A Customer-Based Real-Time Option to Google Analytics

In the past few weeks we’ve been exploring the capabilities of Google Analytics (GA). GA offers a tremendous amount of insight to help improve the form and function of a website. There are some shortcomings to GA. We’ve discussed several in this class, including bounce rates, the refresh rate of GA real-time statistics, and the complexity of learning GA. GA may be one of the most popular analytics tools, but it’s not the only option.

Bounce Rates

If a user only visits one page of a website, GA counts that visit as a bounce. GA can’t measure the time spent on one page or what a visitor responds to on that page unless the visitor takes another action, for example loading another page or clicking a link on the landing page. In GA, if I spend 15 seconds on one web page or 15 minutes on that web page without completing another action on that site, my visit is counted as a bounce. If time visitors spend on one page is important to your business, you may want an analytics tool that can distinguish between a long visit to a single page (a good bounce) and a short visit to a single page (a bad bounce) (Melaugh, 2014b).

Real-Time Results

GA does have a real-time statistics feature (https://developers.google.com/analytics/devguides/reporting/realtime/v3/), but it’s not part of the standard reports and can be complex to set up. Once the feature is installed, GA doesn’t have many options to drill down into details of the current visitors. GA can show you how many people are on your site, but it functions more like a counter than a tool to reveal insights of your real-time visitor’s behavior on the site. GA has a delay between showing the real-time visitors and showing the demographics on those visitors (Blankenspoor, 2014).

Complexity

For the web analytics novice, like me, GA can be overwhelming. The training videos are easy to follow and are very helpful, but I think I could spend hours reviewing these training videos and still have many questions. If an analytics tool is too complex, will all the departments in a business who should be using website analytics actually use them? Probably not, unless there is an analytics guru in each department.

Alternative Analytics Tools

There are many alternative analytics tools to fill GA’s gaps in reporting and user experience. When researching analytics tools this
week, I searched for tools that offered real-time results, could 

match visitors with customer profiles, had the ability to distinguish a 

good bounce from a bad bounce, and allowed easy tracking of 

conversion goals. The level of complexity varies based on the user’s 

experience level, so although I’m interested in how easy (or difficult) it is 

to use the alternative analytics tools, it wasn’t my chief concern. The 

analytics tool that I’ve chosen to review is Woopra (www.woopra.com).

            I’m a visual learner, so the clever incorporation of the infinity symbol to represent the double O in the Woopra logo was what first caught my interest. Woopra was first introduced in 2008 with the goal of being the analytics tool for every part of a business – marketing, sales, customer support and products. In 2013, the company introduced the new logo shown above to symbolize the continuous customer lifecycle (Khoury, 2013).

            Woopra is a real-time customer analytics tool. It shows who is on your website right now and allows you to track the individual users. As with other real-time analytics options, Woopra provides the following functions:

• ·      Funnel reports – the ability to track multiple steps to conversion and review drop rates at each step;
• ·      Queries and segmentation – the ability to track a customer through specific actions;
• ·      Individual user profiles – the ability to see what visitors are actually doing rather than just getting a count of pageviews; and
• ·      Retention analysis – the ability to track the effects of changes on your website to changes in customer behavior (Melaugh, 2014a).

Woopra allows users to sync customer data with web analytics to build detailed customer profiles tracking web, mobile app, email, and support interactions between individual customers an your business.

Example of Woopra customer profile

                      Image source: https://www.woopra.com/platform/#customer-profiles

The detailed customer profiles allow you to segment your customers based on exact interactions and to adapt those segments as customer behaviors change throughout the customer lifecycle.

Example of Woopra customer segment

Image source: https://www.woopra.com/platform/#customer-profiles

The segmentation feature allows Woopra clients to easily specify and change the actions, time frames or members of customer segments.

