Clicky is, after Google Analytics, probably the biggest Web Analytics tools catering for everyone from the hobbyist up to 100K+ views a day sites. I did use Clicky for a site several years ago, and was very interested to see how they had grown and whether they are a serious alternative to Google Analytics which I currently use for my sites. Google is free and Clicky charges $4.99/month for the basic version, $9.99 for the pro version and then increasing amounts depending on the daily traffic. The question is, is it worth it, and to put that to the test I have been using Clicky on SeededBuzz for the last few weeks.
Firstly – Clicky has a much easier interface to use, it is cleaner, better laid out with double top navigation, and it is obvious what information/options are available. One of the main criticisms of Google is that it powerful but difficult to configure and navigate.
In terms of features, Clicky has nearly everything the beginner up to a serious users will want, including Goals and Campaigns. The only feature from Google which I would immediately miss was the segmentation of visitors by new or returning – Clicky does give segmentation by country and other parameters such as browser but in my experience they iare less useful in terms of getting and keeping visitors.
It is difficult to compare the data given by both system – they always give different figures but which is right/wrong is very hard to tell. I did see that Clicky have introduced a different definition of bounce – a bounce is a one page visit that lasts less than 30s, and anything more than 30s is a real visit. It is a debatable point and will depend on the type of site you have – if you have a very low pages/visit count it should give a more accurate/real measure of bounce.
Clicky does have several features missing from Google, the obligatory Twitter integration which is flexible in the different terms to can search and track; a URL shortener, but what that has to do with Web Analytics I will leave it to others to work out; and finally Spy. Spy is probably the most voyeuristic part and quite addictive – it gives you a real time feed of users on your sites, what pages they are looking at, and what external links they exit through. I even spotted a colleague at SeededBuzz checking a page I had sent them and saw that they followed the external link correctly. Remember Big Brother is watching you.
Overall, Google is still more powerful in the number of features and functions it offers, but in reality do most people use them? Clicky is much cleaner and easier to use for the beginners, but it is up to you to decide if it is worth paying for the convenience. I think like a lot of things in life, if you start using one the inertia to move to another system is quite large, and for me I will be sticking to Google. I would be interested to hear from anyone who is long term Clicky user who would want do a test run on Google and post their results.
Hi. I use Clicky and there is a free version. It only tracks the last 30 days and naturally lacks a lot of features the basic version has but it’s an option if you just want to track traffic.