Alternative to Google Analytics
-
Hey Everyone,
My company has just changed the order processing software we are using and it's causing some issues with Google Analytics conversion funnel tracking. Specifically, there is one point in the funnel where making certain selections (which about half the people do) causes the page to reload. Also, on the login/register page, if they miss a field, the software tells them missed the field, but loads a new page which has a different URL which is not a part of the funnel when a mistake like that isn't made.
All of this is causing Google Analytics to report people as leaving the conversion funnel when they really haven't. About a third of the traffic is being shown as exiting the funnel with the exit URL being the exact same URL as the step they are supposedly exiting from (example: the visitor enters on page1, moves to page2, Google is showing that they exit on page2 and go to...page2.
Does anyone have any suggestions of how to deal with this in Google Analytics? If not, do you have a recommendation of an alternative analytics program which can deal with the situations mentioned above?
PS - Changing the way the checkout software works does not appear to be a viable option.
Kurt Steinbrueck
OurChurch.Com -
Thanks Lesley and Philipp. We're a web hosting company, so putting analytics software on the server wouldn't be a problem. I'll look into Piwik.
Kurt
-
I do have a developer I work with, so I may be able to make the change, but I'm not sure exactly what you mean by only triggering extra virtual pageviews when the users succeed. Could you clarify that?
Thanks.
Kurt
-
I also suggest to take a look at http://piwik.org/, it's a great and promising open source analytics tool. But it requires more technical knowledge to implement it and have it running (you need to run it on your own server).
-
Hi Kurt,
Not sure what your resources are for development but what you could do is only trigger extra virtual pageviews when the users succeed within the funnel and use these extra pages within the funnel of your goal tracking in Google Analytics. By doing that, you'll make sure you'll keep your funnel clean. Because I think you would have the same issue with every other alternative analytics program.
-
I have used http://piwik.org/ to pretty good success as far as self hosted analytics, the good thing is with a little coding you can change the way anything works. Plus there are a lot of pretty cool free plugins too.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Using logical operators (AND / OR) in Google Analytics Goal Funnels
When setting up a Funnel within Google Analytics, is it possible to use logical operators (e.g. OR, AND) in the first (required) step of the funnel? For example, suppose I want to track users who visit page1.html AND page2.html before proceeding to the destination goal. I've entered two pages separated by the OR operator, and neither the "Verify this Goal" nor "Save" produces an error message - is it safe to assume that this is working as I intend? Thanks in advance!
Reporting & Analytics | | ahirai0 -
I am confuse with google analytic custom and segment report
Hi All, In google analytic when I create custom report for my ecommerce site then figures go mad. I really not able to judge peformance of device, browser and it's version, conversion, ecommerce conversion rate etc. same way if I add secondary dimension in report then also figures are not accurate. Again when I create different segment like desktop, mobile, tablet then in tablet segment mobile devices comes and in mobile device tablet appear why segment also not accurate? Is it because I am using free version? Also do we have alternative of google analytic which give same report like google analytic either device, browser, os, segment, enhance ecommerce etc? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | dhisman0 -
How do I exclude fake direct load traffic from networks in Google Analytics?
Starting on Friday 1/20, we noticed a huge, unnatural spike in Direct Load traffic. While researching where it was coming from, the big flags were huge spikes in countries that normally only have <5 sessions a month like Russia, Singapore, Brazil, etc., each sending 1400 a week, with >99% bounce rate and <0:00:05 average session duration. While looking into networks, we saw an influx in Networks that had never sent traffic before, each with >1300 sessions a week, 100% bounce rate, and 0:00:00 session duration. The list of these Networks are: astute hosting usa incorporated
Reporting & Analytics | | ServiceMichael
nephoscale inc.
network transit holdings llc
serverbeach
coreix ltd
2ezhost llp
nforce entertainment b.v.
mir telematiki ltd
servers australia pty ltd wholesale services provider for abuse
reliablehosting
dimenoc servicos de informatica ltda
c0715718213 I have seen a lot of guides of filtering out Referral traffic, but these are all coming in as Direct Load and are skewing our Direct Load results. Any idea how to filter or remove this traffic from Google Analytics?0 -
Do modal pop-ups impact the Google Analytics of the host page?
We have an instance of a page where visitors can click a button to start an interactive quiz. The quiz pops up in a modal window that references another domain (the interactive content provider). Will the person completing the quiz in the modal pop-up still be counted as an active visitor on the original host page during the time they are completing the quiz?
Reporting & Analytics | | MuhammadInc0 -
Cross domain tracking Google Analytics
Hi there, Got a question on cross domain tracking: We have a couple of TLD's to serve localized content to our visitors, next to our main .com TLD where our app is running as well in a subdomain. Situation is this: Local sites:
Reporting & Analytics | | jorisbrabants
marketingsite.be
marketingsite.com.br
marketingsite.fr Main site: marketingsite.com
app.marketingsite.com Conversion gets triggered when somebody ends up in app.marketingsite.com/firstuse for example. People can sign up at the local site filling in their email but they end up in app.marketingsite.com/firstuse Reading this article on cross domain tracking I'm getting a bit confused on the setup of the tracking code itself. The sample code provided shows these two lines: ga('require', 'linker'); ga('linker:autoLink', ['maindomain.com','targetdomain.com']); Now the question 🙂 Is it correct when I think that maindomain should be replaced with our local TLD's on every one of those, and that targetdomain is where the conversion happens? In this case the .com site?0 -
Google Analytics Not Tracking 100% of Visits?
Hi all, We're having an issue with Analytics where we are getting different figures from what Silver Pop are saying. For example email campaign A sent via Silver Pop, with Google Analytics tracking code show's 50 unique clicks in Silver Pop. Looking at Google Analytics there are only 10 visits from that campaign. So I thought it could be something with the tracking, but there wasn't a significant rise in web visits = either Google Analytics is not recording visits properly or Silver Pop figures are wrong. I'm more inclined to think that it's something to do with Google Analytics. Has anyone come across something similar? Where one system is showing you X amount of visits but the figures on Google Analytics don't add up? A few quick things already covered: Double checked the links have been tracked properly, but this doesn't explain the low increase in web visits generally We've double checked that Google Analytics tracking code is properly installed (and it is / was at the time of send). Any help would be much appreciated! Thanks guys.
Reporting & Analytics | | RKHStaff1 -
Weird info from google analytics?
Hi Could anyone explain what these visits are in Google Analytics? Under traffic sources and organic I am seeing lots of entries with data like below. Any ideas what kind of traffic this is? Is it a bot and if so what is their purpose of it and is it recommended that you block it? Pages/Visit 1.00 Avg. Time on Site 00:00:00 % New Visits : 100% Bounce Rate: 100.00% Many Thanks
Reporting & Analytics | | ocelot0 -
Tracking PDF Downloads in Google Analytics
Hi, I work on a site that allows users to download whitepapers after filling out a form. Once they do this they are redirected to a URL which is the PDF. We use Wordpress and these documents were uploaded to the media center. I've tried researching how to track these downloads in GA, since the code is not present on these pages, but have read a few different answers. Anyone have firsthand experience? Thanks!
Reporting & Analytics | | tinarose0