coverspace - streetsmart with web analytics

Hi all,

back and again off the subject - due to mutual requests I might add as an excuse.

We will leave the subject of how to monitor the value-creation chain and turn to something a little more down-to-earth: product offerings for web controlling or web analytics that are

a) geared towards small publishers and
b) are free of charge (or cost almost nothing per month).

Now Google analytics is quite well-known, but who else is out there? On first scan we found: ewebcounter, statcounter, clicktracks, econda, e-dynamics, sitestat, webtrekk, onestat, syzygy, contentmetrics, iwebtrack, netstat and many more offering free and/or pay-solutions, consulting - the works. One (of several) overviews (in German) can be had here

This one an the next posts are dedicated to shedding some light on the details of different product offerings. We start off with the celebs: Google analytics and two products from etracker basic services called etracker free and etracker entry.

Summary below - check out the detailed information in a comparison matrix with additional links here: free web analytics tool comparison

Google analytics

Google acquired Urchin in March 2005, renamed it to Google analytics and made it available free of charge by the end of the same year. Today Google analytics offers a wide range of tracking and reporting capabilities including the basics like unique visitors and pageview stats but also campaign tracking, funnel analysis and custom segmentation. Reports are available via email or for download in different formats (e.g. xls, tsv).

The free support consists of a help center which is mainly FAQ, however pretty extensive - despite searching we did not find a download section. Furthermore there is a blog, a group and (Google goes academic once more) a conversion university…to spare the readers of having to browse all FAQ I have included links to specific comparisons in the detailed info - please refer to the comparison matrix.

In addition to noticing that Google analytics gives you a whole lot of very interesting and usable data in a transparent and easy-to-use format (customizable dashboard, multiple download options) we were wondering who else will use all this (extremely valuable) information apart from the publisher who wants to keep track of her/his website. To find out especially the privacy-protection sensitive Germans should visit the privacy policy details (and pencil in more than 10 minutes for the reading…) to make sure they are fine with the way data is stored and used by other parties than themselves. I have included the respective links in the comparison matrix under “privacy”…

etracker basic services: free and entry

The Hamburg-based company was founded 2000 and focuses on premium and advanced solutions for professional clients. In addition etracker offers a product line called “basic services” which consists of four products (free, entry, pro and business) ranging from being free of charge (the name suggests it) to 25.64€/month incl. VAT for the business product. This line seems to be geared towards the small publishers and we have decided to include free and entry (which is almost free of charge) into our comparison.

As far as features go…well see for yourself in the comparison matrix. Only that much: We will do a review of the premium and advanced solutions in the near future. etracker free and entry offer real-time data - you can export specific statistic reports from the (not so customizable) dashboard but the export of data (e.g. in xls) is not available with either of the two products we took a look at.

Like Google analytics etracker offers a live demo of the available reporting (that you can navigate at your own leisure whereas Google analytics replays a video you better pay close attention to as not to miss too much of the vast possibilities) - the FAQ is less extensive than for Google analytics, we did not find neither blog nor group (nor university…) as additional sources for information to turn to. What we found (and it took some searching) was a downloadable pdf with extensive intro and technical details (link given in comparison matrix).

As far as privacy policy goes etracker complies with German privacy laws and even for the law-untutored eye the privacy guidelines hold some interesting differences to Google’s that might make a big difference to some publishers. Again, pencil in some time for study but definitely check it out.

Last but not least a note from the editor: Despite having thoroughly checked the info given on the respective company websites and from other sources there is always the possibility of mistakes and/or errors. If you come across something that is not represented in the right manner or needs updating please let me know and I will get on it asap. Also the content given represents personal opinion and is in no way related to professional background or current employment.

Share This