Now that you are online and your company has a great website, what comes next? If you really want to maximize the impact of your website and make sure it was worth your investment, you need to track and analyze your online efforts using web analytics.
How these tools help you?
Web analytics software and social media monitoring tools help you avoid getting lost in data. The key is to set clear goals, isolate which metrics matter to your company and find the tools that will present that information to you simply.
For instance, web analytics applications can help you:
- target your marketing initiatives
- track the success of your search engine optimization efforts
- understand your website visitor experience
- learn what keywords bring in the best prospects
- improve your sales conversion and
- identify trends and improve website usability to maximize your website’s return on investment.
How do web analytics work?
Web analytics applications provide information about visitors to a website. By monitoring statistics such as visitor referrals, navigation paths, page views and geographic location data, you can learn about your visitors. For instance, you can learn whether they came to your website via search engines, ads, e-mails, blogs or affiliates.
The following review focuses on web analytics tools, but keep in mind that these tools are also increasingly incorporating social media monitoring tools. If you prefer to use standalone solutions to keep track of your social engagement, you may want to check our list of free and low-cost social media monitoring tools.
Free and low-cost web analytics tools
There are many tools for tracking your company’s success online. If you are just getting started, you may want to consider the following. (SaaS refers to “software as a service.”)
Revised April 2021
Crazy Egg
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada Cloud or SaaS
Crazy Egg is a paid service that graphically presents visitor click activity in several formats (heatmap, scrollmap, overlay and confetti) to help you make redesign decisions. Heatmaps are very useful to identify what visitors are interested in by showing you where people are clicking the most. Crazy Egg’s recording tool allows you to watch visitors to your site navigate through pages. You can then use their A/B testing tool to create variations of your site and improve your conversions. A free 30-day trial is available for all plans.
Google Analytics Solutions
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada Cloud or SaaS
Google Analytics is free for any site with fewer than 10 million hits per month. It requires you to create an account and install a tracking code either manually or with a plugin. You will then be able to access basic data, such as which searches are bringing people to your site, and the demographics and interests of your visitors. These data can help you decide which pages to improve and how to optimize their performance. Also, the new Google Analytics App + Web properties allows you to consolidate data from websites and mobile apps in a single set of reports. Google Academy, an online learning platform, can help you learn more about analytics.
Lucky Orange
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada Cloud or SaaS
Lucky Orange provides some of the same features as web analytics tools but focuses on conversion rate optimization. The real-time dashboard shows you which sources drove the most conversions. It also provides dynamic heatmaps and session recordings to help you analyze why your website visitors are not converting. Pricing is based on the number of sites and page views.
Mixpanel
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada Cloud or SaaS
Mixpanel provides real-time, event-based analytics for iOS and Android mobile apps and web platforms. While many tools focus on page views, Mixpanel measures meaningful visitor actions such as playing a video, sharing a post, and much more. Its simple interface makes it easy for you to answer your questions about how people are using your site or app without writing SQL queries.
Mouseflow
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada Cloud or SaaS
Mouseflow is a website analytics tool that provides session replay, heatmaps, funnels, form analytics, and feedback campaigns. It is a helpful tool to increase user experience and improve conversions. Their courses are designed to help you make the most of Mouseflow.
Open Web Analytics
Free English French English support French support Data stored in Canada: n/a Cloud or SaaS
Open Web Analytics (OWA) is an open‑source alternative to Google Analytics that you need to install on a server. OWA offers lots of statistics presented in a visibly pleasing way and provides heat maps to show you where visitors interact the most. Written in PHP, it also works with JavaScript and offers a WordPress plugin, making it easier to add the code to websites built on that platform.
This table lists applications alphabetically and isn’t exhaustive. Hyperlinks to external sites do not constitute endorsement by BDC of those websites or any information, opinions, products or services expressed or described on them.
Furthermore, the list is only a starting point and excludes applications not offered either in English or in French, or that are neither low cost nor free. When assessing which solution is best for your organization, you will probably consider many other factors.
BDC will review and edit this list regularly. If you offer a similar application and would like us to consider adding your solution, please contact us.
