Product analytics involves collecting and analyzing user data to understand how they engage with a product. This enables businesses to track, visualize, and analyze user behaviour to make informed decisions.
These insights help make data-driven product decisions, such as introducing new features or making UI modifications to enhance the user experience.
Kissmetrics is a popular product analytics tool, but it has its drawbacks. In this article, we'll dive into Kissmetrics and showcase a few alternatives that might suit you better.
- What is Kissmetrics used for?
- Kissmetrics Pricing
- Alternatives to Kissmetrics
- Things to Look For in an Analytics Tool
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is Kissmetrics used for?
Kissmetrics is a product analytics tool. Kissmetrics primarily focuses on automating customer engagement. They provide a solution to track customer behavior. It focuses on providing data discovery and visualization support on its platform. In addition, Kissmetrics is also tracks keywords and is used for funnel analysis and goal tracking.
Kissmetrics Pricing
Kissmertics offers three types of plans in the product-led growth segment. These are Silver, Gold, and Platinum. It provides these packages based on monthly tracked users, number of user seats, and number of domains followed.
While the functionality of the Silver plan is relatively limited, it starts at a whopping $299/month. The Gold plan costs even more and tops at $499/month. Kissmetrics also has a Platinum plan. This is a custom offering and is based on varied parameters and can change from business to business.
Alternatives to Kissmetrics
Kissmetrics is a fullblown product analytics tool that helps track user behaviour and engagement insights to make data-driven decisions. However, it's relatively expensive and too many features make the UI cluttered. You might want to check on some other alternatives.
Simple Analytics
Simple Analytics is a straightforward analytics tool that gives you the insights you need while being 100% GDPR-compliant. It's affordable tool that doubles as a web -and product analytics tool.
Pros of using Simple Analytics
- Simplified UI - Using tools that are easy to navigate around is always preferred over complex ones. Simple Analytics offers a straightforward user interface that makes analysis easier. Working with it is, therefore, a smooth activity.
- Affordable Pricing- Simple Analytics is exceptionally cost-effective. They offer both product and web analytics tools at a reasonable price. They have plans starting at $9/month. It packs the tools and features from the most expensive tools for a friendly price.
- Automated Event Collection- Another feature that makes Simple Analytics stand out in its product category is automated event collection. While you must manually set additional tags for other tools, Simple Analytics does the job for you. Once you link it to your website, it lets you track the metrics of all action buttons just by hovering over them.
- Mini Websites- As a business with an online presence, you often get featured in the conversation of your users. You might get a mention on Twitter or a feature on a website. While most tools let you know where you got a mention, they don’t deliver the specifics. Simple Analytics stands out here. It gives you the specifics of your feature and helps you track it through a mini website.
Cons of using Simple Analytics:
The user interface of Simple Analytics is made to look simple and easy to understand so everyone, be it the founder or marketing teams, can use it easily. A Product Manager may need a few more screens, but that is something that can be quickly built with goals.
Pricing of Simple Analytics:
Simple Analytics is one of the most cost-efficient tools available in its segment. The product is perfect for businesses. It caters to companies and has plans for individuals and businesses.
The pricing of Simple Analytics starts at a low $9/month, making it a pocket-friendly tool for all businesses.
Smartlook
Smartlook is a product analytics platform that allows businesses to track user behavior and interactions on their websites and mobile applications. As a result, it provides insights that help companies to improve user experiences and conversion rates.
Also, Smartlook is in the process of being acquired by Cisco, which might bring lots of product changes soon.
Pros
- Affordable pricing
- Provides additional features such as crash reports
Cons
- Pricing can be expensive for high-traffic sites
- Uncertain future as it’s in the process of being acquired
Pricing
Smartlook offers three pricing plans: a free plan with limited features, a pro plan that starts at $55/month, and an enterprise plan with private pricing.
Recently Cisco has shown intent to acquire Smartlook, which may affect their product pricing as Cisco might want to make it a more enterprise-focused tool.
