Product analytics is the data showing how and which of your users interact with the product. It helps to track, visualize and analyze user interaction data.
Smartlook is a popular product analytics tool, but it has its drawbacks. In this article, we'll dive into Smartlook and showcase a few alternatives that might suit you better.
- What is Smartlook used for?
- Smartlook Pricing
- Smartlook Alternatives
- Things to Look For in an Analytics Tool
- Frequently Asked Questions
What is Smartlook used for?
Smartlook is a product analytics platform that allows businesses to track user behavior and interactions on their websites and mobile applications.
It enables you to pinpoint critical pain points like confusing navigation or slow load times and optimize accordingly. As a result, it provides insights that help companies to improve user experiences and conversion rates.
Smartlook Pricing
The product analytics application Smartlook provides several capabilities. Depending on the user's demands, Smartlook offers a free plan in addition to several paid programs.
Advanced capabilities like custom event tracking, funnels, and conversion tracking are included in the pricier subscriptions.
The cost of Smartlook is determined by how many recorded sessions are used in a given month. Prices start from $55 for 5,000 recorded sessions. For companies requiring even more sessions, tailored options are available.
Smartlook Alternatives
If you have limited financial resources and have more than 5k events, the cost of Smartlook can be a significant hindrance.
With its high pricing model based on the number of users or sessions recorded, it is too expensive for smaller organizations and startups looking for cost-effective alternatives.
For this reason you might want to look into alternative solutions.
Simple Analytics
As the name goes, Simple Analytics is a simple and easy-to-use analytics tool. It's also one of the few analytics tools completely GDPR-compliant with EU-hosted servers. It's a robust web analytics tool that doubles as a minimal 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. The 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. Therefore it ensures that the best features are available at a very reasonable price.
The pricing of Simple Analytics starts at a low $9/month, making it a pocket-friendly tool for all businesses.
Woopra
Woopra is a customer analytics tool designed to track user journeys from start to end. The data provided by Woopra can be used to understand user journeys, analyze trends and improve user retention. It also comes with additional automation to help engage users in real time.
Pros
- Generous free plan
- Supports multiple single-click integrations
Cons
- Poor data retention policy
- Unclear GDPR compliance
Pricing
Woopra offers many plans with varying prices. It has a generous free plan, but if you move to the paid options, most will feel expensive. It starts with the pro plan for $999/month for 5 million actions in the Pro plan. The Enterprise plan goes beyond that, but its pricing is undisclosed.
You can contact the Woopra team and get a quote with pricing depending on the actions tracked per month. For companies requiring even more actions, tailored options are available.
Mixpanel
Mixpanel is one of the most popular product analytics tools out there and is used by companies like Netflix and CNN. The founders of Mixpanel believed that metrics like registered users, page views, and app downloads were just vanity metrics and could have been easily inflated. Mixpanel was built to solve this by providing absolute product clarity with their metrics.
It offers many ways to customize for the unique needs of businesses from different industries. With its customizable dashboard, Mixpanel allows its users a lot of room to keep track of their numbers.
Pros
- Provides in-depth product analytics
- Custom dashboards and charts can be created
Cons
- Using it is hard without dedicated product knowledge
- Expensive for most businesses if all features need to be unlocked
Pricing
Mixpanel offers a variety of pricing plans to suit different business needs, with options for startups, small businesses, and enterprises. Prices start at $20/month for the Growth plan, which includes unlimited reports and data pipeline add-ons. The Enterprise plan starts at a heavy $833/month and includes advanced machine learning and predictive analytics features.
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 does Smartlook do?
Smartlook is a tool for analyzing user experiences. Capturing and examining user sessions helps to understand how users engage with your website or mobile application. Smartlook gives you access to session recordings, conversion funnels, and user behavior analytics.
How does Smartlook function?
Smartlook observes and documents user interactions on your website or mobile application. By putting the Smartlook into practice, you'll start recording user sessions and gaining insightful information about user behavior.
What is Simple Analytics?
Simple Analytics is a privacy-friendly Google Analytics alternative that gives you the insights you need without collecting personal data. If you care about the privacy of your users and want an intuitive dashboard with the most important website insights, Simple Analytics might be the tool you are looking for.
Is Simple Analytics GDPR compliant?
Yes, Simple Analytics is an analytics tool that is fully GDPR compliant. Furthermore, it corresponds with EU-based servers and ensures user data is secure and confidential.