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Parse.ly

Parse.ly

Overview

What is Parse.ly?

Parse.ly is a content optimization platform for online publishers. It provides in-depth analytics and helps maximize the performance of the digital content. It features a dashboard geared for editorial and business staff and an API that can be used…

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Recent Reviews

Great for comparison

7 out of 10
March 10, 2024
Parse.ly is used to track and analyse our website performance and data. The data is used to help identify trends, both live and over time, …
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Parse.ly is great

10 out of 10
February 22, 2022
Incentivized
I use it to analyze our site's traffic on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis, to see what types of stories do well and what types of …
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Awards

Products that are considered exceptional by their customers based on a variety of criteria win TrustRadius awards. Learn more about the types of TrustRadius awards to make the best purchase decision. More about TrustRadius Awards

Popular Features

View all 8 features
  • Device and Browser Reporting (5)
    8.4
    84%
  • Pageview Tracking (5)
    8.1
    81%
  • Customizable Dashboards (6)
    7.7
    77%
  • Referral Source Tracking (6)
    7.6
    76%

Reviewer Pros & Cons

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Pricing

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Entry-level set up fee?

  • Setup fee required
For the latest information on pricing, visithttps://www.parse.ly/pricing

Offerings

  • Free Trial
  • Free/Freemium Version
  • Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Starting price (does not include set up fee)

  • $499 per month
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Features

Web Analytics

Web Analytic features such as SEO tracking, user engagement tracking, pageview tracking, and behavior analysis.

7.4
Avg 7.7
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Product Details

What is Parse.ly?

Parse.ly is an analytics platform built for content and designed with the belief that the most successful companies are the ones with the best content. Winning in the digital content world, though, isn't easy. You need to create feedback loops and listen, though data, to what your audience is telling you.

With 30 unique attention metrics, subscriber tracking, and audience segmentation, content creators, analysts, editors, marketers and communications professionals can use Parse.ly to:

  • Grow their business and improve key metrics like reader engagement, conversions, and retention through data-driven insights.

  • Act on immediate real-time audience insights or analyze historical data to get a clear picture of the past and plan for the future.

With a built-in personalization platform product teams can use Parse.ly to create dynamic content experiences powered by data and personalized by user on their website and in their CMS or WCM.

With our data pipeline platform data scientists and engineers can use our enriched clickstream data to spend less time on data infrastructure and more time on data analysis and insights.

Parse.ly works with 300+ enterprise companies using their trusted data infrastructure:

  • The #4 most widely installed premium web technology on high-traffic sites (according to BuiltWith).

  • Parse.ly is used by leading media and entertainment companies, DTC brands, Fortune 500 companies, B2B enterprise companies, and anyone who believes content can move their business forward.

Parse.ly Screenshots

Screenshot of Overview in full-screen mode: Many Parse.ly pages, like the Overview, are TV-ready. Keep your entire team up-to-date with live, full-screen dashboards on TVs in your office.Screenshot of Overview screen: See a snapshot of what your audience is paying attention to today so you can make fast decisions about what content to produce or distribute. Customize it to show only what your team cares about by filtering it to a particular author, section, or tag. You can pick what stats and listings are displayed.Screenshot of Real-time posts page: See what’s gathering steam so you can capitalize on attention to every post, campaign, or section.
Real-time data includes the last 24 hours and updates every five seconds. It can be seen, filtered, and sorted on most screens.Screenshot of Historical posts page: Explore historical trends by post, author, section, topic, referrer, or campaign. Compare today’s performance to last week, month, or year.Screenshot of Campaign tracking: Easily tie in your off-site promotion to engagement with your on-site content using UTM parameters.Screenshot of Multi-channel tracking: Track all your content in one place, no matter where it lives.
Compare how your content performances on various distributed channels including your website, AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News.Screenshot of Referrers: Understand where your readers are coming from and what’s trending where in real-time or historically.Screenshot of Reporting suite: Set up recurring reports and schedule them to be emailed to you or your team on a daily, weekly, or monthly cadence.Screenshot of Tags: Tag content by format, topic, style—whatever structure makes sense for your company. Track sponsored content campaigns for better, more efficient, sales reporting.Screenshot of Conversions report: In the report, quickly see which content converts the most readers, which content assists the most conversions, and which types of conversions content drives best. The report runs weekly, showing conversion data for the last week.Screenshot of Video analytics: Demonstrate ROI of video efforts with a real-time and historical view of video performance. Parse.ly shows how videos and posts interact: which posts contain videos and which videos are played on each page.

Parse.ly Video

Visit https://parsely.wistia.com/medias/tbv33sc8sh to watch Parse.ly video.

Parse.ly Technical Details

Deployment TypesSoftware as a Service (SaaS), Cloud, or Web-Based
Operating SystemsUnspecified
Mobile ApplicationApple iOS, Mobile Web

Frequently Asked Questions

Parse.ly is a content optimization platform for online publishers. It provides in-depth analytics and helps maximize the performance of the digital content. It features a dashboard geared for editorial and business staff and an API that can be used by a product team to create personalized or contextual experiences on a website.

