I’ve been using both Clicky and Google Analytics now on my blog for the past month. Both do their job very well, however have some important differences. Here’s a brief summary of the two products, how they stack up against each other, and why I’m digging Clicky.
Clicky
Probably the biggest selling point for me on Clicky is the realtime nature of their stats generation. You can see within 30 seconds usually if someone is on your site, and their journey through your site. Their “Spy” feature allows you to watch a live feed of your site, showing all stats activity without a page refresh… Very nice. It’s a shame Clicky doesn’t employ this kind of self-refresh to the other elements on its dashboard… perhaps even just to the high level stats would be nice.
Another awesome feature of Clicky is its fully fledged iPhone application straight out of the box. Because (like Google Analytics) the graphs on the site are all flash based, it pretty much ends your experience on the iPhone… The app fixes that, although there are no pretty graphs to look at. Would be a nice to have…
Clicky also neatly integrates your Feedburner and Twitter stats, so you can cross compare visits Vs new followers for example… Talking of integration, Clicky also has an API…
Something I have noticed with Clicky is it not picking up certain sites as referrers. Certainly, I never see any click throughs from Delicious links in Clicky, when I see many in Google Analytics. I can also see more click throughs from Google Reader for example via Google Analytics.
Another downside of Clicky is alot of the features do come at a cost. There are a number of price plans, from free to $19.99 per month, with features being made available depending on how much cash you are willing to part with.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics (GA) is fast becoming an industry leader (if it’s not already). I’ve used it for a number of years, and it’s always proven to be a valuable asset. Feature-wise, it lacks a few key elements which I mentioned above – mainly the realtime stats. You’re likely going to have to wait for a stats update every 4 hours at the moment, which in a world of NOW NOW NOW, is a long time!
I’m surprised that GA still hasn’t integrated with Feedburner or Adsense. It would be awesome to be able to see what ads were clicked on what pages and where etc… I can see which ad placeholder a user clicked, but that’s it. GA also has yet to come out with an API, which really sucks for corporations. This was one reason why we had to hold back from using it in my last job… Sounds like Feedburner integration is coming soon though.
From a usability perspective, Google has it nailed. GA is a great tool to work with, and has so far never let me down. Although again, the flash usage puts the iPhone out of action which isn’t great for those of us on the move.
Conclusion
For me, the realtime stats and availability of the API are two really killer blows to Google Analytics. I’m surprised Google haven’t come out with these features yet, as they do have the power. Although biased, Clicky has a nice table to display them Vs a number of other stats engines which really does show the potential. Clicky could take a leaf out of the Google UI book though, and think about usability a little more.
My only hesitance with Clicky is there is still very much a “start-up” feel about the site, a bit too work in progress. If they could get away from being so developer oriented, focus on plain old users, and sell it like they mean it – they could be onto a winner! Real-time stats FTW!!
Both products are free to try (Analytics is free ongoing). Clicky is priced at $0.00, $4.99, $9.99 and $19.99 per month.
 Advanced Web Metrics with Google Analytics  |
 Actionable Web Analytics  |
 Google Analytics 2.0  |
