Item: Parse.ly
Rating: 9
Author: Iris Hong

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is used across the whole organization. We use it to track the readership of our content--financial news articles and analysis pieces. The data helps us understand the performance of our content.

Pros and Cons

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).

Return on Investment

Parse.ly helps us make informed decisions about our editorial strategy. We know what type of content performs well, so we focus on that type of content.

Alternatives Considered

I've used other web analytics tools such as Google Analytics, Baidu Analytics, and SiteCatalyst.

Usability

I think Parse.ly is great for analytics for a news website like ours but still needs improvement, as I pointed out earlier in the question about improvement.

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

Parse.ly is very suitable for tracking the performance of blog posts or articles. It's probably not very appropriate for tracking the page flows or sales conversion (whether a viewer makes a purchase and becomes a buyer) of an e-commerce site.

Great tool for tracking news article performance

Overall Satisfaction with Parse.ly