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Reinvigorate’s Snoop: Real-Time Web Analytics

By Smashing Editorial, September 12th, 2007 in Developer's Toolbox | 41 Comments | Forum

by Michael Dobler

How many visitors came to my website last month and how long did they stay? Which were the top referrers and the most popular keywords? If a site owner wants to have answers to these questions a web analytics tool flashes into action. Google Analytics — the dominating flagship on the web analytics landscape — is often the first choice when it comes to measuring users’ activities; however there are solutions which can do more and can offer more flexibility which isn’t available in Google Analytics.

One of them is Reinvigorate Snoop, an add-on which comes alongside the web analytics tool reinvigorate, enables real-time web analytics and as such might beat the web analytics freak heart faster.

Reinvogorate Snoop

Snoop informs you in real-time about what is going on your website. Once downloaded and launched, it sits in the system tray. To monitor the activities of your visitors, you need to insert the tracking code on every page you would like to monitor. To remain updated about recent changes, you can set up the configuration for events you wish to receive.

When you run a frequently visited website you may get crazy by-and-by with all these alerts that interrupt you from your current work. Especially with speaker and event sounds turned on you will end up with an atonal symphony that won’t make it in the charts… This is why you can limit the number of active events down to the ones which are really worth to clap the hands for enjoyment. This may require an extra line of Javascript in the tracking code, placed e.g. on the “thank you” page as the last step of a purchase process.

Running the tool on your desktop, you can observe the behaviour - the navigation path - of your visitors; you can also label the visitors by using name tags to keep an overview of single users. can follow the navigation path of single users. Name tags are automatically associated with explicit user information, such as username or e-mail - e.g. if the user added a comment or logged in.

With Snoop’s real-time-feature you can stay informed about your sites traffic without the need to login into the tool. Reinvigorate, the main tool, satisfies all the deeper needs to analyze the activities of your visitors, such as

Session details

Visit depth

Popular pages

Search keywords

Geo Location and Most Recent Visitors

Analyzing user traffic on a regular basis can help you to improve your website — particularly your content — effectively. Examining the keyword search and the ranking of popular pages may influence your editorial plan, helping you to find most popular topics. And keeping an eye on the development of the top referrer shows where the traffic flow comes from.

You can verify the efficiency of your design decisions; for instance, if a certain change in your site’s functionalities, e.g. the changed position of a social bookmarks bar, results in less dependence on search engine generated traffic as the traffic from Digg and other social networks and news communities increases. Without documented facts, figures and graphics in your hands every measure is a blind flight in the fog.

Fetch yourself a cup of coffee and check out for Reinvigorate Snoop. The tool isn’t released yet and is available for beta-testers via invites. However, the developers periodically invite new users into the beta, about every week. Therefore you might want to take your place in the queue.

Summary

Reinvigorate Snoop is an analytics tool that runs in system tray and streams website and blog events to you live, in real-time.
Real-time Notification enables you to be informed instantly once someone makes a comment on your blog, posts in your forum, purchases an item, gets referred from another site, etc.
Audible Events help you to keep track on what is happening on your site — you don’t have to worry about missing events.
Name Tag Integration lets you label your visitors and keep track on their activities.
Both the tool and service are free and in closed beta-testing phase. Mac and PC-versions are available. To use the tool you need a Reinvigorate account.

Published in Developer's Toolbox, September 12th, 2007
Tags: analytics, metrics, services, statistics, tools, tracking

1.

Gerd Wippich (September 12th, 2007, 11:56 pm)

Wow, another cool tool. Just installed Google Analytics on a client site today, i surely will check this, too. Thanx for reporting!
2.

Jason A. (September 13th, 2007, 12:35 am)

I run Google Analytics for a number of sites, but I’ll definitely be checking this out. Thanks!
3.

Oli (September 13th, 2007, 12:36 am)

cool! Thanx!
4.

Starfeeder (September 13th, 2007, 12:45 am)

hmm any idea how to get into the close beta test?
5.

Andrew (September 13th, 2007, 12:47 am)

I hate that Google Analytics doesn’t have real-time statistics. I’m totally trying this out. Thanks!
6.

kidsinhalf (September 13th, 2007, 12:54 am)

I think the last Analytics is very simple and pretty. But it’s true, there is not everything…
I’m gonna test it for a client… and then for my website !
7.

Jake (September 13th, 2007, 12:57 am)

The various “live chat” solutions that you see on some sites allow for the same type of real-time web statistics. Although, the one I use doesn’t give me historical data - I /can/ see what page you’re viewing, how long you’ve been there, how you got there, etc.

Aside from it being just a cool gadget, it lets my team and I know if our marketing efforts are working in near real-time.
8.

Steve Goodman (September 13th, 2007, 2:25 am)

Another tool for real time stats that’s quite popular is Mint (http://www.haveamint.com). It’s not free, but it is reasonable at $30, and you host it yourself, allowing for a lot of custom functionality.
9.

Sam (September 13th, 2007, 2:51 am)

I’ve been using Reinvigorate/Snoop since late June, and it’s awesome! Snoop can drive you a bit nuts, though, if you get much traffic.

Getting into to beta was easy. Just click “Beta Registration” and input your email addy.
10.

