If you have been running your site for awhile, then you know how important it is to track your visitors with some sort of web analytics. Knowing where your visitors are coming from, and what keywords are bringing yout the most traffic is essential to ensure a growing blog.
Google Analytics is the best known web analytics software out there. In the past, this is what I used on all my sites. It’s free and very powerful. However, I always felt it was lacking in many ways in terms of ease of use and displaying my data how I wanted to look at it.
I’ve also tested a few Google analytics alternatives like Piwik, Woopra and Mint, but when I came across Clicky several months ago, I fell in love right away. Not only does it address all the issues I had with Google Analytics, but it is a pleasure to use as well.
Creator: Roxr Software Ltd
Price: Free for 1 site. A Pro account is $9.99 a month for 10 sites.
Official Site: GetClicky.com
Below are the 7 reasons why I like Clicky better than Google Analytics.
1. Real-time Analytics
This is the biggie for me and I still don’t understand why Google Analytics hasn’t added this capability already. When I want to check my site’s stats, I want to know what’s going on today, not yesterday.
With Clicky, your stats are updated in real-time so you always know what’s going on with your site. If your site experiences a sudden spike in traffic, you’ll see it as it happens, and know where your visitors are coming from.
There’s even a Spy View, that gives you a cool little overview of the visitors that are currently on your site. Once you experience real-time stats tracking, you’ll never want to go back the old way of viewing your data.
2. No Footprint
When you stick your Google Analytics tracking code on your site, it includes your GA UA code. This identifier uniquely identifies your Google Analytics account and can be used by others to track down every other site you own that’s using Google Analytics as well. Take a look at reverseinternet.com and tell me if that doesn’t scare you a bit.
While Clicky does include an ID in its tracking code, it’s unique to a particular site. So there’s no footprint that links one of your sites to any other site in your account.
3. Better Interface
I really like the way Clicky is laid out. The account dashboard gives me a nice overview of all the sites in my account. When I drill down to a specific site, each site’s dashboard has all the information I want to see in one place.
You’ll find basic info like (number of visitors and average time per visit), the top incoming links, top pages, and top search keywords. What I like most is that Clicky compares your current day’s stats to those of the previous day at the same point in time. You’ll see this reflected in the graphs and values for each metric that gets displayed.
Another view that I find particularly useful is that I can click on a particular page of my site and see exactly what searches people are using to get to that page. This allows me to uncover new keywords to rank for as I’ll often see long tail keywords show up here that I had never even thought about before.
4. Full-Featured Mobile Version
Clicky has a really good mobile version of it’s site. There’s no app to download. Just visit http://i.getclicky.com and login. The mobile version is very slick and contains the full Clicky functionality (minus the graphs). This makes it simple to check your Clicky stats from your phone, no matter where you are.
5. Clicky API
Clicky includes a full featured Stats API that lets developers get access to all the available Clicky data in a wide variety of formats. While this might not interest the non-programmers out there, it does enable folks like Yoast to develop third party tools like the Clicky WordPress plugin.
Not only does the plugin make it easy to integrate Clicky tracking on your site, it has other cool features like naming your commentors in your Clicky reports.
6. Video Analytics
Got videos on your site? Clicky can capture analytics for those as well as it has built in support for Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler, and HTML5 video. This allows you to track things like the average time spent watching a video which lets you know at a glance how engaging your videos are.
7. Better Bounce Rate Metric
This is a controversial one. Most web analytics define bounce rate as the any visitors who visit one page of your site and leave. But is that really a good metric? The Clicky guys don’t think so. Instead they define a bounce to be one page view and the visitor stays less than 30 seconds on your site. I like their explanation and I agree that this is a better way to measure your bounce rate.
Final Thoughts
Are you happy with Google Analytics on your own sites? If not, I would seriously take a look at Clicky as a viable alternative.
I currently have a Pro account of Clicky, so I’ve installed it on my 10 most “important” sites, including this one. Some people may balk at the thought of paying for web analytics, but at $60 a year ($5/month), I think it’s a reasonable amount to pay for the data that it provides me.
Clicky also provides a wide variety of other plans, including a free plan where you can try it out on a single site. I would recommend doing that first to see if Clicky works for you.
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{ 26 comments… read them below or add one }
Really interesting review Chris. I’ve been using AWStats to track my visitors but I’ve found it to be horribly inaccurate.
You mentioned that you have installed Clicky on 10 of your most important sites. Do you use Google Analytics for everything else?
Actually I use Piwik for the rest of my sites. It’s self hosted so you have to install it on your own web host and it provides semi real-time stats. I don’t like the interface as much as Clicky though but it is free.
Thanks for the great review of our service! :D
I love Clicky as well! Having real-time traffic stats is so useful that I don’t see how I could live with out it now.
Kinley McFadden recently posted..Free Dating Sites vs Paid Dating Sites
Hey Chris,
Thank you for providing your readers with an honest an thorough review on Clicky. I have been using GA on all my accounts for a long time. Just today, I decided it was time to research the what analytics were better than GA.
After reading several review sites, you’re site was the most comprehensive and honest. I too build review sites and one thing that has made me successful with them is my pure honesty.
Another point you might want to make on your site (I guess I’m doing it here) is that a lot of people will be turned off by the $60/year fee for 10 sites. But when you average that out, you are only paying $.50/site/month. If you are not making enough money on your site to cover a measly $.50/mo. expense, than ditch the analytics for that site and load piwik. Simple as that.
Thanks again and I will be clicking through your link to try out Clicky and ultimately purchase. :-)
Awesome, thanks Brandon! I think you’re going to like Clicky quite a bit.
Great post Chris!
I’m also a huge fan of Clicky. I use it on my most important sites as well.