Snowplow
Snowplow is an open-source event analytics tool that collects and analyzes behavioral data and passes the same to business information tools, machine learning models, or for advanced data analytics.
It’s a complex tool specially built for large organizations to make data-driven product decisions at scale.
Pros
- Provides accurate data to make decisions.
- Solves the problem of understanding users at scale.
Cons
- Complex, and most users don’t have the resources to implement it
- Requires to be connected to other tools for a complete analytics
- Expensive tool
Pricing
Snowplow is an open-source tool, meaning you can self-host some parts, but their core behavioral data platform pricing starts at $800/month. This pricing might suit large-sized organizations but is unsuitable for most businesses.
Posthog
PostHog provides businesses with product analytics that assists in obtaining insights into their user behaviour. It is a GDPR-compliant platform that empowers entities to monitor user interactions and scrutinize data instantly.
Using it, companies can establish personal events to track explicit actions on their website or app, like button clicks or page views. PostHog also integrates with well-known tools like Slack, Segment, and Zapier.
Pros
- Affordable paid plan and generous free plan
- Open-source
- GDPR-compliant
Cons
- Customer support isn’t available for every plan
- Too complex for many
Pricing of Posthog
PostHog offers a paid plan starting at $0.0003068/event and $0.005/recording. There are also custom plans available for larger companies. It’s relatively affordable; however, if you want to have support, you’ll need to upgrade.
Things to Look For in an Analytics Tool
Selecting a tool for product analytics is a crucial decision. You might ask what could possibly go wrong when choosing one, yet you can miss out on a lot. Therefore, be sure to go through this checklist before making a choice. You're good to go if the tool provides these:
- Ease of Use: Regardless of your chosen product, it must be simple to use. You shouldn’t spend your precious time on a complex web analytics tool that takes time and experience to get familiar with.
- Accuracy: Getting an accurate picture of what’s happening on your website is important. Inaccurate data might lead to misjudged decisions that impact your business.
- Straightforward UI: Most of the time, you don’t need 75 custom dashboards (looking at you, Google). A straightforward overview of what’s happening on your website will give you the insights you need instantly. Look for a tool that gives you the insights you need without too many distracting bells and whistles.
- Lightweight: Your website is your storefront on the internet. Providing the best possible experience to your visitors matters. Installing an analytics script has an impact on your page speed. Choose an analytics tool that doesn’t slow your website down. This not only affects your visitors’ experience. Google will notice this as well.
- Privacy: The world is moving in a direction where privacy is becoming increasingly important. Google Analytics has been declared illegal in multiple EU countries. You don’t want to get caught up in this mess. Take privacy or compliance with regulation into account.
- Integration: To get a complete picture of your business, the tool should be able to integrate with other devices you use, such as your CRM or dashboarding tools.
- Pricing: Consider the tool's pricing and ensure it aligns with your budget. Take advantage of some companies' free trials or basic versions to ensure the product suits your needs before committing to a paying plan.
Although this checklist can assist you in getting started, there may be other factors for your organization that you need to consider.
Feel free to try Simple Analytics if you want a tool that checks these boxes. It provides the insights you need in a straightforward dashboard while being 100% GDPR compliant.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the purpose of Kissmetrics?
Kissmetrics was created to assist companies in monitoring, evaluating, and improving their consumer interaction and marketing initiatives.
It can track page views, clicks, sign-ups, transactions, and other user interactions and behavior. It gives you specific information about how users interact with your digital domains.
Is Simple Analytics GDPR compliant?
Yes, Simple Analytics is an analytics tool that is fully GDPR compliant. In addition, it corresponds with EU-based servers and ensures user data is secure and confidential.
Who is the founder of Kissmetrics?
Hiten Shah is a businessman and the co-founder of Kissmetrics, an online analytics company. Hiten Shah and Neil Patel were instrumental in making Kissmetrics a top analytics tool for the digital marketing sector.