Day Trip Media: In Praise Of Clicky Analytics

Thursday, 3 July 2008

In Praise Of Clicky Analytics

I thought rather than moaning, I would take the opportunity to say something nice for a change. It was a toss up between writing about Globalcom's affiliate platform being very broke and user unfriendly or talking about my top analytics, as I upgraded my account yesterday (for the second time). So, as being positive being is a lot easier than talking about Globalcom, I instead want to big it up for Clicky Analytics.

For my money, Clicky is my most visited site and my favourite analytical tool. I've used Google's tracking, Awstats, Webalizer, Analog and others over the years, and all have their pluses going for them. None though are as appealing to use and as compelling as Clicky. If you've not tried it I'd recommend getting an account ('scuse the affiliate link) and giving the trial a go, you'll be hooked immediately. I've been using it for over a year now and it's transformed the way I track my sites.

Clicky view of all sites To start with, if you have a load of sites, you get the visitor total there on the page. I've just upgraded to 40 sites in my account, prior to which I had the 20 site package, and there's no other tool I know that gives you that overall view from the off. It allows you to quickly get a snapshot of your web empire and see any potential problems or success stories.

If you had to check your Awstats on 10 or more site every day, you'd go potty before long. Personally I'd check every sites stats once a month, which if you have a surge mid month is pretty pointless and soon becomes a chore. But Clicky's different, its not about looking back and seeing, it's very much about the moment. The stats and reporting does have a lot of backwards looking capability, but its most effective purpose is to see what's happening now.

Clicky site dashboard Getting an overview of all your sites on one page is nothing and everything, but it's not even the start of it. You can quickly see the headline stats for each site by clicking through to that site's dashboard. You can configure which reports feature, but I find it essential to see what search terms have brought in traffic, what pages are gaining traffic and the other headline stats for the site at that moment in the day.

Before long you'll be looking in every hour or so, and before long you get a feel for the life of your site and the habits of the visitors. I know for instance that it will go quiet at certain times of the day and pick up at others. I know how many visitors I need by a certain time to beat the day before, I know when people have gone to the beach and more. That's the power of Clicky and something no other analytics I've tried out gives you. If you know how you're traffic is acting, what they're looking for and where they're going you can quickly react and use the info to tweak your site and dare I say it, make money.

That's as much as I regularly use, the dashboard and the overall view, but beyond that there's much more for those times when you want to drill down and get really analytical. There's so much functionality it will make your eyes boggle. You can identify and name individual users, look at your search referrals, check IPs, see where your visitors are, all that good sort of good stuff. Beyond that you can use the spy function to watch visitors hitting your site and seeing where they go, watch them live, clicking links, interacting with the site and where their exit point is. It's a great tool.

I could go on about the fun stuff you can do with it, there's loads I haven't really touched on. Seriously, it's the one service other than blogger that I could not be without. Take a look and if you haven't tried it, give it a go, and I mean it. That said, I can't be held responsible if you spend all your time at the site drilling down and watch your visitors surf through your pages.

As to why I've gone to these lengths to praise it, well, like I said earlier I upgraded yesterday to double the sites in my account. Well, every time I've had to do anything with Clicky I email them and get a personal response, usually pretty quick. Sean at Clicky loves his product and goes out of his way to help users and is always friendly. In this age of corporate blandness and impersonal practices, it's refreshing to see something of Clicky's capability handled in such a friendly and one-to-one manner.

Analytics can be such a dry and dull area, but if you want to maximise the potential of your site it's a necessary one. Every day for over a year now, Clicky has been reloaded at least 20 times a day. I'm a real addict to the service and the data it puts at my fingertips. And there's one last thing I forgot to mention. It's cheap as chips. You can have a free account or choose from upgrades. Believe me, once you get a couple of your prime sites on there, you'll want to go for the full package. So, let's hear it for Clicky - a top product and as indispensable as your fingers.

Posted by Dio Bach at 12:19

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