Woopra is a relatively new real-time web analytics tool created by iFusion Labs®. Web designers and developers will have a hard time not getting addicted to it because of its fun, attractive and easy-to-use user interface. Similar to Google Analytics, you can access Woopra online from any computer. There are plenty of other real-time analytic tools already available out there, but Woopra is one of the most affordable. It’s perfect for small to medium sized business and has the potential to go viral when it’s finished beta testing. You can try Woopra for free until your data cap is reached, or buy it for as low as 4.95/mo.
Unlike Google Analytics, Woopra doesn’t store data for an unlimited amount of time. The tool will only retain your websites statistics for a minimum of 3 months (free) to a maximum of 36 months (179.95/mo), and it will only allow a certain amount of page views to be tracked per month as well. However, we’ve found the 29.95/mo plan to be more than capable of handling 100+ visitors a day.
What is Real-Time Web Analytics and Why Should you Care?
Woopra was built to collect information about who is on your website in nearly real-time. In a matter of seconds Woopra can show you how someone entered your site, where they went afterwards, how long they stayed on each page, what browser they use, what size of screen they have, what country/city they’re from, how many times they’ve visited your site before, how they found you (search engine/direct hit/backlink referral etc.) and more!
Real-time analytic information can help you recognize trends, organize marketing strategies, and most importantly, save you money! Imagine starting a pay-per-click (PPC) campaign in the morning and tweaking it based on analytic information by mid-afternoon.
Do you Tweet, Stumble, Bookmark, or otherwise create backlinks to your blog after a new post has been added? Woopra will allow you to see how effective those mini promotional campaigns you’ve been running really are, instantly. One of the most unique features of Woopra is its ability to LIVE chat with visitors who are browsing your website. It’s the only analytic tool on the market that can generate leads in this way. However, every time we’ve tried to initiate chat with one of our visitors they either don’t engage or leave the site entirely. Either their browsers are blocking the pop-up, or the chat dialogue simply scares them away. We recommend saving this feature for extreme circumstances. Plus you’re limited to how it’s displayed on the page. Great idea, just needs some tweaking on their end.
Google Analytics Vs. Woopra
Google Analytics has pretty much become the standard web-analytic tool ever since its release in late 2005. It’s free, robust and highly useful, but it’s slow to update and hard to navigate. Woopra on the other hand is easy to navigate and fast to update, but its buggy and could be considered costly by some webmasters. Here are some further differences:
Google Analytics Strengths over Woopra
- Free
- Goal conversion tracking
- Easily track Ad Words campaigns
Google Analytics Weaknesses over Woopra
- Doesn’t update until 2:00-3:00 AM
- Confusing navigation
- No LIVE chat feature
Woopra Strengths over Google Analytics
- Real-time tracking allows for instant updates
- Easy-to-use interface
- Labeling of individual users (visitor tagging)
- LIVE chat
Woopra Weaknesses against Google Analytics
- Cannot track Ad Words campaigns easily
- Buggy, sometimes requiring a reboot of your computer
- High traffic websites can be expensive to track
- No goal conversion
- Support is shaky at best
- Documentation, not well documented
Summary
Both Google Analytics and Woopra collect similar analytic data, but each tool displays that information in very different ways. Google Analytics’ T.O.S. states, “You will not (and will not allow any third party to) use the Service to track or collect personally identifiable information of Internet users, nor will You (or will You allow any third party to) associate any data gathered from Your website(s) (or such third parties' website(s)) with any personally identifying information from any source as part of Your use (or such third parties' use) of the Service.” (source)
Clearly, Google doesn’t want us identifying any one single individual with its analytic tool. With Woopra, that’s the whole point! We can chat, identify, and even label visitors for easy reference in the future. This is a great way to keep an eye on repeat visitors and study their navigational paths.
Woopra is undoubtedly more fun to play with than Google analytics, but it’s not quite ready for a takeover. We’ve spent hours trying to figure out how to track our Adwords campaign, and their support hasn’t been able to help. The community is small and there isn’t a whole lot of assistance to be had on the support forums yet either. For now, it would be smart to use both analytic tools until Woopra has completed its beta testing.