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Crucial Tracking Info for Tight Budgets
December 24, 2013

Crucial Tracking Info for Tight Budgets

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

Overall Satisfaction

  • This services gives the user a lot of functionality for a low price (free with a limited data log) which can be a lifesaver for small business and organizations with limited budgets. Because it is free, any of its shortcomings can be met by complementing it with other free services such as Google Analytics (GA).
  • One shortcoming of GA, and highlight for StatCounter is its ability to track IP addresses. The user’s IP address help pinpoint them to a specific city, state, and country. If the user is using a browser at a larger company, sometimes the IP address will actually reflect which company the website is being accessed from. This feature can be really good for smaller companies/organizations, because they tend to have more personal connections with their smaller user and contact base. Because of this low traffic situation, the in depth analysis is easier to digest and it is possible to gleen who of the business personal connections are interacting with their website.
  • Like most regular tracking services, StatCounter provides many of the same functionality of large data information aggregation. Page visit length help show audience retention. Path through the website and system stats (operating system, resolution browser) can be used to optimize page design and web layout. Keywords, Search Engine information, landing pages, and came from pages, help give an idea of success of current campaigns and provide information for increasing their success
  • For the free version data logging is limited to two weeks, which requires manual pulling of the data (CSV or excel formats) on a regular basis which can become tedious.
  • For offline graphing/presentations, data must be re synthesized/visualized. This typical requires someone manual manipulation the data or develop scripts or coding to improve the collection of the data for offline presentation and records.
  • Lacks some of the pretty visuals that can be seen in competitors such as Google Analytics.
  • Lacks user specific in depth tracking across multiple services (mailchimp, google etc), like more fully featured platforms (Kissmetrics) are able to provide.
  • Faster lead conversion. IP tracking allows crucial information for low traffic and nurturing of small numbers of close contacts.
  • Increasing user retention, through optimized UI website design based on visitor system information and visit lenghts
  • Increasing lead generation from better search engine optimization and keyword selection.
It fills in gaps left by other free analytical tools and provides much of the same information that is crucial for small businesses on tight budgets.
Free services provide a wonderful resource for people on tight budgets. If willing to put forth work in data managing/analysis and If basic high traffic information or drilling down specific users in low traffic situations is needed, then StatCounter may fit your needs. If automation and low overhead are a high priority then some more expensive packages can provide the same and more information with less hassle. Because StatCounter is free, there is low risk to see if StatCounter works in your specific usage scenario.