Google Analytics is one of the industry’s most popular web analytic
tools in today’s market place. However,
it’s not the only solution available and certainly is not the perfect solution
for everyone. Therefore, in today’s blog
post we will be reviewing both the Google Analytics and KISSMetrics’ web analytics
solutions as well as comparing and contrasting both platforms.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service that provides
statistics and basic analytic tools for search engine optimization and
marketing purposes. Google Analytics is
a free service to anyone with a Google account and is the most widely used web analytics
service on the internet. (Rouse, n.d.) . It’s important to note that Google Analytics
also has a Premium version that provides higher data limits, more custom
variables, a service level agreement, and dedicated support team. Pricing starts at $150,000/year. Premium versions are only recommended for
extremely popular websites. (Actual Metrics, n.d.) .
Google Analytics provides marketers with a wealth of
information. By utilizing Google
Analytics, marketers an determine;
·
How many people visited your site recently and
if they are unique or repeat visitors
·
How often repeat visitors come to your site
·
How visitors are getting to your site, whether
its referrals, ads, direct traffic, links, or email
·
What sites are referring traffic to your website
·
Where the people who are viewing your website
are located geographically (by country)
·
How your site is faring on social networks
·
Your bounce rate or in other words, the number
of visitors that are leaving your site without viewing any additional pages
·
The average time someone spends viewing your
site
·
The kind of browsers viewers are using to get to
your site
Google Analytic users can also set up goals, events, and
other customer reports to get a more accurate or in-depth picture of the goals
or metrics that they are trying to track.
However, with so many reporting capabilities available, it’s recommended
that marketers don’t overwhelm themselves with reporting goals. Instead, they should align their tracking
goals with their brand, organization, or departmental goals. A golden rule of thumb to determine if a
report is worth your time is to figure out how you will use the
information. If the report won’t
directly affect your business, it’s probably a waste of time and left
alone. In other words, if you don’t use
it – lose it!
Another perk of utilizing Google Analytics is its ability to
link with your Google AdWords account to help you analyze customer activity on
your website after an ad click of impression.
Marketers find this feature extremely useful because they can import
Google Analytic goals and transactions into AdWords as conversions, view Google
Analytics site engagement data in AdWords, create remarketing lists in Google Analytics
to use in AdWords that will allow them to target specific audiences, and
automatically view AdWords click, cost, and engagement in Google Analytics. (Google, n.d.) .
KISSMetrics
KISSMetrics takes a different approach to web
analytics. While Google Analytics emphasizes
things like page views, referrals, and search analytics, KISSMetrics focuses
more on monitoring each visitor as a customer and shows how a person views and
uses your website as well as how much revenue each visitor brings to your site.
(Angeles, 2014) .
KISSMetrics has 3 tiered pricing plans that cost users between $150 and
$500 a month. (Chau, 2009) .
KISSMetrics is a paid analytics platform that is primarily aimed
at helping small and medium size businesses make better decisions and increase their
sales as online retailers. According to
Sara Angeles from Business News Daily, KISSMetrics lets you go back in time and
track customers from their first visit to your website and all the actions they
take thereafter. You can learn how they
were referred to your website, the products they viewed and added to their wish
list or shopping cart, when they registered for an account, and if and when
they made a purchase.
This type of data is extremely valuable when helping
marketers learn how they can influence customer’s purchasing decisions and what
type of call-to-actions drive conversion for customers who have not yet made a
purchase.
In addition, users will notice major differences between
KISSMetrics and Google Analytics. Some
of these metrics include historical data, multiplatform tracking, revenue
analytics, and events.
- Historical data. Unlike Google Analytics, KISSMetrics is designed to help marketers with an e-commerce site figure out what works and what doesn’t. As stated above, KISSMetrics allows marketers to go back to the first time a visitor ever came to the website and follow their buying process from start to finish.
- Multiplatform tracking. KISSMetrics also allows marketers to track visitors regardless of what device they use. Instead of segmenting visitors by their visit, KISSMetrics maintains a customer profile for each individual visitor. This record will remain in place no matter how frequent or infrequently the visitor comes to the e-commerce site.
- Revenue Analytics. KISSMetrics tells marketers where their high-revenue customers are coming from so they can drive more profitable customers to their website. The referral revenue feature is somewhat like Google Analytics in the sense that it can tell whether the source is coming from direct visits, Google Searches, social networks, or other traffic sources. The difference is that KISSMetrics reports include the total revenue per referrer, average revenue per person, and the lifetime value of each referrer.
- Events. An event is a user interaction or user activity
that a marketer wants to record. An
event can be something as simple as putting something in a shopping cart or
event watching a video. Events in
KISSMetrics is very similar to the events you find in Google Analytics. The main difference is that KISSMetrics will
only report the events you set up and asked to be alerted about.
As mentioned above, KISSMetrics was developed for and works
best on e-commerce sites. KISSMetrics
would not be the type of web-tracking tool you will want to use on something
like a marketing blog.
References
Actual Metrics. (n.d.). Google Analytics Pricing.
Retrieved from ActualMetrics:
http://www.actualmetrics.com/google-analytics-price/
Angeles, S. (2014, March 19). 3 Google Analytics
Alternatives (and Why You Should Use Them). Retrieved from Business News
Daily:
http://www.businessnewsdaily.com/6090-google-analytics-alternatives.html
Chau, R. (2009, January 01). Basics of
KISSMetrics. Retrieved from Why Measure That:
http://www.whymeasurethat.com/2014/01/09/basics-of-kissmetrics/
Google. (n.d.). Link Google Analytics and AdWords.
Retrieved from Google:
https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704341?hl=en
Rouse, M. (n.d.). Google Analytics Definition.
Retrieved from Search Business Analytics: http://searchbusinessanalytics.techtarget.com/definition/Google-Analytics
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