Why choose one over the other?
Let me explain.
I’ve been using Google Analytics for years now and I love it – so much that I’ve had some pretty high level training in its use and implementation. It’s an awesome analytics package and I prefer it over Omniture. We recommend using Google Analytics to all our clients and have become industry leaders in implementation.
However, I’ve been personally using Woopra Analtyics for about six months now and I love it too. I use both of them to measure traffic on one of my bigger blogs and I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’ve even turned into a paying Woopra customer and as someone who is usually pretty cheap, that’s saying a lot.
They both have strengths and weaknesses that compliment each other. Google Analytics is free. Woopra is not. Google Analytics has more advanced features than Woopra. Woopra cannot do flash event tracking (yet). It’s easier and more straightforward to pull historical reports in Google Analytics versus Woopra.
Google Analytics biggest weakness is that it does not give you live statistics, results are delayed by a day. You can check your traffic during the day, but the numbers have a huge lag and aren’t very useful.
Woopra, however, provides you a live picture of what is happening on your website RIGHT NOW. At any given time you can see how many people are on your site and what they’re doing. Their desktop app is very powerful and useful – I keep it running at all times in the background so I can keep an eye on things. GA doesn’t have it’s own dedicated app.
Google Analytics also doesn’t provide many details on user behavior – mostly for privacy reasons. In Woopra, you can identify your visitors, tag them, track them, look at their site history, you can even chat with them (though I don’t think I would ever do this).
Now, how about differences in the data? Are the numbers the same? Generally, I’ve experienced a 5-10% differential in the data between the two packages, which I believe is well within a good margin of error. Usually Woopra is the one that reports higher numbers.
Besides, as everyone in Analytics should well know, web analytics isn’t about exact numbers – it’s about trends and statistics.
So, if you’re debating whether to install one over the other – why not install both? It’s just a snippet of code and it won’t slow down the usability if your site. You’ll discover some very interesting things about your sites.
Find out more about Google Analytics Here.
Find out more about Woopra Analytics Here.
Great insight! I agree that Google’s lack of real-time data is often frustrating, especially when working within tight deadlines or specific ad spends. Woopra sounds like it is worth a look.
Great post Jonathan. I’ve used GA personally and professionally for 5 years now and I love it, but the lack of real-time stats is definitely a weakness.
We’re always surprised at how timid some people are about the Live Chat and how MUCH some people embrace it. We’re working hard on improving the Live Chat feature and on our next release of Woopra which will seriously rock, if I can brag a bit.
Thanks for the great review. A lot of people want to compare the two, but we are also apples and oranges, so thanks for pointing out the difference so clearly.
Thanks for the great comparison between GA and Woopra! I would point out that although we haven’t been very good about educating people as to HOW, Woopra will indeed track Flash, Ajax, etc. Our JavaScript customizatioin guide will give developers what they need to know in order to handle this sort of tracking.
http://woopra.com/docs/
Cheers!
John P.