Parse.ly starts at $499.

Adobe Analytics, Chartbeat, and Google Analytics are common alternatives for Parse.ly.

Reviewers rate Reporting in real-time highest, with a score of 8.7.

The most common users of Parse.ly are from Mid-sized Companies (51-1,000 employees).
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Comparisons

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Reviews and Ratings

(126)

Attribute Ratings

Reviews

(1-25 of 81)
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March 10, 2024

Great for comparison

Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • The ability to generate reports that allow individuals and the organisation to compare how articles have performed over time is really helpful. This also means that treads can be easily identified. The reports are also clear and easy to understand.
  • Parse.ly is user friendly and easy navigate, particularly when trying to establish the source of traffic to a particular article. It's also helpful that each source is coloured coded, making it easy to see at a glance where the traffic is coming from.
  • The graphs that show page views over time are helpful in establishing when is the best time for content to go live.
  • It would be good to be able to compare the current day with more than just the previous day on the 'Overview' layout.
  • It would also be helpful to drill down via the graphic to see which articles were trending at which times of day. This would be particularly useful out of traditional working hours.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Outlines the information clearly and concisely
  • Provides interesting feedback
  • Informative, easy to use and thorough
  • Maybe add a UK contact number
  • Maybe direct access to the different categories , eg What's On
  • Maybe a way of seeing exactly where viewers are coming from
Mike Scialom | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Traffic data
  • Comparison with other writers on the same paper
  • Up-to-the-minute analysis
  • Visual way of sharing data
  • Easy to use
EJ Ward, MCIJ | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Parse.ly helps us monitor which stories on our website are doing well and helps us track where our traffic comes from.
  • Using Parse.ly means we can immediately see when a news story on our website is generating interest and react to that.
  • Parse.ly means we can track which website authors are achieving a high number of page clicks and then assess why that may be.
  • Parse.ly Makes it easy to show our staff, visitors and external stakeholders just how well we are doing
  • Parse.ly Had very good customer support for those times thing go wrong
  • I wish you were able to see the level of detail when it comes to FaceBook that you can see when it comes to Twitter.
  • I wish I could see multiple websites on one screen, maybe divide my screen into quarters or the like.
  • I wish the mobile app was easier to use.
  • I wish it was easier to search for authors
Alice Marshall | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Intuitive, easy-to-use interface.
  • Home screen displays day's top performances as well as top performing articles in the last 10 minutes.
  • The ability to focus in on an article-by-article basis, as well as by tag/section/author etc.
  • Referral data could be more detailed and specific.
  • Better labeling in graph form/ability to zoom in to traffic spikes/drops.
  • Saving last searches.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Real-time audience measurement--Parse.ly helps us understand how many people are on our site now and how this compares to our usual performance. By ensuring we improve on standard performance, we can grow our numbers.
  • Reports--setting up automated reports that can be sent to team members enables us to inform them at a glance what stories have performed well. This keeps them engaged and encourages them to post content more likely to perform well.
  • Analysis of performances--everyone can access their statistics, encouraging them to improve their reach and dwell time of their stories and better understand what has done well.
  • Overview across time--it is easy to compare how you have performed over set periods (e.g., month-on-month or week-on-week), making it easy to set targets for growth.
  • A more readily understandable visual guide to a visitor's pathway through your site would help understand what keeps a reader on-site.
  • The total page view number for the day should be more readily visible--on the overview page, not just by going to Posts>Historical.
  • Maintain the archive for longer than a year under all plans--it's a shame to lose year-on-year data quickly.
Ross Perkins | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Real-time analysis
  • Identifying where traffic for tweets has come from
  • Able to break down referrers for each social platform
  • Ability to record UTM tracking codes
  • To see from which Facebook page a certain story has seen the most traffic
  • Breaking down where traffic has come from on Facebook by specific post.
  • Integrating images and recording its engagement
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Accurate engagement metrics
  • User-friendly interface
  • Seamless integration with other tools
  • Customization options in e.g. reporting
  • User management, it's sometimes difficult to control user access to specific metrics/dashboards
  • Could be better at tracking engagement on social media
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Delivers real-time feed of website traffic
  • Articulates data in a clear and concise manner
  • Makes user navigation incredibly easy to pick up with little knowledge or experience
  • It doesn't make it easy to examine data from more than 12 months prior
  • Its mobile experience could be better for those that might need it in a fast-paced environment
  • Sometimes articulates data visually, for a brief few moments, before it's actually in, and overestimates traffic
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Real-time analysis of how content is performing
  • Being able to compare various data sets, ie, days, individual users' content
  • Being able to compare performance over time
  • Make it easier to access old data
  • Is it possible to identify which individual Facebook pages traffic is coming from?
  • Improve the search facility - it sometimes brings up odd responses
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
  • Real time data analytics of published stories
  • Filtering by time, sections, author, etc if fiddly/moving between pulse/historic, etc can be clunky and make searching difficult - UX/layout
  • Saving and editing saved filtered searches not intuitive
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Firstly, the platform is super easy to use, it is user-friendly and easy to navigate through.
  • Secondly, the platform also provides you the option to use filters to your best fit and adjust the filters according to what data you want to look at.
  • Thirdly, it enables the user to have live feedback on their articles and see what can be improved going forward to address the need of the readers.
  • The interface could be more interactive and attractive.
  • The views tab could become active in the sense that when you hover the cursor it automatically tells you which days or period the article performed the best.
  • If the platform could also provide relative information on the kind of users reading the articles.
January 13, 2022

