Item: Parse.ly
Rating: 7
Author: Alice Marshall

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Pare.ly across editorial and content development departments in order to monitor the performance of online articles and respond accordingly to traffic surges and drops. It's one of many tools we use to garner this kind of data and allows us to easily navigate the hundreds and thousands of articles published across the companies numerous websites. From offering top performing stories and those getting the most traffic in a more granular and of the moment tab 'in the last 10 minutes'. With its intuitive and friendly interface, Parse.ly allows us to dive into articles categorised by tags, as well as authors, and see not only traffic but where that traffic is being referred from e.g. Google, AMP, social networks. All of this gives a better indication of how to respond both to the performance of singular articles and on a wider scale. From updating articles that plummet, to reusing successful strategies in the future.

Pros and Cons

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.

Return on Investment

Driving more traffic.
Boost in moral to see real time successes.

Alternatives Considered

Google Analytics

Parse.ly offers a more friendly user experience, with better ease in navigating the software.

Usability

Parse.ly offers a great user experience that is intuitive, its interface clean and clear. This is important when coming back time and time again to use, offering a smooth performance with the ability to easily pick up how to navigate and find the data you are looking for. Its homepage is clear, with just a few clicks allowing you to search and seek out more focused data.

Likelihood to Renew

As an employee, this is difficult for me to comment as I am not directly funding or making these business decisions. However, it is a tool many get on with for surface level data that is useful to editorial teams.

Key Insights

Do you think Parse.ly delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with Parse.ly's feature set?

Yes

Did Parse.ly live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of Parse.ly go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy Parse.ly again?

Yes

Other Software Used

Data Studio

Likelihood to Recommend

For complete novices to the world of data analysis, Parse.ly offers a really friendly and easy to use interface that is easy to dive into and familiarize yourself with. It offers surface level insight into article performance, as well as the overall publication, allowing you to react to content that is under performing. There is certainly more detail that could be offered by Parse.ly for a really nuanced picture. However, there is power in simplicity and what Parse.ly offers.

Intuitive and clean software

Overall Satisfaction with Parse.ly