20 Best Content Analytics Software in 2024

Google is the most used search engine in the world, so it makes sense to evaluate your site’s traffic and align your content strategy using their software

Why I picked Google Analytics: I picked Google Analytics because it is universally-known around the world as one of Google’s flagship products. As a free software, it is accessible to all and can be installed easily with a script in the universal header of your site or through Google Tag Manager.

I would have thought a free software would have limited functionality, but you get the opposite with Google Analytics. You can customize reports and dashboards within Google Analytics to easily surface the data you wish to see.

Google Analytics Standout Features and Integrations

Features include the ability to segment users by location, device type, acquisition channel and behavior. This helps marketers understand more about their visitors, while equipping them with useful segments to target. Another key feature is Google Analytics’ custom reporting. You can evaluate which content is driving conversions by setting up custom events within Google Analytics. Then, you can trigger custom reports to be emailed to you automatically on a daily, weekly, monthly or quarterly basis.

Integrations include other Google products including AdWords, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Manager.

Segment is a customer data management platform that can provide rich insights based on content performance data.

Why I picked Segment: I picked Segment because of its broad data management capabilities to securely store customer data for small businesses and enterprise-level companies.

If you are already using it to unify their data sources, it’s important to highlight it as an option for their content analytics as well. This will save you time and money, while surfacing unique insights.

Segment’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features that Segment offers are focused on the idea of “comprehensiveness.”

By unifying multiple data sources, you can get a comprehensive view of the customer. Segment’s analytics functionality provides a comprehensive view as well.

This means that you can get a real-time view of your customer and their behavior across multiple channels (web, email, mobile, social) as well as devices.

You can create segments within the data which can be used for targeting for other marketing campaigns.

Integrations include 300+ platforms including Facebook, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Salesforce, WordPress, and Zendesk.

Hotjar is a unique platform, because the insights it provides are all visualizations.

Why I picked Hotjar: Hotjar provides an easy way to see how users interact with your content.

By deploying heat maps, you can discover where users are clicking on your page. These insights can guide future optimizations of your content and your site.

I loved seeing where people clicked on my site and found this information to be valuable. It helped me understand what content needs to be re-evaluated and guided my decision making process for future content production.

Hotjar’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features that help Hotjar stand out are its heatmaps.

Users who sign up for the platform can get unlimited heat laps on multiple pages. Hotjar is easy to install in just a few clicks.

The insights that you can get from Hotjar include discovering where users click, A/B testing different adjustments, and seeing how performance changes over time.

Integrations include popular platforms like Campaign Monitor, Google Analytics, Mailchimp, Optimizely, WVO, Shopify, Squarespace, WordPress, and Zendesk.

SimilarWeb provides a high-level overview of your site’s performance as well as your competitors’ performance.

Why I picked Similarweb: I picked Similarweb because the platform provides competitive analysis that sources rich audience insights like interests and habits across all industries.

Similarweb’s competitive analysis is useful for when you are trying to understand who is viewing your content and how those viewers may differ from your competitors.

Most other platforms show how people engage with your content. Similarweb does that, but also shows you who is engaging with it, too.

SimilarWeb’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features include a comparison function enables you to select your site and a competitor’s site to review a side-by-side comparison.

The data tracked includes traffic, unique visits, audience behavior, and defining attributes like top categories, other sites that your audience visited, and top topics.

You can see how your site’s visits changed each month and review visit duration, bounce rate, gender distribution, and age distribution.

Integrations include Google Analytics, so you can increase visibility from the primary source data available within that platform.

Chartbeat’s system uses data science to extract insights rather than give you a ton of meaningless data with no context.

Why I picked Chartbeat: Chartbeat focuses on insights rather than pure data. The platform wants to give users the information they need to make the best strategic decisions.

This shift in focusing on insights rather than mounds of data distinguishes Chartbeat from other platforms on the market.

To get a comprehensive look at your insights, you can connect Chartbeat’s API to your own dashboard to always have data at your fingertips.

Chartbeat’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features include the ability to generate customizable reports with auto-generated insights to identify trends in audience data.

The data comes in on a second-by-second basis giving you the most up-to-date view of your audience.

You can find out what content engages your audiences, compare engagement across segments, and review video content performance.

Integrations include top platforms including comScore, DoubleClick, Drupal, Facebook, Google Analytics, Google Ad Manager, Twitter, and Quantcast.

Heap is a content analytics software that surfaces insights into user behavior.

Why I picked Heap: Heap focuses on “customers' digital journeys” and provides users with key metrics to identify what content is performing well and where prospects may be dropping off.

The platform can operate across both web and mobile experiences, providing a complete view of your content engagement metrics. Unlike some other platforms, Heap can surface historical data even if the script wasn’t installed on your site prior to publishing an article.

The platform is used by a handful of major brands including Freshworks, Esurance, Northwestern Mutual, and Twilio.

Heap’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features include its cross-platform view, retro-active data, and session replay.