Great for journalists

Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Historical Reporting.
  • Real time monitoring.
  • Ease of comprehension.
  • Identifying referrers/traffic sources.
  • More specific what referral tweet/FB post is.
  • Email alerts of relevant breakout topics.
  • SEO/keyword ranking advice.
Mark Chiles | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 10 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Provide insight into reader average time spent on content
  • Reporting around specific events
  • Dashboarding to have insight into multiple things at once
  • Being able to identify who the users are
  • Providing more details related to reader personas
  • Native Drupal module
Score 7 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Gives accurate real-time insights into how many people are reading a story - as well as which social channel they've used to find it and how the story compares to others [at] that moment.
  • Allows an author to keep an exhaustive bank of their stories along with the data behind them, making it easier to make informed choices on which content to create.
  • Uses data to place stories in a leaderboard-type format to show the best-performing articles from any given day, week, or month. This helps us create daily and round-up newsletters for our readers based on tried and tested content.
  • Page-view data could be more incisive. For example, a drop-down menu inside the Facebook tab which also indicates how many views have come from Facebook Stories, as well as conventional timeline posts.
  • With Facebook algorithms constantly changing, it would be useful if Parse.ly was able to liaise with social networks to send out best-practice notes to publishers. For example, which kinds of posts - and post reactions - will lead to content appearing on more people's timelines.
  • Expand the data set for page views in the 'Historical' tab beyond a year.
  • Integrate newsletter-tracking and subscription conversion data capabilities into the Parse.ly experience as standard.
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Author breakdown
  • Daily "pulse" monitoring
  • Traffic sources
  • The reporting system is complicated and somewhat confusing to set up, can't edit reports once they're created, have to create new ones
  • Identifying "smart" trends in stuff that is/isn't working - we have to do this analysis ourselves
  • Breaking down Google traffic sources (Discover is just categorized as "Google")
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • The interface is clean, easy to read, and informative
  • Pulling data is quicker than other analytics tools
  • Easy to filter data by different parameters and date ranges
  • There seem to be times in my experience when the metadata of a web page isn't pulled correctly, leading to some discrepancies between Parse.ly numbers and numbers considered "official" by my company.
  • Parse.ly does a great job of collecting data for individual articles on our web pages, but it is hard to use to get data for homepages and other landing-type pages. We end up using other analytics tools to collect this type of data.
  • The mobile experience doesn't show as much data on the Site Overview dashboard as it used to.
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Page viewed
  • Visitors on the site
  • [Average] time visitors [are] on the page
  • Social interactions
  • New posts read by users
  • Overall current traffic on the site
  • Reporting
  • Metrics
  • Dashboard
Jonathan Miltimore | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Parse.ly has a much sleeker layout than its competitors. Very well designed.
  • Parse.ly is easy to navigate, which makes it easier to dig into the data to learn more about its uses: where they came from, how they found you, and how long they stayed.
  • Parse.ly has good customer service. They are proactive about helping customers utilize their tools.
  • Tracking users by age demographic is something I'd like to see Parse.ly incorporate. (This is one area where Google has an advantage over Parse.ly).
  • Parse.ly's app is not available to Android users. I don't like this because I have an Android.
  • Tracking page views through third-party publishers (using HTML code) is something Parse.ly can't do for some reason. Our tech people were able to do this easily with Google Analytics, but for some reason (beyond my knowledge), we can't do it with Parse.ly.
Iris Hong | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • It's very intuitive to navigate and view data by posts, authors, and sections
  • Data is provided in real-time
  • I'm interested in learning more about the visitors, such as the proportion of new visitors vs. old visitors, gender distribution, geographic distribution, occupation information, etc.
  • I can only view data from the last seven months. I hope to be able to view all historical data.
  • I'd like more insight on how people find our articles (e.g., if they get to us through Google search, what keywords they use on Google).
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Easily group content by tag
  • Easily group content by site section
  • Accurately count time spent on articles
  • Get a general understanding of where traffic is coming from
  • I would love to see YTD functionality as a default date setting where you can choose this week, last month, etc.
  • If a tag is added after you publish, Parse.ly only counts the traffic after it was added
  • Buggy right now--if I click on a post and then adjust the date, it still reflects the metric from the original date set
August 10, 2021

Parse.ly just clicks!

Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Incentivized
  • Real-time reporting
  • Easy to use
  • Reliable
  • Always being refreshed
  • Sometimes the format changes so you don’t see the top 20 stories, only say 8 or 10
  • Sometimes the history feature is glitchy
  • It doesn’t remember you so you always need to click on what you need
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