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Nowadays, the competition is fierce between online businesses and they’re all trying to increase their conversion rate. As a result, there are a lot of development companies that have designed analytics tools to help you analyze the data coming to your website.
MonsterInsights is the most popular Google Analytics plugin for WordPress. This plugin adds a lot of Google Analytics information to your WordPress Dashboard and it even allows you to gather much better data.
In our previous article, we discussed how to add Google Analytics to WordPress. In this article, however, we would like to do a comprehensive MonsterInsights review. Stay tuned.
What is MonsterInsights?
Before we get to our ultimate MonsterInsights review, let us explain what this plugin actually does and is. MonsterInsights is a popular WordPress analytics plugin with over 2 million active installations. One of the ways to increase the traffic of your website is by analyzing what visitors do when they enter your website and work-based on that. This is where MonsterInsights or other analytical tools come in the picture.
This plugin builds a connection between Google Analytics and your WordPress website. To install this plugin, from the Dashboard go to Plugins > Add New and then type in the plugin’s name in the search box. Then, click on install and activate.
With only a few simple clicks, you can activate this plugin and view statistics on WordPress Dashboard and start working on the flaws. MonsterInsights gives you exact and important data of how your content has been found by visitors and how did they cope with it.
If you make decisions without considering the statistics, you will regret it and waste your time by focusing on the wrong areas. By using this plugin, you can make sure the strategy you have implemented on the website is correct or wrong.
What are MonsterInsights’ Top Features?
As mentioned in this MonsterInsights review, this is the best Google Analytics plugin for WordPress and it comes with a lot of great features. Below, we will explain some of the features this plugin has to offer.
Easy Installation
Installing and running Google Analytics on WordPress can be confusing for most users. If it’s incorrectly installed on your website, you may receive the wrong data. MonsterInsights takes less than 5 minutes to install and setup on your website.
Real-Time Stats
By using this plugin from the WordPress Dashboard, you can see real-time stats of users visiting your website.
Compatible with WooCommerce
This plugin is fully compatible with WooCommerce. If you have an online store and want to have complete data of each visit and product, you can use MonsterInsights to track both your visitors and products.
Track Posts
You publish various posts on your website and each has its category and subjects. By using the MonsterInsights plugin you can view the visits each post gets and how popular it is in your community. For example, visitors may prefer video content over regular text articles.
By using this information, you can spend more time creating content that gets more impressions.
Track Affiliates and Ads
One of the easiest ways to monetize a website is by using ads. Through the MonsterInsights plugin, you can see exact data of how many times an ad has been clicked on. Ads can be placed on different sections of the website. By using the information this plugin provides, you can choose the most profitable section for future ads.
In addition, MonsterInsights tells you how many times an affiliate link has been clicked on and from there you can calculate the earnings.
Track Referral Views
MonsterInsights gives you full data where each user has come from and which link they clicked on to enter your website. In addition, you can see which links they have clicked on and what did they do.
Behavior Report
Perhaps, the most useful feature this plugin has to offer is the ability to gather user’s behavior. For example, you can see how they found your website and which meta-title was more successful. By using this information you can improve the content you publish and reach out to more people.
Advantages and Disadvantages of MonsterInsights
You can’t have a plugin review without a short-list of the advantages and disadvantages.
MonsterInsights Advantages
- Easy Installation: The main advantage of using MonsterInsights is its easy setup compared to other Google Analytic tools. This is extremely important because most WordPress users don’t have any programming knowledge nor a team.
- Customizing Options: Each option is fully customizable to your needs and each option can be both disabled and enabled based on your needs.
- Friendly-Interface: To view and self-analyze the data MonsterInsights generates, there is no need to leave your WordPress Dashboard, everything is done within the dashboard.
- The Ability to Import and Export data: To backup your website’s analytical data, you can simply export anything MonsterInsight has generated and download it on your desktop or cloud server.
- No New Accounts needed: Everything will be done with your Google account and the plugin can connect to Google Analytics by connecting to Gmail.
Disadvantages
- Limited Free Version: Most of the features this plugin has to offer are premium and the free version is limited to the basics.
- The Price Tag: The premium version is very expensive. The cheapest package they have to offer starts from $99 for one website.
MonsterInsights vs. Jetpack Stats
Jetpack is a multi-functional and highly popular WordPress plugin. One of its many functions is to show analytics stats on the WordPress dashboard.
What is Jetpack Stats and How Does it work?
Jetpack is a multipurpose plugin that offers security and firewall protection, comment spam and even can backup your website.
Jetpack Stats is a part of this plugin and analyzes the data and traffic of your website. By enabling Jetpack Stats in the settings, you can view the stats on the WordPress Dashboard.
