Kissmetrics v. Google Analytics
Kissmetrics:
Summary
When looking at web analytical tools in the market place, it’s
easy to get confused by the sheer number of offering available. Each of the products
touts itself as offering an exclusive presentation of the data that is applicable
to the business or individual that desires it.
At the top of the market place is Google Analytics. This shouldn’t
come as a surprise due to Google’s unquestionable name recognition throughout the
web, and that they offer a robust analytical offering for no cost. According to
the industry tracking site Perfectleads, “of all the 21,090,614 sites that use
Analytics, Google Analytics is used by 15,936,368 sites, or 75.56% of all
websites. Of all the different Analytics platforms, Google Analytics's rank is
#1 out of 118.” (Perfectleads, 2018) While it may appear that with such a strong
position in the market there would be little reason to look at alternative options,
there are a number of other companies producing web analytic software to better
meet the needs of businesses than Google Analytics.
At number 25 on this list, Kissmetrics has 0.07% of the total
market share, with just over 15,000 websites. (Perfectleads, 2018) Kissmetrics is
an event-based analytics package that attempts to tell the story of how visitors
interact with the page. They are geared around purchasing behavior on ecommerce
sites and look to determine the visitor worth towards the bottom line. The core
features are:
·
Unlimited Reports
·
Unlimited A/B Split Tests
·
Data Segmentation
·
Data Export
·
Group Contact Lists
·
1-on-1 Consultation (Professional plan only)
·
Dedicated Metrics Specialist (Professional plan
only)
(Connell, 2014).
Kissmetrics has different products, with their “Kissmetrics Analytic”
being most comparable to Google Analytics. Kissmetrics, as described on their website,
states that their product “tracks everything people are doing on your website
or products. We provide a suite of reports so you can understand what’s going
on, what’s working and what’s not. You’ll get all the insights you need to take
action with confidence.” (Kissmetrics, n.d.)
What separates Kissmetrics is how they display their Person Details.
“See the complete historical details of every individual. Discover the precise
path they take, the features they use (and don’t) and what kind of user they
are.” (Kissmetrics, n.d.)
Kissmetrics
vs. Google Analytics
There
are a number of differences between Kissmetris and Google Analytics and they tend
to differ around how they handle the tracking of visitors, and how those visitors
interact with the website. Both services offer a high level of reporting, albeit
with a different presentation, so the main difference is behind the algorithms that
derive reporting and what that means to the analyst viewing the data.
Kissmetrics
is focused on the people that visit the sire, rather than a “visitor.” This distinction
is important, because it is key to the value proposition of Kissmetrics. Every visit
gets tied to a person – this is a feature within Google, and not it’s primary focus.
“When tracking people, you need two things to verify their identity:
User Identification
– Your analytics tool must be able to identify users when they tell you who
they are.
Signing In –
Users must be able to sign in and identify themselves on each of their devices.
(Kissmetrics Academy, n.d.)
When
a person visits a website for the first time, both Kissmetrics and Google
Analytics assign an anonymous ID to that person to help the program identify them.
For Google Analytics, the
visit and registration must take place in the same visit session. If a person
visits your website, leaves, and then comes back 10 days later and registers,
only the last session is tied to the user ID. The first session is lost. Google
Analytics connects data from only the session in which the user was identified.
The only way around this is to find a way to identify people during as many
sessions as possible. With Kissmetrics, all data from a person’s previous
sessions is assigned to an alias. (Kissmetrics Academy, n.d.)
Kissmetrics also ties back the data even if the person has multiple
days between visits, and doesn’t register when he visits again. Kissmetrics accomplishes
this via cookies installed on the person’s browser. In this case, Google would register
this as a separate visit and not tie it back with that individual.
Kissmetrics also outlines another common scenario when a person
ha session activity from several devices. Google Analytics can only connect data
from that individual session, whereas Kissmetrics can track a person across all
the devices, as outlined with this example:
1) Anna registers on
your site from her desktop.
2) A week later, she
visits your site on her iPad but doesn’t log in.
3) Later that day, she
visits your site again, this time logging in with her iPad.
With Kissmetrics, all
the data from her desktop gets assigned to her alias once she registers. When
she visits on her iPad, Kissmetrics assigns her a new anonymous ID. Kissmetrics
doesn’t know this visitor is Anna until she logs in on her iPad. Once she logs
in, all the sessions from her iPad are tied back to the ID she originally
created when she registered on her desktop.
Anna registered on her
first visit, so the activity from that session gets tied to her newly
registered User ID. Since Anna’s second visit was on a new device and she
didn’t log in, that data gets lost.
All her sessions going
forward (on the same device) will be correctly assigned to her. The same goes
for when she visits on another device. Once she logs in on a device, the data
from that same session gets tied back to the User ID that was assigned when she
registered on her desktop. (Kissmetrics Academy, n.d.)
Through the use of the installed cookies, and the correlation
back with the login information tied with the person, Kissmetrics can also differentiate
between different users who share the same device – providing a strong advantage
over Google Analytics.
Summary
The comparison between Kissmetrics and Google Analytics highlights
some strong reasons to move towards a different analytical program than what two-thirds
of the web uses. What we must remember is that even with robust features that Kissmetrics
has, it is not a platform designed for everyone. Google Analytics is free, and by
its nature, people use it for certain metrics and not the full breadth of its offerings.
This could be done for multiple reasons, but primarily its for the individual analytical
needs of that business. Going with Kissmetrics, for example, allows a business that
already knows what KPIs they want to track, to fully implement a solution quickly
with the expertise of a precision instrument. This helps explain why there are so
many small-market share placers in the a web analytics arena.
References
Perfectleads. (2018, Feb 1). Google
Analytics Market Share Report, Feb 2018. Perfectleds.
Accessed
from: http://www.perfectleads.com/marketshare/google-analytics
Connell, A. (2014, March 12). 8 Google
Analytics Alternatives. Search Engine Journal. Accessed
Kissmetrics. (n.d.) Kissmetrics
Analyze. Kissmetrics.com. Accessed from:
Kissmetrics Academy. (n.d.) What is
the Difference Between Google Analytics and Kissmetrics?
Kissmetrics. Accessed
from: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-analytics-and-kissmetrics/
Just stopping by to help your data ;).
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