Web metrics: Crazy Egg vs. Google Analytics

We're testing out two different reporting mechanisms, but man they’re off. I really like Google Analytics and have been using it to gauge interaction for this blog as a larger test for the redesigned pages of our national site.

However, I’m a big fan of cross referencing web reporting metrics, so a friend suggested I try Crazy Egg which gives you the first 5000 pages free. And, along with that you get some pretty cool visuals, like a heat map. I love the thought of a heat map—sort of a poor man’s version of eye-tracking—to get a sense of what draws attention on a page. This is great for testing new designs and figuring out what is hot (no pun intended), but the trouble is that I can’t quite get it to work properly. Arrggh.

Fortunately though, boldly placed on the top navigation bar is the link, “Report a Bug,” so I did—which, btw, seems too well placed. Not sure what is up with the heat map as well as the counter, but visits reported by Crazy Egg are 20x greater than my Google Analytic visits. That’s a pretty big discrepancy.

And, I won’t even get in to Convio’s reporting mechanisms, yuck. Not that I know a great deal about manipulating data (though I’d love to learn more), I get the sense that AWStats kind of bites for drilling down for more detailed information.