Given its importance in shaping website and social media strategy, web analytics data needs to be tailored, accurate, and reliable. While Google Analytics and other complementary tools are useful resources, many free web analytics options offer broad trends rather than exact numbers, forcing brands to seek out paid alternatives to glean deeper insight from raw data.

For those willing to pay to play, here are eight popular options in the paid web analytics software space.

Best in Show

Clicky

Clicky offers one of the more comprehensive overviews of web data. Features include real-time heat mapping, alerts for campaign visitors, and Twitter analytics. With a mobile app available, all data reports are right at your fingertips. On the other hand, with fairly basic analytics, Clicky is just a step above Google Analytics. Subscriptions run $9.99-$79.99 per month for websites receiving over 3,000 daily page views.

Piwik

Somewhat typical features like goal conversion tracking, real-time data updates, and event or campaign tracking are not what set Piwik apart; rather, it’s the unlimited data storage, which allows brands to compare analytics to see how things are changing over time. Throw in a customized dashboard that allows users to select what analytics are shown, and you’ve got a winner at a reasonable price: Piwik Cloud is offered at $65 per month for up to 100,000 page views.

Kissmetrics

Beyond reporting analytics on page views, Kissmetrics provides data on the what, why, and how for particular activities–great for businesses with an e-commerce focus. Additional features include info on visitors at all stages of the sales cycle before they become customers, proto-market segmentation (you can group visitors who take similar actions), unlimited reports on A/B testing, and a mobile app. Finally, as noted on its site, Kissmetrics offers rich analytics on every visitor and not just converted customers. Subscriptions start at $150 per month for 500,000 events (in web analytics speak, an “event” or “action” is any web-based user action/interaction, such as viewing a web page, clicking on a link, downloading a video, etc.) per month.

MixPanel

While many features are similar to Kissmetrics, MixPanel excels by providing advanced traffic segmentation, better real-time data, and an understandable user-interface. MixPanel also has the capabilities to send out pre-composed emails and tailor notifications for customers via mobile or web. Subscriptions start at $150 for 500,000 data points or 50,000 profiles per month.

Woopra

If customer personalization is important to your business, Woopra may be your web analytics software of choice. Similar to Kissmetrics and MixPanel, Woopra collects real-time data about the customer interaction with the website and displays what the customer is viewing. With this information, you can create customer profiles and segment your marketing. There is also funnel reporting that focuses on where to improve your website. Word of warning: be ready to have tech support on hand for installation, as the site includes a prompt for your software engineer. Subscriptions start at $79.95 for 400,000 actions per month.

TrueSocial Metrics

For businesses and websites with a strong focus on social media, TrueSocial Metrics is designed to specifically report the success of your social media marketing efforts. By identifying which topics resonate with customers and followers, TrueSocial Metrics calculates your return on investment. Subscriptions range from $30 to $350 per month.

FoxMetrics

Not only does FoxMetrics collect data on customer interaction in real time, but also aggregates the data onto form reports on customer life-cycles. A comprehensive history provides analytics of what visitors are clicking, emails they are opening, and ultimately products they are purchasing. However, in order to receive all the data available from FoxMetrics, you must be an Enterprise user (custom quote). Non-enterprise subscriptions range from $20 to $120 per month based on the number of monthly requests (i.e. “actions” or “events”).

GoSquared

GoSquared boasts of having an intuitive, functional, and beautiful design that has a minimal learning curve. The tool is straightforward and easy to use; however, as there is a limit to how much data you view, once reached, you have to either purchase to view more data or wait until the next month. GoSquared is a great tool for e-commerce, even offering chat support to communicate with your customers while they browse your website. Subscriptions range from $24 to $99 per month based on page views.

Summary

When selecting the right web analytics tools for your website, there are a plethora of options and features to choose from. Before committing to a paid subscription, it’s worth bearing in mind that many of these tools offer a free trial period. Take advantage of this, narrowing down your options by comparing each product’s functionality with your business goals.