            Woopra’s customizable funnel analytics reports, allow clients to determine if there are roadblocks that are causing customers to abandon their exploration of the website and allows for easy changes to test the effects of revisions to any roadblocks to customer experience. The funnel analytics also allow marketers to see conversion rates by marketing channel, using real-time data. Woopra allows marketers to easily customize the funnel reports. On the sample funnel analysis by channel below, we see that 75 customers who found the site via search completed a purchase compared to 157 completed purchases through direct marketing (www.woopra.com).

Sample Woopra funnel report

Image source: https://www.woopra.com/platform/funnel-analytics/

            Another key feature of Woopra is its integration with third-party apps like LiveChat, SurveyMonkey, Adwords, etc., through a feature called AppConnect. Using AppConnect, Woopra users can connect with third-party apps with only a few clicks. There is no need to add programming code to the website. For example, Woopra users can set up actions that will trigger a LiveChat invitation based on the pages a customer is viewing in real-time. Below is a sample of third-party apps available through AppConnect. Note: Some are only available through the premium pricing package.

AppConnect third-party apps that integrate with Woopra

Image source: https://www.woopra.com/appconnect/

Market Share

Google Analytics has a much larger market share than Woopra. According to Datanyze Universe’s report dated June 12, 2016, GA is at the top of the list and Woopra is 35^th in the analytics category based on the number of websites using each analytics tool. Woopra runs on approximately 20,300 websites compared to GA’s 13.5 million websites (Datanyze, 2016).

Pricing

Woopra is available for free for websites with up to 30,000 actions per month, but can get expensive for busy websites. Pricing begins at approximately $80 per month for websites with 400,000 actions per month and goes up to approximately $1,200 per month for websites with up to 10 million actions per month (www.woopra.com/pricing/).  

Training

Similar to GA, Woopra has a Documentation page (www.woopra.com/docs/) on the website where users can find instruction manuals as well as instructional videos. The introductory video says a new user can learn to use Woopra in about 15 minutes. After watching several of the instructional videos, Woopra seems easy to set up and use.

IM Impact’s Shane Melaugh has examined and reviewed many GA alternatives and in his opinion, Woopra’s strengths are its easy-to-use interface and its AppConnect feature. Melaugh’s biggest concern is that Woopra can be expensive for busy websites. There is no “one best tool” for every business. In his review of real-time analytics tools, Melaugh recommends that businesses follow Avinash Kaushik’s 10/90 rule  – “for every $10 you spend on an analytics tool, you should be spending $90 on a very smart person to make use of the tool (Melaugh, 2014a).” Kaushik recommends businesses start with GA, and move to a subscription-based analytics tool when the level of knowledge in the business outgrows the information available from Google Analytics (Kaushik, 2006). I think if your website qualifies for the free Woopra account, the additional customer insights and real-time results would be worth the change from GA.

Sources:

Blankenspoor, J. (2014, Feb. 24). 5 great Google Analytics alternatives. SitePoint. Retrieved from https://www.sitepoint.com/5-great-google-analytics-alternatives/

Datanyze. (2016, June 12). Woopra vs. Google Analytics. Datanyze Universe. Retrieved from https://www.datanyze.com/market-share/analytics/woopra-vs-google-analytics/

Kaushik, A. (2006, May 19). The 10/90 rule for magnificent web analytics success. Occam’s Razor. Retrieved from http://www.kaushik.net/avinash/the-10-90-rule-for-magnificient-web-analytics-success/

Khoury, E. (2013, March 2013). Woopra turns 5 and unveils brand new logo! Woopra Blog. Retrieved from https://www.woopra.com/blog/2013/03/06/woopra-turns-5-and-unveils-brand-new-logo/

Melaugh, S. (2014a, Nov. 12). Advanced customer analytics: Roundup review. IM Impact Blog. Retrieved from http://imimpact.com/advanced-customer-analytics/

Melaugh, S. (2014b, Nov. 12). Web stats: Alternatives to Google Analytics. IM Impact Blog. Retrieved from http://imimpact.com/web-stats-alternatives-to-google-analytics/