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Quick, Responsive Interface; Great for Large-Scale Content Creators
Updated September 09, 2021

Quick, Responsive Interface; Great for Large-Scale Content Creators

Anonymous | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Parse.ly

iHeartMedia uses Parse.ly to track real-time web traffic analytics to radio station websites. Parse.ly is used exclusively by the digital content department to track content pages, on-air DJ blogs, and articles produced by the company. I personally use it to monitor real-time web traffic to track the performance of content posted by my team and provide analytics reports for the ten station websites in my market. Parse.ly is also used as an alternative to other analytics software we use like Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics to pull website data more quickly than having to run a report on the two aforementioned products.
  • 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.
  • Being able to track data in real-time allows us to see what kinds of content are doing best, allowing us to quickly adjust our digital strategy.
  • Being able to switch datasets more quickly allows us to better forecast how client-sponsored posts will perform on certain web domains.
  • Being able to provide quick data using the clean interface allows us to provide streamlined reports for clients.
Adobe Analytics is our organization's "official" data source and provides a much more in-depth feature set and customizable reporting tool. It's much less user-friendly than Parse.ly but can provide more detailed reporting. Google Analytics is used by my organization as a backup tool to Adobe Analytics. Parse.ly is used as our main daily analytics tool, primarily for its ability to provide real-time web traffic data and its ease of use. Showing coworkers in other departments and clients' data using Parse.ly is much more streamlined than Adobe or Google.
Compared to the two other web traffic analytics tools used by my organization, Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics, Parse.ly is a much easier and faster tool. Parse.ly can pull information almost immediately, while Adobe and Google usually need 10-30 seconds to pull data, in my experience. Co-workers and clients who do not use web traffic analytics tools can understand and digest data shown on Parse.ly much more easily than Adobe and Google, in my experience, thanks to the interface.
I use Parse.ly in the two markets that I oversee in my organization, not for the entire organization, so it is not my decision whether or not it continues to be used by my organization. But based on my various meetings and discussions with the heads of my department, I see no reason why we would discontinue using the product at the moment.

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 great for tracking real-time web page traffic, especially for companies that produce a lot of blog/article content. It's easy to track how much traffic is currently coming to a web domain and the sources of the traffic. Google Analytics provides similar data but in a less user-friendly manner. Pre-COVID, we used to display the Site Overview dashboard on a TV in a common office area because staff enjoyed watching how their content was doing in real-time. Despite its ease of use, my organization relies on data from Adobe Analytics as "official" data.