Chartbeat provides real-time web analytics, but is specifically designed for magazine and newspaper publishers making the switch from print to digital.
The product tracks where traffic is coming from and helps maximize traffic and engagement.
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HitsLink
Score 9.0 out of 10
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HitLinks is an inexpensive web analytics tools providing page view and unique visitor data to smaller site. Customers tend to be media sites with fairly simple analytics needs. The tools requires that some code be appended to all pages to be tracked, and does not offer any social media tracking.
If you are looking for a tool that tracks traffic, content performance, author performance, and reader retention with a relatively simple interface and gleaming graphics then this is for you. Trickier things like report generation are made much more seamless now, and except for some friction in the sidebar navigation –– I find it to be a pretty flawless tool that I would recommend to friends or others in the media field. It's just a basic necessity to understand content these days, so Chartbeat is a great tool at that!
If you're looking for a comprehensive, user-friendly web analytics tool, you should definitely consider Hitslink. Before you subscribe to the software, take a test run on their Demo version of the site, as it behaves exactly like the full professional version. The biggest disadvantage is that Google+ registered users' search engine traffic data will be mostly (if not completely) blocked. However, this drawback is rarely a significant hindrance to analyzing your website's traffic, but it is something to be aware of.
Source of traffic needs improvement. Search and social make sense, but "internal" and "links" is a grey area. It would be helpful to define those with an organization and provide an information icon so users can easily remember what each of those buckets is tracking.
More ways to customize the real-time board. For example, with video content, that's great that I can see a user has started a video, but what is the completion rate, was that only on O&O or can that track Facebook, too?
Would like to see demo (age) information included as a way to slice the data so I can see what's working with my older and younger demo.
Specific information such as search term and geographic location is blocked for users coming into your site through Google who are also signed into a Google+ account, making it increasingly more difficult to analyze trends as more and more people acquire Google+ accounts. This is part of Google's strategy to make companies pay them directly through their Google Analytics software, and it is working against services like Hitslink.
I gave Chartbeat a 5 for a renewal rating, because, while it delivers clear and understandable content, Google Analytics also provides many of the same features for free. For a small to medium website, I believe it would be more cost effective to use Google Analytics. A website with a high amount of traffic, however, could merit spending the money on Chartbeat to maximize their potential.
Hitslink is as useful as it is user-friendly. I haven't seen another website analytics tool as comprehensive and at the same time straightforward as this service. The only downside of Hitslink is Google's blocking of information from its registered Google+ users to the software. As Google+ continues to reign in more of the population, I can see this being a significant problem for Hitslink to overcome. However, there is still a vast majority of search engine users whose actions are visible through Hitslink, and as long as this stays the case, the service will be an invaluable tool for website administrators.
It's easy to use and understand, which can't be said for all data-tracking sites that I've used in the past. It's easy for me to navigate and I didn't need to Google anything in order to find what I needed
The service is incredibly intuitive and very easy to learn. The only drawback is not having a mobile-optimized website to easily view website reports on the go. But on a PC or Mac, Hitslink is as user friendly as it gets. I have yet to see a navigation system on any SaaS website that makes a service that is this comprehensive seem so straight-forward.
I have had limited experience of support for Chartbeat but whenever I have needed help it has been there. Recently there was an issue of seeing different forms of data in real time - app and otherwise effectively, and the issue was being clearly dealt with and communicated back to us.
Chartbeat really remains the gold standard in the tracking, measurement and display of realtime engagement metrics. If your site has sufficient audience benefit from immediate changes in content programming, display and design, it's a great tool with a highly refined and intuitive user experience. Plus, it's API allows for broad integration.
I do not have access to the financial arrangements in place, but I would view Chartbeat as a key tool for the company with significant advantages over other analytical software.
Continued enhancement of the product, for instance picture previewer, would provide additional value to the service.