Much like Adobe Analytics, Heap can track key metrics like engagements and conversions across web and mobile environments. This provides the user with a full picture of their data.

Heap’s ability to retroactively measure user data is key for businesses just getting started in their analytics. Thus, you wouldn’t have to worry about setting up conversion events right away. Instead, with Heap, you could analyze any data at any time.

Finally, Heap’s session replay functionality is unique to the platform. This function enables you to discover how visitors interact with your site by watching their actions. These actions can include clicks, scrolls, and other mouse movements.

Integrations include Eloqua, HubSpot, Jira, Marketo, Mailchimp, Optimizely, Pipedrive, Salesforce, Shopify, and Slack.

Optimizely enables businesses to plan, create, and publish their content all from one place.

Why I picked Optimizely: This software platform assists marketers at each step of the content production process — especially with analytics and attribution reporting.

Since it focuses on both the publishing and reporting aspects of content production, users can take advantage of A/B testing and personalized content to understand what performs best with their target audience.

I was impressed with how easy it is to A/B test different headers, images, and content within an article. The data Optimizely provides will improve your personalization efforts, making your content more applicable to various segments of your audience.

Optimizely’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features include A/B testing, multivariate testing, and personalization capabilities.

With the platform’s A/B testing, you can test various headlines, images, and copy to see which drives more conversions.

Plus, multivariate testing enables you to test various copy blocks (on similar topics) at the same time. Then, you can pick the winning variation and use it for a larger campaign with your audience.

For all aspects of your content, you can review real-time attribution and engagement analytics including visits, engagements, topics, and sources to see how each article is performing and where your visitors are finding your site.

Integrations include a variety of platforms including Adobe Analytics, Google Analytics, HubSpot, Marketo, and Salesforce.

Kissmetrics offers visibility over your customer’s actions at each point of the buying cycle.

Why I picked Kissmetrics: In the Kissmetrics dashboard, you’ll see how your content influences key metrics including new trial starts, subscription sign-ups, and churns.

This information is invaluable to have at your fingertips if you plan and create content to drive more signups, trials or demo requests for your SaaS business.

Kissmetrics’ Standout Features and Integrations

Features include person-based tracking, which is my favorite feature from Kissmetrics. This feature enables you to dissect user actions across many channels including web, email, and mobile.

With this information, you can review a comprehensive audit of how your customers interact with your content.

Additionally, you can set up a cohort analysis to track the behaviors of groups of users over time. This enables you to create targeted segments for future campaigns.

If you’re concerned about your prospects dropping off at any point, consider running a funnel report. These map specific customers through your content, providing you with a health-check of your current published content and where improvements may be needed.

Integrations include a variety of leading companies including AdRoll, Google Ads, Google Analytics, Facebook, HubSpot, MailChimp, Marketo, Salesforce, Shopify, and WooCommerce.

Parse.ly is a content analytics software that's easy for beginners to use. You can easily digest the information to guide your content strategy.

Why I picked Parse.ly: Parse.ly is easy to learn right after you dive into the platform. I loved how intuitive and simple the platform feels, even though it is showcasing insights based on complex data.

The platform provides just enough information to understand content performance without being overwhelming.

It provides a snapshot of your current content and gives users an understanding of how it’s performing over time.

Parse.ly’s Standout Features and Integrations

Features include a content analytics dashboard, which tracks many key metrics including topics, tags, views, visitors, minutes spent on site, average time, and publish date.

With AI-powered Smart Tags, you can segment your article by topics and see which ones are performing best.

Plus, you can set up conversions to see which content drives specific actions and identify unique trends with historical data.

Integrations include Adobe Analytics, Constant Contact, Drupal, Facebook, Google Ad Manager, Google Analytics, Hubspot, Mailchimp, Salesforce, and Twitter.

Adobe Analytics provides marketers with the chance to measure and analyze their web content.

Why I picked Adobe Analytics: I picked this platform to feature since Adobe is such a powerhouse in the market with a variety of other products that many companies already use.

Plus, Adobe Analytics has a wide-range of content measurement features that extract insights that marketers will eagerly want to incorporate into their strategy.

Adobe Analytics has a similar feel and functionality compared to Google Analytics, but it edges it out in terms of the engagement metrics you can track on the platform.

Adobe Analytics’ Standout Features and Integrations

Features include data visualization, cross-device tracking, and machine learning.

Unlike other platforms, Adobe Analytics makes it easy to visualize all aspects of their data (including the overall increase, decrease and percent changed) of the core metrics.

These visualizations appear both in the dashboard and in custom reports that can be sent to the user.

Next, Adobe Analytics stands out with its cross-device tracking capabilities.

With cross-device tracking, you’ll be able to see how users engage across channels and devices. This includes viewing habits of your content on both desktop and mobile devices.

Finally, Adobe Analytics uses machine learning to predict future viewing patterns.

You can use this functionality to extract insights, model behavior habits, and perform a complete data analysis review of your content.

Integrations include other Adobe Products, including Adobe Marketing Cloud, Adobe Experience Manager, and Adobe Target.