‘Clicky’ Has Effective Measuring Tools and is User-Friendly

Clicky Analytics

    Throughout my research I learned a there is no shortage of web analytics tools on the market. By now I am aware that Google Analytics is the most commonly used analytics tool, but there are several alternative options for website users to consider. While looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, I found there are many effective software programs, including Piwik, Open Web Analytics, MixPanel and more. I chose to focus my analytics efforts on Clicky.

    Clicky is free but only for one website and up to 3,000 daily page views. At first glance, Clicky appears to be very clean in terms of its appearance and functionality. Heatmap is a nice option as it allows users to view maps for individual visitor sessions, including segmentation. Users can view heatmap for visitors who complete a specific goal. This option would be very useful for a company running a campaign or a promotion.

    Clicky also provides a very clean look to its site, which makes the aesthetics very appealing. The layout of websites tracked that a user selects are easy to read and so are the tracking options – when visitors clicked, how many visited and easy-to-read graphs over a certain amount of days. The interface is uncluttered, intuitive and only displays material that is mostly likely to be viewed. Clicky does not try to overwhelm users with categories or statistics that may simply be featured as “window dressing.” The process to view specific analytics is very quick and easy – a few clicks and the data will be displayed. Below is an image of what visitors will see if they are searching for their analytics on Clicky.

Image retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1CsCle9

 Clicky prides itself on being easy to use, in fact they confidently claim to be the easiest analytics service you have ever used (Bennett).

Compare/Contrast: Google Analytics

    Google Analytics has nearly every tracking feature a user could possibly want to use. One of the drawbacks, however, is the information displayed can be somewhat difficult to navigate for users that are simply trying to see only a handful of analytics. Above, I showed the simplicity of the Clicky graphic. The following is an image from Google Analytics that can be convoluted to follow – especially for a beginner in the world of website analytics.








Image retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1CsCle9

 
Dashboards
The dashboards used by Clicky are not that different from their competitors but they do offer a few unique features.

    Each widget can be altered on the fly to show a different view of the data, which makes Clicky extremely easy to use, compared to navigating around other analytics programs – this includes Google Analytics. Users can expand the visitors’ data and view how many pages, how many downloads items, how many followed outbound links and viewed media or triggered separate events. There also is an automatic comparison with data for the previous period which gives an instant assessment of how the metrics have changed – if at all.

    There are additional features to the Clicky Admin Dashboard that user would likely enjoy: 1. Cashe feature, this improves loading speeds. As we know, if anyone has a site that is loading pages slowly, they run the risk of losing a valuable customer/viewer. 2. Access to level settings. 3. Option to display top 30 pages, referrers and searches (sortable by columns). 4. Option to display Clicky Analytics statistics on frontend, at the end of each article. 5. has multilingual support.

Pros and cons

    I have found there are pros and cons with each web metrics site besides Google Analytics and this includes Clicky. Below is a list of pros and cons associated with Clicky:

Pros:

•    Easy to interpret: Unlike Google Analytics, the website visitor information has been laid out in an easily understandable interface.
•    On-site Analytics: You get a live view of every visitor activity on your site, with an on-site analytics widget in the corner of your website. The widget is visible to only you and not the pubic – this seems to be a very nice feature!
•    Flash Free: The tool is 100 percent flash free and thus can be accessed via phones and tables.

Cons:

•    It may not be the first choice for bigger websites, as all of its in-numerous features are quite basic.
•    There is no step-by-step goal tracking of keyword traffic that your website receives, unlike in Google analytics. You get stats of incoming keywords only (Fernando).

Real-Time:

    One of the features about Clicky I enjoyed reading about was the real-time functionality. Google Analytics certainly has this feature as well, but Clicky does not simply give you a snapshot of what is happening now, but the analytics metrics are immediately updated. This essentially means the user always has a complete and updated picture of what is happening on the site and how the metrics are changing in real time. When I search through Google Analytics, I notice I have to search through the real-time section of tabs. It is my understanding that Clicky is always providing real-time updates on every page which makes the process very easy to learn and understand.



Additional features

    Having the ability to easily track individual users is a tool that is very attractive. Clicky can track add user names and email addresses to visitors so that you can track the people you know and marry that up with your customer database or your social media fans and followers (Hall). Again, this is not a feature that Google Analytics does not offer, but its layout and use if somewhat different. The overall experience seems to be more user friendly than Google Analytics.


References

Bennett, M. (January 16, 2012), 7 Alternatives to Google Analytics, Retrieved from:
    http://bit.ly/1EsfZcB
Ewer, T. (June 21, 2013), Why I Use Clicky Analytics Instead of Google, Retrieved from:
    http://bit.ly/1CsCle9
Fernando, D. (July 24, 2014), 10 Web Analytics Tools: Analytics Tools Other than Google
    Analytics, Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/19icFaq
Hall Hurley, S. (June 3, 2014), Analytics Update: Do you Need a Second Analytics Package?
    Retrieved from: http://bit.ly/1CsUJ6K