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.
$20
per month
Lead Forensics
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
UK company Lead Forensics offers their eponymous platform for lead generation and web analytics.
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.
If you want to understand if the things you're doing in the market place are improving your audience reach, then Lead Forensics is a great tool. It's all very well to network, email, win awards and so on, but you will want to address any inconsistency in how effective outreach activities are. Lead Forensics is great for this.
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.
The menu could be improved, maybe by giving the chance of a "basic" and an "expert" menu.
The instructions are good and exhaustive but they might be improved.
The most difficult part of Lead Forensics is how some colleagues will use it and - should they not understand - they won't. There should be a way to interest even the less technological colleagues that this tool is for their best.
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.
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.
Lead Forensics is really easy to use. [...], our account manager, also has a hands on approach to ensure we are getting the best out of it. We have regular meetings at no extra costs where he will give us tips and help if we need it. The default interface however is very simple and is customisable which means it can be made even more simple!
[Their] support is great, [whether] you call or send in an email. They are always friendly and willing to help. Anytime I can’t figure something out and need to reach out, I always get a response back quick[ly] - and they will always offer to go in and make the change, but I like when they show me so I can do it next time.
Lead Forensics is the best as far as I can tell, but choices that are a fraction of the cost come pretty close. Some places like ThomasNet even throw this functionality in for free now. I guess it's a question of if you view this type of intelligence as a luxury or essential.
So far we are working on generating an ROI. We did not accurately estimate the time and processes needed to manage the software and processes.
It is interesting to see which companies are engaging in our site that we did not know about, so there is a knowledge ROI there. Just need to figure out better execution to turn it into revenue.
