Top 15 Google Analytics Alternatives for WordPress

When it comes to online business, data and analytics are our friends. The data that is collected and the analysis that follows provide us with insights into how well we are doing. For example, understanding the market, keeping track of how well the website and pages are doing and so on will play a crucial role in establishing and maintaining the online presence.

The online ecosystem and the needs of the visitors are constantly changing. Therefore it is vital to keep tabs on the online trends and act accordingly. The data and analytics will help us identify the areas to improve and help us map out new strategies to implement. Before we take a look at the top Google Analytics alternatives for WordPress, let us understand what exactly is Web Analytics?

What is Web Analytics?

Web analytics involves the process of collecting, measuring and analysing the data to understand the user behaviour. This data in turn would help us to optimize the website and web pages accordingly. The data can include- 

• The total time a user spends on the website.
• How the user found the website in the first place.
• The country the users are from.
• Records the Bounce rate.
• The most visited web pages.
• All web page sections that were explored.
• Which browser or device was used to log in.
• Identify the Exit pages.

This would help us create a user persona, understand the demographic market and implement the needed changes and strategies. A web analytics tool is often used to collect the data and shows all the relevant details.

Two Types of Web Analytics

There are two types of web analytics- Off-site web analytics and On-site web analytics.

Off-site Web Analytics

As the name suggests focuses on all the aspects outside the website. It involves collecting data from search engines, social media campaigns, social media ads, forums and so on. This would provide an idea about how well we are performing when compared to the competitors and where we stand.

On-site Web Analytics

It mainly focuses on the website and the web pages – like how the user found the website, or the web page, the time spent on the website, the website sections accessed and so on.

The Importance of Web Analytics

Measure the inbound traffic

The analytic data will give us insight into how the visitors found our website. Whether it was through the search engines, social media links or ad campaigns or any other external means. Identifying the way through which the website traffic is being generated is important because it would let us know how much discoverable we are compared to the competition. Once the first stage is over, the analytics will show us how much time they were on the website, their activity and many more. 

Optimize the pages for the audience

The data would show which all pages have attracted the most traffic, from which all countries they accessed. One can formulate the user experience to attract more traffic depending on this data. From the loading speed, the ease of navigation, focus the ads and other sponsored links on that particular page for more clicks.

Impact on SEO

Analytics plays an important role in Search Engine Optimization. It can help us frame the right keywords, depending on the visitors’ geographic locations. Thereby enabling us to focus on the right set of keywords to generate inbound traffic. The analytics tool also keeps track of the bounce rate, and the exit pages also.

Keep tabs on the Conversion Rate Optimization for eCommerce Website

Conversion rate optimisation is important especially if you run an eCommerce website. The analytics will show how far the goal has been achieved. It can be the user watching a video, subscribing to new offer alerts, newsletters, viewing different products and so on. Having a lot of inbound traffic is useless, without the conversion rate goal being reached.

Top Reasons to Use Google Analytics Alternatives

Privacy

In the current digital era, data decides everything. We can say that the data is the digital gold- for both the website owner as well as for Google. Google’s services, ads and everything else revolves around the data that is collected. But not many feel comfortable knowing a third party is collecting all the data and using it for their own purposes. When we visit a website, it is the responsibility of that particular website to keep our data on its servers. With the analytics software, Google will have the needed data without having to do any fieldwork. 

User Friendliness

Not many users would feel comfortable with how Google Analytics shows us the relevant data. At times it can get confusing and feel cluttered. The initial time frame to set up Google analytics and work our way around it can take some time. The setup process and other data review processes are straightforward with other analytics alternatives.

The Top Google Analytics Alternatives

1. Koko Analytics

Koko Analytics is an open-source (GPLv3) Google Analytics alternate for WordPress. It does not connect to any external services nor share the data. Koko analytics has a plug and play setup which means the setup process is easy. The data collection would start immediately and it is GDPR  compliant. Koko Analytics provides us with the option to use cookies or not.

