In my previous post, I emphasized on the need for web analytics and how beneficial it would be for website or online business owners. In this article, we’ll focus on a few web analytics platforms that can help us collect data about visitors to our websites.
There are quite a number of web analytics tools that are available in the industry at the moment. The choice will depend on what you are looking to achieve, and perhaps your budget.
The most important thing you need to know before starting or attempting to use any analytics program is to determine what you need it to do, and use this knowledge to choose the most relevant one.
“The most important thing is to make sure that you do understand the particular gaping holes present in your current reporting system, and that these holes can be filled with the added features or functionality in the tool you are looking at”
With more than 20 analytics tools available so far, we will exhaustively look into each one of them over time, and pit them against one another, highlighting the flaws and benefits of using either of them.
Before we get there, however, how about we shed more light on a few questions you need to ask yourself, to help you choose a good analytics tool, right here:
- Why do I need a new or a different tool?
- What kind of information do I need to pull from this tool?
- What are the actions that will be driven by the data I have?
- How will the data I receive influence the decisions and actions that I make?
If you are ever considering any tools, additional features available should enhance your reporting and decision-making and in the long run, drive more revenue for your online business.
Top web analytics tools
The following are some of the tools that are currently being used by webmasters. We will be looking deeper into their functionality and features over the coming weeks:
- Google Analytics
- Adobe Digital Marketing Suite
- IBM Digital Analytics
- IBM Unice NetInsight
- iPerceptions
- Web Trends
- Mint
- Reinvigorate
- Mix Panel
- KISSmetrics
- Fox Metrics
- Site Spect
- Woopra
- Funnel Analytics
- Autonomy
- AT Internet
- Piwik