Whether you frequently need website data on demand or are just a Google Analytics addict, having quick access to Google Analytics is important to many bloggers and business folks alike. Your smart phone can be an excellent way to access this information on the go, but there are so many apps on the market already. You don't want to buy just any app. As a blogger, Google Analytics enthusiast and iPhone owner myself, it's no wonder that I'm also interested in finding the very best Google Analytics iPhone app out there.
After reading about the Top iPhone Apps for Social Media Marketing nearly month ago, I've been slowly making it through every Google Analytics iPhone app on the iTunes store. I tested each one for a few basic, yet critical personal iPhone app user criteria:
- iPhone App Usability - iPhone app users expect excellent usability. Simple tasks like selecting websites or reports have to be easy. Selecting date ranges must be swift and intuitive. Bonus points are applied heavily for Google Analytics app that minimize excessive screens and scrolling without cluttering the iPhone screen.
(iPhone app shown here: Visits. Click to enlarge.)Google Analytics Insights, Not Just Data - As web analytics evangelist Avinash Kaushik always suggests, web analytics is about the maximizing your insights, not necessarily reports. Great Google Analytics iPhone apps provide the best traffic and outcomes insights in as few reports as possible.
- iPhone App Price - Google Analytics iPhone apps already vary widely in price. Some are well worth it. Some aren't. I'm willing to pay for services but expect value.
After scouring the market and without further ado, I bring you the Complete Google Analytics iPhone App Guide.
Full Service Google Analytics iPhone Apps
Our guide is split into two basic categories, full service and specialty. Full Service Google Analytics iPhone apps should provide access to all major visitor, traffic, content, goals e-commerce and event information for a Google Analytics profile.
Quality Full Service Google Analytics iPhone Apps:
- Update 6/23/10: Analytics App recently came out with an updated version of their app that includes beautiful graphs as well as much better goal information. At this point, Analytics App (see below) is the winner
- Bam Analytics - Current Google Analytics iPhone App Champ. Bam Analytics knows how important it is to show not only stats on your website visitors (i.e., traffic sources, browsers, content), but what they did as well (i.e., conversions, ecommerce, goals). Bam Analytics provides great conversion rate information on search and e-commerce. While I'd personally like to see some additional conversion rate metrics surrounding traffic sources and campaigns, as well as event summaries, Bam Analytics is already the leading Google Analytics iPhone app for outcomes. Did I mention they also allow for advanced segments and reports?
- Analytics App - Very good but in need of a few tweaks. Analytics App has one of the easiest date range interfaces of all the Google Analytics iPhone apps. The robust report list is anchored by the Dashboard, Today and Yesterday Overview Reports, which is helpful overall but sorely lacks info on goals, conversions, events, campaigns, etc. Analytics App is overall a solid iPhone app with great design and utility. A few optimizations here and there could make it the champ.
- AnalyticsPro - Another great iPhone app just shy of perfection. AnalyticsPro has a lot of things going for it as well. It provides for different visualization options of detailed traffic reports, which help to coax insights out of Google Analytics. Again, this iPhone app is overall very good but lacks summary reports with outcomes.
(Bam Analytics provides access to goals. Click to enlarge)
(Analytics App has a great interface. Click to enlarge)
(AnalyticsPro has great graphs. Click to enlarge)
Google Analytics iPhone Apps Requiring Improvement:
(Click to enlarge.)Pocket GA - Personally, I like the date range user interface of Pocket GA above nearly every other Google Analytics iPhone app. Unfortunately, they're missing quite a few key core reports -- outcomes, keywords, conversion, campaigns, events - the usual.
- Analytics Agent - Analytics Agent has a clunky date interface and minimal access to outcomes from the summary reports. There are much better Google Analytics iPhone app options available. Moving on...
- Buzz InSites - This Google Analytics did not live up to my expectations in the least. When I first saw Buzz InSites, they claimed to provide access to your web analytics and social profile metrics from one convenient interface. For the $5 price tag, I thought, it had better do that and more. Buzz InSites flops out out of the gate with clunky login and date selection interfaces. The scant Google Analytics and Twitter summary information at the end of the usability maze leaves much to be desired with this iPhone app.
Specialty Google Analytics iPhone Apps
Specialty Google Analytics iPhone apps are apps that are designed to show one feature or particular aspect of your website's performance. Their purposes vary widely, as does there quality.
Specialty Google Analytics iPhone Apps Worth a Look:
(Click to enlarge.)Ego - Even though high-level stats like website visitors, Twitter followers and Feedburner subscribers don't necessarily translate to outcomes for business or personal goals, they can be of great appeal to our vanity. That's why Ego is the perfect app to check summary metrics across multiple platforms quickly.
- Visits - Visits shows one thing and one thing only - visits. See summary stats, traffic sources and keywords. The app doesn't say it can do anything it can't. See the image above.
Specialty Google Analytics iPhone Apps Needing Improvement:
- Analyze This! - This fun app shows great executive level summary info for goals, e-commerce and campaigns. While this free iPhone app shows a lot of potential, it's seemed a bit buggy to me -- I encountered a time-out on several occasions. But hey, it's free and I certainly look forward to any improvements this app developer chooses to pursue and thank them for sharing their tool with us! As social media and Web 2.0 continues to prove again and again, the best tools can also be free.
(Analyze This! has promise but needs a little work. Click to enlarge.)Analytics, Touchlytics, Cracklytics - These apps are great examples of someone playing around with a Google Analytics API. Without some major improvement, it would be hard for the beginner, intermediate or advanced Google Analytics user to derive much value from these iPhone apps in their current state. The best part about iPhone apps is that they're updated frequently. I have faith that these apps can utilize their customer feedback and improve their product accordingly.
Having a web analytics platform like Google Analytics installed on your website is important to advancing your site closer towards your personal and/or professional goals. iPhone users -- well, at smartphone users, really -- have the ability to access this information from anywhere at any time via the apps listed here today.
Does your review of these apps differ from mine? How do you measure a good Google Analytics iPhone app? WWhich one do you use? I foresee a lot more movement from developers on these types of iPhone apps in the coming months and years. Leave a comment below to add to the conversation here at Big Picture Web.
