What Should You Choose – Complex vs. Simple Web Analytics?

Any experienced marketers, SEO specialists, and business owners understand the importance of web analytics in their life. One tool sources all types of data based on real-time user activities or interactions with a web property to study, analyze, and compare them to help you strategize better for your online or even brick-and-mortar store. The platform reports essential details per your customization to let you know what worked, what didn’t, and what deserves to improve for a better impact. How you manage and leverage those data can determine your success in conversions, sales, revenues, customer experience, and more.

So, there is absolute clarity that these platforms are crucial, and their growing numbers indicate the same. When you talk about analytics, the first name that comes to your mind is Google Analytics. Many people hesitate to explore it or similar others because of the complexity of its details. Still, it doesn’t mean you don’t have better alternatives. Some third-party tools are way simple to use. Here are some insights if you don’t know how to distinguish between a complex and simple dashboard.

Simple analytics dashboard

Simple web analytics usually look much more sorted, ensuring you get quick access to desired data. They can show active visitors on the site near your site name and take you to pages and referrals when you click on them. You would not struggle if you needed stats regarding the number of people who visited your property and the amount of time they spent on a page. You can also track their journey and bounce rate details through a few simple clicks. Some also take a cookie-free approach to determine new users and return visitors count. And the good thing is you can rely on them not to store any personal information of your existing, unique, or potential customer. You can say these tools tend to be more focused.

Complex analytics dashboard

As much as 85% of websites rely on Google Analytics. You get multiple reports, which feels like a full-time job by itself. But unfortunately, you don’t get relevant information as quickly as you would expect. And the new version of the analytics may require you to set up your account and figure out how to source data from there. It can be a headache, especially for someone not comfortable with such a platform. Moreover, Google Analytics uses cookies to track users. If they clear their cache, the tool will not be able to identify them as the same user. It will count them as the new visitor, which is misleading.

You can get rid of all this if you find a simple and precise dashboard. Anything with an updated version and more intelligence can be highly favorable. So, it doesn’t mean your options are over if you are not comfortable using Google Analytics. You can look for simpler versions of analytics that collect data from the website and define its health without frills. You can still learn about critical indicators like bounce rates, traffic, sources of traffic, new visitors, old visitors, devices, location, and others without wondering what to find and where. Make sure the new software you use has a lightweight script. It is necessary for your web page’s loading time.