The fact that I can see in real time exactly what path a visitor takes on my site is huge.
Highly recommended!
Eric Transue recently posted..Internet Marketing With Kim Roach
I’ve been using Google Analytics for a while and I must say that I dislike it a bit.
Not only is it slow — but you’re giving Google (an ad-company) all the data! They will be having access to it, and who knows, maybe they’re using it to your disadvantage?
I’ll definitely try Clicky out. I hardly doubt all of my websites have a bounce rate of 60%+.
And oh — if I ever get the pro version of Clicky, you’ll be the one getting a commission! :)
Thanks for stopping by Nabil. I think you will definitely enjoy using Clicky. :)
I have heard of Woopra but not Clicky. Thanks for this review. Since you have tried all of them, can you make a comparison for all of them? I think that would make a great post. :)
Thanks for the suggestion. I’m not a big fan of Woopra, although I’ll admit I haven’t used it as much as some of the other analytics services.
GA now (finally) has real-time. Setting aside the privacy issues re the shared-across-sites GA tracking code (which I agree is unhelpful, but can be circumvented by having 1 Google account /site) – and that judicious use of filters in GA can define a bounce at whatever duration makes sense to you (for example I use 10 seconds) – are there any other compelling reasons for using GetClicky over GA? Particularly for those who are integrating it into WP (ie stats mainly viewed via plugin), and who maybe only have one or two sites rather than many? Interested to know your thoughts.
It’s a little hard for me to say since I haven’t been using Google Analytics for awhile now. I did just try looking at my Google Analytics account just now, and personally I found it a bit confusing to navigate around. But that could be just my inexperience with it showing…
I really do like the Clicky interface better though. Everything is laid out how I like it. Is that worth paying for? I personally think so, but I can see where others might feel differently. I just think it’s mostly a matter of personal preference.
I was searching today keywords getclicky vs google analytics and it brought me here :-)
I received from GA email about their new features. It`s funny because I was thinking to switch from Clicky to GA. I have been using GC for almost 1 years and I like it. As Chris said, their UI is very easy and straight forward. However, I wanted to cut some expenses ($60/year). I found that GA is still one big mess for me. Besides, GC prevent to show bots in your stats, while GA shows everything as it goes. At least this was before. I remember my excitement about many vistis to my sites when I used GA. Then when I switched to GC it was all gone :-(
This is when I realized this is the reality, not what I`ve seen before. I have renewal in December 24th and I think to stick with GC after all. I track my mobile websites and also normal ones. The price plays role too, so if I find that I`m close to 10 websites and it is close I will put only mobile ones to GA and the rest under GC. Another plus for GA is that many, many software use them. Even email marketing companies like Aweber and GetResponse integrate with GA. This also make me to switch to GA. I have time till December 23rd to think about it.
Hi! I recently started my website and I installed tracking of Google Analytics from the get go. But it definitely gets on my nerves.
In one plays it says visitors came from one country, in other it stantes another. Everything is extremely non-intuitive. It feels like thy could put all that data on one website (like Clicky does). Instead of that, it’s bloated out of proportions and spread without order and reason.
For that reason alone, I’m switching to Clicly. Its interface alone is what I’m looking for :) Thanks for the article!
Chris recently posted..People Aged 18-29 Surf the Web Cluelessly… Like… a Lot
Yeah, I went back to look at the new Google Analytics interface recently and found it confusing as well. I definitely still prefer Clicky. :)
I’ve had some problems with it since yesterday, as it messed my visits count. Got back to Google’s product but will try Clicky again soon. Btw. nice feature “x recently posted…”, blogger friendly :) Sorry for yesterday typos, I was in a hurry. Have a nice afternoon!
Chris recently posted..Marine Murder and Trial on Facebook
This is a great looking alternative. Going to have to give it a shot. thanks for sharing!
Hello Chris,
I heard about the new feature of GA which is the Real-Time Plugin but I haven’t tried it yet. I did not see from your comments that you have tried it too. Let us know what you think if have tried it. I have read some articles that also gives good reason to somehow try Clicky as an alternative analytics program for GA. And based on your data above I am interested in the No Footprint feature of Clicky and I think I will try it in one of my sites.
Thanks,
Gray
Online Opportunities recently posted..Google Analytics: Updated and Up to Date
Hi Gray. Yes GA now has real-time stats too, although I haven’t really played around with it much myself. It just seems like every time I look at GA, I find it to be overly complicated.
So I’m currently still a very happy Clicky user. :)
Hi Chris
I really like the real time results you get with clicky that is one of the best things I like about clicky. Also thanks for the information on GA I didn’t know someone could track every site your have with GA UA code on your sites.
Thanks
Anthony Johnson recently posted..Ultimate Demon | SEO Automation Link Building Software
Thanks for stopping by Anthony. I agree, I still love Clicky’s real-time tracking!
I’m going to try Clicky out as GA gets on my nerves, although it is a little better now the Google Webmaster tools have been integrated, though I dislike the new interface. I think I’ll try it out on my main site and see how we go…
Andy recently posted..What is Teleworking?
I think you will really love Clicky Andy. I already switched myself to the yearly plan.
Hi Chris
After reading this thread I have started using CLicky and all I can say is wow! Thanks for the recommendation. I can actually site there and watch what people do on my site and the path they take.
One major thing which I have found out is that many visitors are navigating from page to page but not as I thought through the sidebar but from the “next page” link at the bottom of the page, and my “next page” wasn’t monetized at all!
Only trouble is that Clicky could be very addictive….
Andy recently posted..30 Home Business Ideas
I wasn’t familiar with Clicky before. Thanks for the eye-opener!
April Storm recently posted..Defiance and Discipline: The Perils of Single Parenting