As we have uncovered so far, Google Analytics is a very good
choice in products when it relates to brands tracking the performance and
results of their web offerings. But, it is not the only product on the market
that offers businesses the aforementioned capabilities relating to web
performance monitoring. Another web analytic tool that seems to present great
functionality is Matomo, which was previously known as Piwik. First off, similar
to Google Analytics, Matomo is a free analytics application. Unlike GA though,
this program is open source which has a certain allure to some users of the
platform. Open source programs allow for their source code to be available to
the public. This grants users the ability to continuously modify and hopefully “advance”
the program from its first-hand setup and design. Also, the major argument
stemming from this debate is connected to Google’s usage of the data it
collects from Google Analytics users. This data is free to be used by Google
however the brand sees fit, including data brokering and other “intrusive”
forms of usage. Moving into the inner workings
of the program, Matomo offers a plethora of metrics. Users are allowed to track
visitors, unique visitors, visitor location, page views, unique page views,
bounce rate and many more highly important analytics. The program’s website
provides detail about metric offerings stating, “Matomo features all standard
statistics reports: top keywords and search engines, websites, social media
websites, top page URLs, page titles, user countries, providers, operating
system, browser marketshare, screen resolution, desktop VS mobile, engagement
(time on site, pages per visit, repeated visits), top campaigns, custom
variables, top entry/exit pages, downloaded files, and many more, classified
into four main analytics report categories – Visitors, Actions, Referrers,
Goals/Ecommerce (30+ reports)” (Matomo.org, 2018) Google Analytics on the other
hand, has an even larger reports offering which includes, “over 80 reports to
help you gauge your site's performance—whether by usage metrics, return visit
numbers, or time on page” ( Reed College of Media, West Virginia University,
2018).
Example Matomo: Visitor
Metrics
(Matomo.org, 2018)
Example: Matomo Visitor Metrics
(Matomo.org,
2018)
An example of Matomo’s metric offerings comes in the form of
their visitor’s profile report. This report allows users to gather a high
amount of individualized information about visitors that includes:
- “why your visitors viewed your website.
- why your returning visitors continue to view your website.
- what specific visitors are looking for and whether they
found it on your website” (Matomo.org, 2018).
When using the visitors report area in the Google Analytics
program, one is also able to see different demographics and attributes relating
the to the visitors of their site. This section includes metrics such as age,
gender, location, and language. Under
the behaviors tab, brands are able to track average time on page, sessions,
session duration, page views and bounce rate.
Example: Google Analytic Visitor Metrics
(Google Analytics, Web Analytics and SEO by J.G, 2018)
Relating to the differences in the display of visitor
information, an article on WebOptimizers.com argued that Google’s setup
excelled over Mamoto’s saying, “Piwik now has the functionality of showing real
time visitors. However, the information processing from a real-time widget is
not useful because the representation of the information leaves much to be
desired. Google Analytics real-time visitors tab is much better designed to
represent the information. It also follows the hierarchy of the presentation of
the information with the most relevant information presented immediately.
1) Google Analytics provides the total current live visitors
on your page while Piwik does not make it clear which visitors are still on the
page.
2) With the per minute page views (GA) chart, it is also
easy to estimate the average number of pages a visitor is viewing while Piwik
makes this impossible due to the scrolling action.
3) The source of the traffic is clear.
So all in all, Google Analytics gives you top pages, top
sources, visit page views, top locations and visitors currently on the website.
Piwik’s information representation is largely unclear and the real-time
function does not serve a definite purpose as it should” (Chayda, 2017)
Also relating to visitor reports, Google seems to have an
upper hand over Mamoto when a business is searching for metrics relating to
page views. The key to the advantages Google offers lie in the ease of use of
their program. The previously mentioned WebOptimizers.com article also spoke on
this saying, “Piwik visitor’s graph is generic at best. The key to using data
insights is the ability to manipulate the dataset. Capacity to manage dataset
in Piwik is a tad bit confusing especially the segmentation. When clicking on
Piwik’s page views line (as it is a clickable element) one would expect that
the page should bring up the top pages report within a subsection of the page.
(Chayda, 2017)
In Google Analytic’s offering, access to information
including visitor countries, demographics, and behavior are all accessible
without having to change the page.
(Chayda,
2017)
After visiting and researching Mamoto’s website tutorials
and seeing the program in action, I would have to agree that overall Google
Analytics has a larger base of reports and easier functionality than Mamoto’s
Analytics offering. The major upside for Mamoto relates to the program’s open
source platform.
Resources:
Chavda, Ajay. (2017, November 22) Piwik vs Google Analytics.
A detailed review. WebOptimizers.com. Retrieved from
Google Analytics, Web Analytics and SEO by J.G. (2018,
January 31) All Web Site Data. Analytics.Google.com.
Retrieved from https://analytics.google.com/analytics/web/
-
report/visitors-engagement/a113244786w168674458p168737669/%3FhistogramTab-sectionControl.sectionId=duration/
Matomo.org. (2018) What is Matomo? Matomo.org. Retrieved from
Just stopping by to help your data ;).
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