The plugin can also track AMP pages. If the visitor has Do not Track enabled on the browser, the Koko Analytics plugin won’t collect any user details. It is a privacy-focused WordPress Analytics plugin as all the data is stored on the server that is hosting the website and not on a third-party server. Also, Koko analytics does not collect visitor-specific data.

2. Matomo Analytics

Matomo Analytics previously known as Piwik is a free and open-source WordPress Analytics plugin. The word Matomo in Japanese stands for honesty and privacy is one of their main focus. Matomo Analytics unlike Google Analytics offers 100% ownership of the data, A/B testing, GDPR complaint, SEO keyword performance, form analytics, custom reports and also no data sampling. Data sampling followed by Google Analytics does save time but is not always beneficial if a user requires precise level data. The data is stored on the same server the WordPress website is hosted, thereby the users’ privacy is protected as no third party is involved.

Matomo Analytics plugin also offers a heatmap feature, that allows us to keep a log of the clicks, the mouse movements and other scroll activities of the website visitor. Matomo Analytics offers two plans- the on-premise plan is free but additional features come at a separate price which is on the expensive side, whereas the cloud plan pricing is based on the total website hits and is hosted on their services. The price starts at $31/month. The cloud plan is also offered as a 21-day free trial option.

3. Clicky Analytics

Clicky Analytics is another freemium WordPress analytics plugin that pays a lot of importance to protecting the privacy of those who visit the website. Clicky Analytics is also GDPR compliant. Clicky Analytics apart from the basic analytics features offers a spy mode that allows us to see the real-time movement of the visitor on the website and also offers the heatmap feature.

There are a total of five plans- Free which allows up to 3000-page visits in a single day on one website, then the Pro plan at $9.99/month which allows a total of 30000-page visits in a day and can be used to track 10 websites, the Pro Plus plan at $14.99/month also supports a total of 30000 daily and can be used to track 10 pages page visits but offers more premium features, heatmaps and uptime monitoring. Then the Pro Platinum at $19.99 allows a total of 100,000 visits a day and allows us to track 30 websites and a Custom plan that allows up to 20M daily visits and track 30 websites.

4. Statify

Statify is an open-source WordPress Analytics plugin that does not use cookies. Statify doesn’t process and store personal data. The analytics data by default is stored for a period of two weeks, but can be changed from the menu and is also GDPR compliant. This plugin is compatible with caching plugins, provides javascript tracking for caching compatibility and provides protection against spam referrers.

5. Jetpack

Jetpack plugin also offers analytics statistics apart from its other host of features such as security and backup. To use Jetpack, we will need a WordPress.com account. There is no need to host the site there. Since the plugin is from Automattic, it seamlessly integrates with the WordPress environment. Here the data is stored on the WordPress servers. The plugin also protects against malware and hackers. The plugin provides all the needed analytics tools like website traffic monitoring, SEO tools, compatibility with WooCommerce, and much more. Jetpack offers three plans Backup at $3/month, Security at $8/month and Complete at $29/month. Jetpack also offers other add-ons at an extra price.

6. Fathom Analytics

Fathom Analytics WordPress analytics plugin is GDPR, CCPA, COPPA, PECR and ePrivacy complaint and doesn’t use any cookies. The data is fully owned by us and Fathom Analytics doesn’t store any data. The plugin only tracks the needed information like page views, unique visitors, bounce rate, country, device, and browser. Fathom Analytics offers three plans- the base plan starts at $14/month supports up to 100000 monthly page views, the second plan is priced at $24/month supports up to 200000 monthly page views and the last plan is priced at $44/month allows up to 500000 monthly page views.

7. WP Statistics

WP Statistics stores all the data on our server and is GDPR compliant. The plugin allows us to track the IP, referring site, browser, the search engine from which they landed on our website, the OS and many more. The plugin also allows us to export data in TSV, XML and CSV formats. The plugin does offer more features, but those premium features are add-ons and they come at an extra price.

