Chapter 3

A Tour of a Few Free or Freemium Analytics Solutions

In This Chapter

Exploring Google Analytics

Working with Clicky

Tracking both online and offline sources with CustomScoop

Surveying other free or freemium tools

In Chapter 2, I show you some basic, single-function free or freemium solutions for each platform. In this chapter, I take a look at some of the free or freemium solutions that can track metrics across a variety of platforms, sites, and social media services. Free services are those that are always free and have no other paid layers to upgrade to. Freemium services are those that have a free trial or a free version of their service or tool with a paid layer available with added features that you can upgrade to.

Each of these free or freemium solutions offers varying degrees of user control and data customization. As your knowledge increases, you can expand each one, though some are more flexible than others. In this chapter, I discuss a small variety of solutions that address a wide array of challenges. Some touch on similar points, but all have slightly different main focus points.

This chapter describes the tip of the iceberg for free or freemium services. With so many to choose from it can seem overwhelming. Just remember that you want your metrics to cover a wide range of goals, sources, and keywords.

Avoid things like Klout or Buffer as solo solutions. If you want to use these types of single metric or limited source solutions, make sure you have other, more comprehensive metrics in place or you run the risk of missing key information.

If you’ve been using a single metric solution up until this point and feeling like you are treading water on your ROI (return on investment), you’ll be excited to finally see a complete set of metrics. If metrics are new to you, by avoiding putting all of your eggs in one basket you are going to get a better, more rounded picture of your successes and for where and what you need to improve.