campaigns, monitor brand keywords and sentiment, track Twitter and Facebook follower growth, and build shareable reports to keep your marketing team in the loop.

Comments(1)

1 Comment »

1. Thanks for mentioning us! It’s very rewarding to hear positive feedback from people like you. All the best!

   Justin
   Cofounder @ BringShare

     Comment by Justin — April 8, 2012 @ 1:21 pm

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