8. VisitorAnalyticsIO

VisitorAnalyticsIO WordPress analytics plugin offers a host of features.  The plugin is GDPR and CCPA compliant. The plugin offers website traffic statistics, visitor session recordings, heatmaps, funnels, visitor feedback analytics, SEO tools and many more features. The plugin makes use of cookieless tracking. The plugin offers a free plan with all the features included but is limited to 400 visits/month. There are four paid plans- Basic at $12.99/month allows 10000 visits/month, then the Advanced plan at  $24.99/month allows 25000 visits/month. The Pro plan at $39.99/month supports up to 50000 visits/month and the Pro Plus plan at $69.99 supports 75000 visits/month.

9. AFS Analytics

AFS Analytics for WordPress is a powerful analytics plugin that gives importance to privacy without compromising on features. The feature list includes a heatmap, detailed user profile, predictive analysis, events tracking, SEO support, support for Woocommerce, real-time monitoring from the dashboard and GDPR compliance. The plugin has a total of 3 plans, one free and two paid. The free plan supports up to 20000 monthly visits, then the Silver plan starts at $18.19/month and allows 150000 visits/month, and the Gold plan at $52.5/month 600000 visits/month. The pricing will vary depending upon the monthly visits one chooses, the monthly visits can be changed during the signup process.

10. Simple Analytics

Simple Analytics advertises itself as a privacy-focused Google Analytics alternative and they are serious about it. The plugin is GDPR, CCPA and PECR complaint. The analytics plugin offers page views, referrers, top pages, email reports, tweet viewer, data export in CSV format, screen size, browser, bounce rate and no use of cookies. Their data representation is straightforward with an easy to under UI. They have three paid plans- Starter at $19/month supports less than 100000 visits/month, the Business plan at $59/month allows up to 1M visits/month and the Enterprise plan supports over 1M visits/month.

11. Visitor Traffic Real Time Statistics

Visitor Traffic Real Time Statistics is a WordPress analytics plugin that offers all the functionalities of Google Analytics and more while being GDPR compliant. The plugin has two versions, Basic and Pro. The features of the basic version are- log browser version, country stats, referrers, search words, weekly statistics, search engine queries, visitor source, top referring sites and shortcode support. The pro version is priced at a range of $29-$69 and unlocks more features like a multisite network, visitor location by country, current online users, page tracking and much more.

12. Komito Analytics

Komito Analytics is a free open-source WordPress analytics plugin that offers a host of features. Komito Analytics offers social interaction tracking, form submissions, CTA link clicks, track outbound links, track HTML5 video, and audio, track print page actions, track logged-in users, track file download links and more. Komito analytics is also cross-compatible with the majority of the analytics software currently available.

13. Oribi Analytics

Oribi Analytics is a Google analytics plugin alternative for WordPress that offers all the analytics solutions one needs. The plugin provides insights, trends, cross-domain funnels, devices, and event tracking and is GDPR compliant. Oribi does not save any personal data like an email address or the exact location of the website visitors.

14. Slimstat Analytics

Slimstat Analytics is an open-source WordPress analytics plugin that is GDPR and CCPA compliant. The plugin depends on the open-source community to make code enhancements and bring in new features. At present, the included features are tracking returning visitors, monitoring javascript events, analysing email campaigns, real-time access log, shortcodes, geolocation, world map feature, filters, export option, compatibility with W3 cache and most cache plugins. More features can be added through premium add-ons.

15. Independent Analytics

Independent Analytics is a new analytics plugin for WordPress and an alternative to Google Analytics. It’s lightning-fast, GDPR compliant, and has deep integration with WordPress.

While most analytics tools track your URLs, Independent Analytics is able to track your pages because it understands WordPress under the hood. This means you can view a list of your pages and their views, instead of just the URLs. You can also see additional properties like your publish dates, authors, and post categories alongside metrics like Views.

In addition to the basic view tracking, Independent Analytics includes referrer tracking, so you can see your top traffic sources. All of the reports are filterable, so you can dig deep into your data and find actionable insights. For instance, you can filter your views by only those from social media sites, or look at the performance of posts in a specific category.

Wrapping up

If you are worried about privacy with Google Analytics, these are some of the leading alternative WordPress analytics plugins you can look into. They respect privacy as none of them stores any personal data, there is no involvement of any third party and the setup process is also straightforward.