In a previous blog post I discussed the value of measuring data analytics and specifically highlighted using Google Analytics.  Once you invest time into Google Analytics, and discover how to refine your measurements through filters, funnels and goals, you’ll now want to consider using Google Analytics Partner Applications.

Google Analytics Partners are businesses that are vetted by Google to provide complimentary services and applications. There are two different types of partners, Service Partners and Technology Partners.  Technology Partners have developed applications that integrate with Google Analytics. There are numerous different types of applications including but not limited to phone call tracking, mobile reporting, social analytics and Content Management.

Web based Content Management systems are software tools used to create, publish and manage web content.  There are many different CMS systems used to develop websites. Some of the most popular are WordPress, Drupal, and Jumla.

"WordPress is the Top Ten Reviews Silver Award winner and one of the best CMS programs available." (Rivera, 2016)

“WordPress is not only the most popular CMS, it is also the fastest-growing system: Every 74 seconds a site within the top 10 million starts using WordPress. Compare this with Shopify, the second-fastest growing CMS, which is gaining a new site every 22 minutes,” Gelbmann concludes. World Wide Web Technology Surveys (W3Techs) announces that a recent survey of websites has shown that WordPress, the popular open source publishing platform, is being used in over 25 percent of all websites. That’s not just 25 percent of all those using a service but all websites.

In second and third place are Joomla and Drupal, platforms that power less than 5 percent of the market. Counting all the others, that leaves 57 percent of the market that doesn’t use any service at all.” (McFarland, 2015)

As a WordPress website designer, I found that the application, Analytify can be a powerful tool for both designers as well as website content managers.

“This is a plugin that is multisite compatible but also responsive, so you can view your stats on various screen sizes without any problem. It is also great for those non-technical users out there as it enables the editors who maintain the areas of your site to see the traffic associated with their posts.” (Zahra, 2016)

Analytify offers a number of analytic statistics including social media, e-commerce, page level analytics, real time statistics and front end reporting. Being able to review analytics within the WordPress dashboard over logging in to Google Analytics saves time and also allows non techie people that may manage the website to be able to view the statistics that on specific posts, pages and e-commerce data.

Like many WordPress plugins, this one is available for free but to really take advantage of its full capabilities, multiple levels of paid versions are available. For an individual site, perfect for a small business, the Personal version is available for only $39/year. Additional add on's are available for specific features as needed, including a WooCommerce add for extended e-commerce data,

Easy Digital Downloads, is a separate plugin add on which is integrated with Analytify.  Analytify tracks sales, transactions and revenues for WorPress sites selling digital products.


Campaigns Add On:

The Campaigns Add On uses UTM tags to track details of multiple campaigns and provides the statistics within the WordPress dashboard.  "UTM parameters are simply tags that you add to a URL. When someone clicks on a URL with UTM parameters, those tags are sent back to your Google Analytics for tracking." (Klines, 2011)



The Email Notifications Add on is perfect for designers and developers that have to report to clients on statistics and ROI. The email reports can be set up to be automatically sent at regular intervals, weekly, monthly, etc.  The user can set up specific metrics to report on and the template options make it visually easy for anyone to read and understand.


Analytify is an application that is suitable for many levels of users from the personal user with a single website to professional developers creating and managing hundreds of websites. The options for add ons available within this single application ensures compatibility and support all in one place. The prices range from $39/yr for the Personal level up to $199/yr for the Developer version.

I will consider installing and testing this application on my own website and will provide a review in a few months from now.  This plugin was developed about 2 years ago. In October of this year the developers announced a new version coming in the near future. One of the concerns when installing new plugins into your website is the stability and support available. What I look for is the number of downloads, how long ago it was updated and user reviews.

Resources:


Zahra, M. (2016, November 1). Best Google Analytics Plugins for WordPress. MPMayor.com. Retrieved from https://www.wpmayor.com/best-google-analytics-plugins-wordpress/

McFarland, J. (2015, November 11). 25 Percent of Websites Are Now on WordPress. SmallBizTrends.com. Retrieved by https://smallbiztrends.com/2015/11/sites-on-wordpress.html

Rivera, A. (2016). 2016 Best Content Management System Software Reviews. TopTenReviews.com. Retrieved from http://www.toptenreviews.com/business/internet/best-content-management-system-software/wordpress-review/

Hines, K. (2011, December).  How To Use UTM Parameters In Google Analytics 5. Kissmetrics.com. Retrieved from https://blog.kissmetrics.com/how-to-use-utm-parameters/