August 30, 2022 / ClickMeter / 3 Comments

I have Google Analytics, why do I need ClickMeter? Is it a Google Analytics Alternative?

Is ClickMeter a Google Analytics Alternative?

Excellent question! While Google Analytics offers great, in-depth insights into what people do once they arrive on your website. Sometimes they don’t get all the details about how they got there right. However, link tracking will allow you to fill in the gaps. ClickMeter lets you accurately see where your traffic is coming from. But it’s only a Google Analytics alternative in this one respect. It’s best to use both tools together to get a full set of data.

You can get the full picture of visitor activity from the first touch, right through to conversion. This will let you figure our which off-site and on-site marketing efforts are working best for you.

How to use ClickMeter alongside Google Analytics

This week, I noticed we sold 50% more subscriptions than an average week. “Wow!” was my first reaction. After three minutes of uncontrolled enthusiasm, I was left wondering why.

So I opened my Google Analytics account and found that we had a peak in visits. Ok, but, from where? Which source is bringing us such a high number of conversions?

I opened “Traffic Sources > Sources > All traffic” and I found that about 70% of the sources were from “(direct)/(none)”, about 25% from “google/organic”, and only 5% from specific sources such as Facebook, Twitter, our blog and some other websites we are using to advertise our product.

That wasn’t a great help. It didn’t explain to me which marketing action is producing results.

Then I opened my ClickMeter account, clicked the list of links and then I filtered by “last 7 days”. There it is, the list of all sources ordered by the most clicked. There was no doubt where the conversions were coming – a tweet we made was reposted many times, leading visitors to an interesting article we made on our blog.

As I result, I’m going to create similar articles and pay to boost visibility on Twitter for that post.

Bingo! We got another piece of validated learning and will spend our money wisely.

I’m not saying ClickMeter is “magic” and Analytics is “junk”. They are both excellent products and they have been created for two different purposes using two different technologies.

Google Analytics provides on-site analytics to help you understand what happens on your website. It tells you how many visits you got, what time of the day they occurred and which browser was used to help you understand who your average visitor is.

ClickMeter was specifically created to determine which source of traffic is most valuable to your business.

Google Analytics tracks users when they hit your website collecting data through javascript and cookies. If they are blocked, the information isn’t always accurate.

While ClickMeter track clicks at the source level. It provides you with tracking links that collect data on users before they arrive on your website.

Here are some reasons why our clients choose to use ClickMeter, as well as Google Analytics:

1) Google Analytics is not that accurate.

The data in Google Analytics is always less than the actual traffic numbers. But why? To answer this, we need to talk tech for a moment.

Firstly, Google Analytics tracks data using a JavaScript snippet of code that is placed on your website. If the computer visiting your website is not accepting JavaScript, the visit will not be tracked. Also, if the JavaScript has an error or does not load the visit will not be tracked.

Secondly, Google Analytics places a cookie on the device that visits a website, then Google Analytics reads the cookie information to determine the visitor. Therefore, if cookies are blocked, no tracking will occur.

ClickMeter tracking technology is based on link redirects and is 100% accurate in tracking the number of clicks from a specific marketing source. ClickMeter does not require any code to be installed.

2) Google Analytics code has to be placed in your site’s HTML

Unlike tools like Google Analytics, KissMetrics and Omniture, ClickMeter has always been a way to gather website metrics when you don’t control the website.

Want metrics for a message you wrote on Twitter or Pinterest? Use a tracking link. Want data from a blog post? Or from a product link you are advertising as an affiliate? You can use a ClickMeter link for all these things too.

3) Google Analytics provides ONLY aggregated reports.

Sometimes is necessary to drill down to understand why something is really happening.

For example, if you suspect you’re the victim of click fraud, you’ll need a detailed report showing each click by IP and timestamp to request a refund for the ‘fake’ visibility you paid for. You can find many other reasons you may need detailed reports too. Unfortunately, Google Analytics only provides aggregated stats and there is no way to access a click-by-click report like in ClickMeter.

Why ClickMeter is the best Google Analytics Alternative for tracking sources:

ClickMeter tracking technology is based on link redirects and is 100% accurate when it comes to tracking the number of clicks – unique and non-unique – from a specific link or campaign.
ClickMeter does not require any code to be installed on the site you’re tracking.
All reports are available in aggregated and detailed modes.

You can find out more about this in ClickMeter’s knowledge base: Should I use ClickMeter or Google Analytics?

ClickMeter vs Google Analytics?

Google Analytics serves it’s purpose and is excellent for tracking time on site, new vs returning users, user devices, languages, browsers, and so many other points of entry and exit to your website.
ClickMeter was built to be specific in one area – marketing sources analysis.

ClickMeter allows clients to set up campaigns for referral traffic. Each unique link is created and tracked in an easy-to-use dashboard. The link is created by giving a final destination and also labeling where this link will be placed as part of your marketing strategy. Once the link is created, our clients are able to place that link on an inbound marketing website and every click is counted.

This is done by using redirects – the following image shows the tracking process:

You can find more info here: How tracking links work?

ClickMeter provides accurate, in-depth insights into where exactly your traffic and conversion are coming from. This can help you boost your ROI and wisely decide where to invest your marketing budget.

ClickMeter doesn’t have to be a Google Analytics alternative. Use Google Analytics and ClickMeter side-by-side on your next campaign and take advantage of the benefits provided by both platforms.

No website? No Problem!

ClickMeter tracks click activity without needing to add code to your website. This mean you can track activity sent to your Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr or any other web property where you are unable to place a Google Analytics pixel.

… and if I work in an Agency?

You can serve your customers with better reports! ClickMeter is popular with Ad operations teams in particular. They use it to track hundreds of inbound marketing campaigns at once and produce reports to track the response rate of each campaign. If you represent a web-marketing agency or a publisher, all reports can be shared in read-only mode with a simple 2-minute setup.

If you’ve been using ClickMeter alongside Google Analytics, let us know in the comments below.

Related Reading:

This blog post is about:

Google Analytics vs ClickMeter
Google Analytics Alternative
Marketing analytics software
ClickMeter as a Google Analytics Alternative

Originally published: May 31st, 2017
Post Updated: August 30th, 20122.