Better Together: Kissmetrics + Google Analytics

Kissmetrics identifies itself as a “customer engagement” platform that helps users “understand what people are doing on your website and deliver behavior-based engagement every step of the way” (Kissmetrics.com). The platform seems to offer many of the same tracking capabilities of Google Analytics, though they are perhaps more concerned with the person behind the identified behaviors and with linking insights to said person/people. The simplified comparison (and Kissmetric’s apparent tagline) is that  “Google Analytics tells you what’s happening, Kissmetrics tells you who’s behind it” (Connell, 2014). This idea seems to position Kissmetrics as more of a collaborative tool to compliment and enhance Google Analytics information rather than a competitive one. Keeping with the current month.

I suppose we could say that Google Analytics might have something to gain from asking Kissmetrics to be its valentine. 💞

However, Kissmetrics would not be a cheap date. The price is $150/month for up to 500,000 events each month (Kinney, 2017). So, if a company’s goal only involves tracking visitors and visits, Kissmetrics would not be worth the extra money. This would be the case for my current company. At this point, I would likely struggle to convince my employer to pay for Kissmetrics when I have yet to present substantial analysis from Google Analytics. However, it is still worthwhile to know the additional insights Kissmetrics could offer for when holes are identified, goals change or are achieved, hopefully resulting in additional funds that could be put toward tools like Kissmetrics with greater confidence in ROI from investing in it. I do have to say that Kissmetrics’ own branding as a company devoted to “metrics that matter” –promising to only offer data that will help you save time and “boost your bottom line”—is an alluring one. In line with this claim, the company uses several blog articles and infographics (like this one) that at least make Kissmetrics seem simpler and less abstract for a new learner than Google Analytics. 

Without further ado, here are some key differentiations between the Google Analytics and Kissmetrics: 

People Tracking & Identification

Kinney (2017) explains that Google Analytics focuses on visits and visitors, treating every visit as a new person. Based on our experience with Google Analytics this past week, this statement seems slightly untrue as we learned that Google Analytics does identify both new and returning visitors. Kissmetrics, however, does seem more interested in who that visitor is and what behavior occurs that is specific to them personally. Their way of measuring his to assigns first “annonymous IDs” and then “aliases” to visitors who register so that all later data connects directly to that person (Kinney, 2017).

Image credit: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-analytics-and-kissmetrics/

Kissmetrics, unlike Google Analytics, can also merge aliases from different devices, which also seems to offer a more humanizing element to the analytics—our consumer behavior is very rarely limited to only one device. The ability to connect behavior from different devices to the same individual would certainly offer a more detailed portrait of this person. This aligns with Connell’s (2014) claim that Kissmetrics lets you “Get to the core of exactly what your visitors are worth.”

Image Credit: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-analytics-and-kissmetrics/

In short, Kissmetrics seems designed for users who truly want to imagine the ‘who’ behind the ‘what’ of website interactions as demonstrated in yet another Kissmetrics.com infographic:

Image Credit: Kissmetrics.com 

Use Cases

Perhaps it is because I am a soft sell for a brand that at least appears simpler and more tangible (thank you again, colorful infographics and actual people names v. numbers). Perhaps it is also because much of the copy on Kissmetrics website and blog seems to speak my more right-brained language, putting psychology at the forefront and asking users to imagine a human link to their data, but aside from the $150/month price I find Kissmetrics more attractive than Google Analytics. And going back to my cheesy Valentine’s analogy, it certainly seems at first glance like Google Analytics has more to gain from Kissmetrics than Kissmetrics from Google Analytics. However, even Kissmetrics itself admits that this isn’t the case. Important information such as bounce rates, time on page, and exits cannot currently be tracked in Kissmetrics. On the Kissmetrics blog, Kinney (2017) advises users to “use Google Analytics for these metrics.”  

While Kissmetrics might be able to offer more in terms of user identification, funnels (with Kissmetrics you can retrieve historical data via funnel whereas Google Analytics collects forthcoming data only) and A/B testing (unlike Google Analytics, Kissmetrics connects testing date back to actual people and isn’t dependent on conversions happening within the same visit) (Kinney, 2018), the more basic insights Google Analytics offers such as the fact that ___ number of users always seem to bounce a particular page is invaluable.

Campaigns

Lastly for this post, Kissmetrics offers users the ability to export data to Mailchimp for the purpose of email marketing (Mehmood, n.d.). Personally, this is one of the greatest advantages I would present to my company if I were to make a case for Kissmetrics in addition to Google Analytics.

Conclusion

The common consensus seems to be that Google Analytics and Kissmetrics should be used in conjunction. While Kissmetrics might answer “more complex questions” (Mehmood, n.d.), the basic tools offered by Google Analytics cannot are still advantageous—even Kissmetrics uses Google Analytics!   

From Kissmetrics VP:

“Many of our customers use Google Analytics alongside Kissmetrics. We use Google Analytics to get session data, view a general engagement on a page (time on page and site), and check referral data. We use our own product for our web app to get insights into how our customers are using our product, discover our customer acquisition channels, track our acquisition funnel, document our A/B tests, and gather data that can help us make better decisions.”

Image Credit: Hussain Mehmood

References

Connell, A. (2014 March 12). 8 Google Analytics Alternatives. Search Engine Journal. Retrieved from: https://www.searchenginejournal.com/9-google-analytics-alternatives/92071/

Kinney, B. (2017 February 8). What is the Difference Between Google Analytics and Kissmetrics? Retrieved from: https://blog.kissmetrics.com/google-analytics-and-kissmetrics/

Kissmetrics.com. Retrieved from: https://www.kissmetrics.com/

Mehmood, H. (n.d.) Kissmetrics vs. Google Analytics – Choosing Best Analytics Tool. Retrieved from: http://marketlytics.com/blog/kissmetrics-vs-google-analytics