Web analytics, to put it in the nutshell, is drawing conclusions from analytical data and taking action based on those conclusions. It is thanks to web analytics that we know how to allocate marketing budgets to be spent as efficiently as possible, to maximize the return on investment in advertising. The process of analyzing web data is quite complicated, however, the first and perhaps most important element of this process is to collect an adequate amount of reliable and statistically significant data. In order for us to have credible, reliable data we need to use certain tools that will provide us with data and also collate this data in a form that allows us to analyze it. Analytical tools are an extremely important part of a properly implemented analytical process in organizations. This process is a key element in the success of any marketing campaign. There are many great tools on the market for measuring and analyzing web data. However, the vast majority of companies use a few of the most popular, as well as the best ones, which will be briefly described below:
Google Analytics
This is by far the best web analytics tool currently available on the market. This tool offers tremendous reporting and data presentation capabilities. Google Analytics was created in 2005 and the current version is the fourth iteration of this tool. Google in 2005 purchased another analytics tool Urchin, renamed it Google Analytics, and integrated it with its Google Ads advertising system. The tool was made available for free. Google Analytics comes in two versions: free and paid. However, the free version of GA is completely sufficient for most businesses. Only the largest companies use Google Analytics 360 – that is, the paid version of Google Analytics, which can cost up to $15 000 per year. Still the free version of GA has a broad functionality, which many times in other premium tools you need ns. Google Analytics uses advanced machine learning mechanisms to provide the most precise data for analysis.
Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is an alternative to Google Analytics. The tool was developed in 2012 as part of the cloud environment of the Adobe ecosystem. Adobe Analytics uses the analytics engine of another once-popular analytics tool – Omniture which was bought by Adobe in 2009. Adobe Analytics also uses Machine Learning oi AI mechanisms. The tool can be used as part of the Adobe Experience Cloud environment or as a separate service. Adobe, like Googl,e is changing its analytics tool to better accommodate data capture in an omnichannel world and increasing data protection restrictions.
There are many alternatives to tools like Google Analytics or Adobe Analytics, such as Piwik or Yandex Metrica (increasingly unpopular in the West due to the fact that it is a Russian tool), but they are significantly inferior to these two tools in their functionalities.
Adobe Analytics tool panel
SimilarWeb
SimilarWeb is a tool that is used to analyze web data, however, the principle of its operation is different from the two tools discussed earlier. Similarweb gathers information about performance, traffic and other aspects of a website from hundreds of different sources and combines them into a single data set. The tool is a very good complement to the data collected by Google Analytics and other such tools, as it gives a broader context to web analytics. It also takes into account the actions of competitors and current market trends in a given industry. For example, we have the ability to see how our site fits into current industry trends. The methodology of this tool is quite different from GA or Adobe Analytics, so this tool provides a different kind of data.
Other tools that work in a similar way to SimilarWeb are the very popular Semrush in the US, Ahrefs or Moz Pro.
Hotjar
Another group of tools are those used in User Experience, which study user behavior on websites. A representative of this type of tool is the HotJar platform. This tool combines various analytical tools and functions for tracking user activity, such as heatmaps and visitor recordings, in a single solution. Hotjar also uses polls, surveys and other methods to get feedback from users.
CrazyEgg
Crazy Egg is a web analysis tool. It has very similar functionality to Hotjar and is just as popular in the web analytics world. This tool helps optimize a website to make it more user-friendly, more engaging and more conversion-oriented. With CrazyEgg, we can track clicks, mouse movements and scrolling on our site. There are many other tools based on heat maps and user behavior. Other such tools include: CUX, Smartlook, Mouseflow.
Google Optimize
Google Optimize is currently a very popular tool for A/B testing. This tool is great for conducting website variation tests. Google Optimize allows us to test designs or page layouts and also new content on websites. With Google Optimize, we can test the versions of a site that are planned to be implemented and compare them with the current pages. Optimize monitors the results of the experiment and allows us to draw conclusions as to which variant is the most effective in terms of achieving our goals. Google Optimize, like Google Analytics, comes in two versions, a limited-free and a paid version (Google Optimize 360), with extended functionalities, however, for small and medium-sized businesses the free version is completely sufficient. Other popular tools with similar functionality to Google Optimize are: Optimizely, HubSpot’s A/B, Adobe Target, or A/B Smartly.
The above list presents only the most important and commonly used tools in web analytics. There are many more tools of this type, however, most analysts use some or several of the tools cited in the text, as they have very powerful functionalities and allow for very extensive and advanced analysis. However, we must remember that analytical tools are not the most important element of reliable and valuable data analysis that can be carried out by an experienced analytical team.