Comparing Stats Overview
The key difference between these two plugins is the way they display statistics. MonsterInsights has full access and control over the views and traffic of a website.
By using this plugin, you can see the exact data of downloads, clicks on links & ads, user behavior, personal information such as their location and even the type of browser they’re using.
On the other hand, Jetpack Stats only displays basic data such as total page views, comments, etc. In addition, you can view the most popular post and view the clicks of each post. This plugin doesn’t provide you with detailed and advanced information that MonsterInsights has to offer.
Thus, when it comes down to displaying data, MonsterInsights is superior to Jetpack Stats.
Impact on Site’s Performance
MonsterInsights is designed specifically to display analyzed data. On the other hand, Jetpack Stats is a small part of a big plugin (Jetpack) and only displays the basic data.
Since MonsterInsights focuses on the website’s structure, you won’t see any unrelated ads. Besides, as soon as it’s installed and activated it begins generating data.
As mentioned above, Jetpack Stats is a feature of the Jetpack plugin and it won’t work unless you install Jetpack itself which is a relatively heavy plugin.
If you are only looking for an analytical plugin, MonsterInsights is the best choice. But if you need the other features that Jetpack has to offer, then we recommend going that direction.
Accuracy of Data
As mentioned in this MonsterInsights review, this is a Google Analytics plugin with proven data that suggests it generates accurate data. Therefore, it is safe to say that when it comes down to accuracy, MonsterInsights is very accurate.
On the other hand, Jetpack Stats is a small feature of the bigger Jetpack plugin. This Automattic plugin mainly focuses on driving in more traffic towards your website. Thus, it is less accurate compared to MonsterInsights.
Price Point and Value
Both of these plugins have free and premium versions. But the advanced features of these two plugins are only available in the premium version. The premium version of MonsterInsights starts from $99 a year and Jetpack starts at $39 a year.
MonsterInsights is a bit pricy compared to Jetpack, but as mentioned above, it offers way more features compared to Jetpack.
Easy Installation
By using your Google account, you can simply activate MonsterInsights and start using Google Analytics for your WordPress website. On the other hand, to activate Jetpack Stats, you need to have an account with WordPress.com.
Support
The support for the free version of both plugins is similar. But in MonsterInsight, it doesn’t matter which premium package you have purchased, will receive ticket-based support.
Jetpack also offers premium support. But the package you have purchased determines the level of support you receive. Those who have purchased the cheapest package will only get email support. While their most expensive package comes with email, phone, and even online support.
Conclusion
Since MonsterInsights mainly focuses on Analytics, it is the best plugin in this field that comes with premium support. Although, if you use other features of Jetpack, then having Jetpack Stats is a solution and can satisfy your basic analytical needs.
MonsterInsights vs. Google Analyticator
The next plugin on our MonsterInsights review is Google Analyticator. This plugin is one of the popular free Google Analytics plugins and competitor of MonsterInsights.
What is Google Analyticator?
Google Analyticator is a simple WordPress analyzer plugin. This plugin also needs a Gmail account to get activated. By viewing your WordPress Dashboard, you can see data without getting redirected to another website.
Overview of statistics in the dashboard
The main difference between these two plugins is the way they display reports. Google Analyticator is limited when it comes to displaying reports. While MonsterInsights generates a detailed report and displays it to you.
Google Analyticator’s dashboard displays a simple graph of the last 30 days that includes a number of page views, average time a user has spent on a page, etc. In addition, it displays the top 5 keywords users have used to find your website and also displays 5 websites who have linked to you.
On the other hand, MonsterInsights displays a graph of the last 30 days that includes the time a user has spent on your web pages, number of users who have left the website without doing anything, etc. and instead of 5, MonsterInsights displays the top 10 popular posts that have had the most engagement.
Also, there’s a separate chart that displays the number of new and returning users to your website. Besides, it displays what device they have used to open your website. For example, tablet, mobile, PC, etc.
As mentioned in this MonsterInsights review, this plugin also generates a report for your affiliate program. Furthermore, it shows which links or products on your website had the most downloads, clicks and it can be sorted based on location, gender, age, etc.
Accuracy of the data
Both plugins connect to Google Analytics to display data, but based on the features MonsterInsights has to offer, it is more accurate compared to Google Analyticator.
Support
MonsterInsights’ support team is only available for those who have purchased any of their premium features. On the other hand, Google Analyticator has forum-based open support.
Final Conclusion
Both of these plugins work perfectly fine and generate accurate data for users. But since MonsterInsights is a plugin designed specifically to support all your Google Analytics needs, it comes with a ton of features. Thus, it generates more data that you can use to improve your WordPress website.