Let’s talk about Clicky. In the past year and a half, we’ve seen the number of real-time analytics tools grow from just a handful, to a whole shed-load.

We’ve previously talked about Woopra, and it’s no secret that I’m a big fan. But late last year, Woopra revamped their business model. They did away with all their reasonably priced plans and started their plans effectively at around 8x times the previous cost ($100+). At the same time, they decided to discontinue working on their desktop applications and instead focus on their web experience. If you’ve downloaded the app before, it still works. But unfortunately they’ve since removed the links from their site. (Though between you and me, if you want the Windows version, it’s here and if you want the Mac version, it’s here.)

To recap: that blows.

Woopra is clearly targeting a different user than me. So we reached out to Lucky Orange. Twice. And we heard nothing. Not a “Hello, how are ya” or a “We think you’re weird” or even a “Go away, or we’ll start shouting!” We like what they do, and one day we might take a look and write a review, but after the way Woopra up and changed their model, we were more interested in dealing with an analytics company that would return our emails.

We found Clicky through a very unlikely circumstance and they turned out to be some really nice folks.

We’ve been using Clicky for close to a month and a half and can wholeheartedly recommend using it as part of your core set of analytics tools. Let’s see why.

Clicky: The Price is Right

I’m hooked on real time analytics. Let me keep an eye on how many people are on my site at any time and I’m a happy guy! But I’m a bit of a cheapskate too. So I’d rather not have to pay $100/month if I don’t have to. (And to be fair, Woopra grandfathered all their accounts in, so I wasn’t subject to the new rate. But still. As Big Worm used to say, “It’s the principle of the whole thing. It’s principalities in this!”)

With Clicky, the price is right. It starts at Free-99. That’s just “free” if you don’t speak the kids-talk. If you need more, they will hook you up for $10-20 a month. Principalities indeed!

Good Data, However You Want It

But pricing wouldn’t mean a thing if they sucked. So do they?

Did you even bother to read the section heading? Of course they don’t suck. And I hope they use that last sentence in their marketing because I stand behind it 100%.

They offer it in a few different ways. The main way is on their website. Unlike Woopra, they don’t offer a desktop app. But, they offer a WordPress plugin where you can see your stats in your Dashboard. If you don’t use WordPress, they have a Chrome plugin where you can keep an eye on the number of people on your website in real time and where vital information is only a click away. If you’re stubborn like me and you have to see that number on your Dock on your Mac, there’s an app for that.

Clicky makes it easy for developers to extend the program and has created a page of apps and plug-ins to showcase the best. Besides the menubar widget for OSX, they have applications for every environment you’re likely to have: Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, iGoogle, Facebook and more.

The Data You Want To Know, Easy to Find

When you login to the website, the dashboard has been well thought out. They put the most generally important stuff first.

The section, “The Basics” tells you the most important stuff up front: new and unique visitors, page views, downloads, outbound links, events, average actions per user, total time spent by everybody, average time per visit, and bounce rate.

Most of these metrics will be familiar to users of Google Analytics. Average number of actions and total time are two new metrics to me, and I like them. Next to each value is a percentage gain or loss compared to the previous day.

Next to it is a graph of the visitors for the day, by hour, as compared with the previous day. What makes Clicky cool is that they let you change the graph to compare other date ranges with a click of a button.

Rounding out the top of the dashboard are the inbound links, and most viewed pages. There are menus at each spot for additional granularity.

Like other real time analytics programs, you can set up Goals, Events, and Campaigns. All of these are ways to tag and track events and conversions on your website. This comes in especially handy if you’re in e-commerce. It makes tracking sales and revenue data a breeze.

Uptime

One of the unofficial things that Woopra did for me was let me know when my site was down. If I didn’t see anybody on the site for more than 10-15 minutes, I knew something was wrong. And even if I was busy and wasn’t actively monitoring the number, it was still likely that I’d notice the problem within hours instead of what traditionally would have been 1-2 days.

Clicky knows that’s what we’re doing and has a way to notify users if their site goes down. Just create an alert and hope you never hear from it again.

Spies Like Us

In Woopra, my second favorite thing, after looking in the dock to see how many people are on the site in real-time was to click into the app to see who the people were and what they were reading on the site.

Clicky has the same thing, only it’s called “Spy”. Because that’s what it feels like you’re doing.

Then, because clearly this program was developed by some hardcore data nerds, they created the Big Screen. This is a look at all of the user’s key metrics, but formatted in a way as to look good on an executive’s flat screen.

Helpful to Agencies

If you love Clicky and want to use it with your clients – but don’t want your clients to know Clicky is doing all the heavy lifting, they’ll even white label the product for you (and at a very reasonable price).

They also offer a bunch of different widgets to use if you want to create a custom page for your clients to view their data.

Why Are You Still Reading This? Go Get Some Clicky In Your Life.

Woopra, I love(d) you – but you grew up, got hard, and wanted a man with more money. So I found Clicky. She’s got spunk. What’s not to like?

There’s great, real time data, the way you want it, when you want it, how you want it, at a price you can afford. So the only question I have is, why are you still reading this? Get Clicky now.