The Social Media Marketing Book

Software

You can use a number of different software solutions to track your on-site metrics. Here are a few of the ones that are the most popular and easiest to use, but be aware that there are many more than I've listed here:

Google Analytics (http://www.google.com/analytics/)

One of the most popular analytics systems, Google Analytics is a free and robust package from Google. It allows you to track eyeball and engagement metrics, as well as goals, including direct purchases and leads. There is a delay between when a user performs an action on your site and when your reports will reflect the action, but for most companies, Google Analytics provides plenty of data.

Clicky (http://getclicky.com/)

One of my favorite analytics packages, Clicky has free and paid versions of its software. The statistics are real-time, meaning there is no delay as with Google Analytics, and the paid version offers a "spy" view, where you can watch activity on your site happen in real time (see Figure 11-10). This is especially useful for social news and bookmarking marketing efforts because you can see when a new site starts sending traffic to you and add buttons to your content for that site.

HubSpot (http://www.hubspot.com/)

The company I work for, HubSpot, offers analytics as a part of its inbound marketing software. It is different from the data offered by Google Analytics in that it is designed for marketing professionals, includes lead information, and integrates with Salesforce.com to allow for closed-loop ...