Juice (September 13th, 2007, 3:03 am)

I’ve actually been using Reinvigorate for a few months now (and loving every bit of it), since around March I think, but I never knew how to implement the name tag codes. Is there any way someone can explain it in more detail?
11.

Kenneth Dreyer (September 13th, 2007, 3:23 am)

Looks pretty cool! I want to test this program on one of my sites, so I hope I get a beta invitation..
12.

Razvan (September 13th, 2007, 3:48 am)

I’ve been using it for a while, it’s really cool!
13.

Marko Novak (September 13th, 2007, 4:32 am)

This program could be the end of your blogging career. Alerts pop-up every second and you can’t get anything done :)
14.

MrsCommunication (September 13th, 2007, 4:51 am)

I’m sorry, maybe I missed it…but will this tool remain free like G-Analytics, or is it just free during beta?

-Thx
15.

Makka (September 13th, 2007, 5:24 am)

Sorry but this is only going to be useful for those people with small sites, I would get flooded everyday if I used just one of these alerts! & the other thing is this app is focusing on the individual, most people don’t need to know what is going on at the micro level they need macro tools. We want to be able to identify trends across the thousands of users that we get everyday, (it might seem callous) but we’re not interested in hand-holding every person that comes to our site, we simply haven’t the time.
16.

anggi (September 13th, 2007, 7:08 am)

google analytic have a competitor :D i will try it
17.

Ncus (September 13th, 2007, 11:10 am)

wow this is so cool. thank you.
18.

rob (September 13th, 2007, 12:56 pm)

i dont know
these kind of posts seems more paid advertisment than helpful….

i have seen recently various posts written about just 1 “tool” in the post….
why do that? when back before you used to talk about several at once…

well thanks what I THINK, if you dont respect that! :)
19.

Randolph (September 13th, 2007, 4:02 pm)

I can see that you’re using both Google Analytics and Reinvigorate Scoop. Nice post!
20.

Starfeeder (September 13th, 2007, 5:23 pm)

Oh well, I’m doing fine using HaveaMint, Google analytics and CrazyEgg…. anymore and I won’t have time to blog!
21.

zzz (September 13th, 2007, 5:35 pm)

Will it be free service in the future?
If they intend to keep it free I think they would tell it to their site like the monitor.us service.
22.

Michael Dobler (September 13th, 2007, 6:13 pm)

@rob
It`s Smashing Magazines holy law not to post for bucks. We brought this tool up because we find it useful for webworkers.
23.

Rob Phillips (September 13th, 2007, 7:17 pm)

Yup i also use google analytics, and it’s quite frustrating that you have to wait 24hrs for it to be updated
24.

ChangePoint (September 14th, 2007, 12:48 am)

Yeah, it used to be that I would have to wait 24 hours for data to come through on Good Analytics, but now I get it in 3-4 hours. Not sure why?
25.

rob (September 14th, 2007, 12:31 pm)

Michael Dobler:
thanks for your answer

i appreciate you took your time to respond.
and now i know, as i wrote before it was rare that you just mention 1 app!! thats all.

anyways i like your site very much, its the best i know.

congrats
26.

OPEN GIGA (September 14th, 2007, 4:23 pm)

I like google-Analytics and also like some tools. I must check it out…

thanks
27.

Joel Laumans (September 14th, 2007, 4:44 pm)

Yeah I am also using Mint =) definitely recommended
28.

Libya (September 14th, 2007, 7:16 pm)

This tool is 100 times better than G. Analytics!
I use it since 3 months now.
29.

San (September 14th, 2007, 9:08 pm)

There is also another good service: Clicktale. I don’t know if its real-time Link [www.clicktale.com]
30.

Michael Dobler (September 14th, 2007, 11:41 pm)

@San
Clicktale looks also very promising - we will have a deeper look on it.
31.

Michael Dobler (September 14th, 2007, 11:43 pm)

@San
Clicktale looks at first glance also promising - we will have a deeper look on it.
32.

Samir Shah (September 15th, 2007, 1:48 am)

its really good tool. i m using google analytic but sure use this

thanks
33.

achmadbiz (September 17th, 2007, 12:56 pm)

Wow .. my favourite webstats finally up again :), miss the sound that came from my visitor :)
34.

syed (September 17th, 2007, 1:01 pm)

I have been using it for months, love it
35.

Tanja (September 17th, 2007, 4:10 pm)

In Google Analytics, live stats are available, just check today in the calendar! My experience with Snoop is that it’s offline half the time, it may work for a half an hour and then it stops. It’s way unpredictable! Also, you may way to check out Clicky (getclicky.com) simple, real time and an awesome developer that truely listens to his users.
36.

acca (September 17th, 2007, 4:34 pm)

Yeah, nice tool. I use extremetracking.com in that propose and it’s useful, too.
37.

ekowanz (September 24th, 2007, 4:53 am)

how bout getclicky.com?i use it on my blog…its real time
38.

dimchevski (December 4th, 2007, 5:40 am)

Google Analytics is pretty good as info that you get but what if I block (as many already do these days) it in Adblock for Firefox? You don’t get real stats. That’s why I think it’s better and more accurate to use something that works on your server rather than on the client side and that analyzes log files from the server tools like Apache log files (NCSA combined/XLF/ELF log format or common/CLF log format), IIS (W3C log format) and a lot of other web servers. Check out awstats! I’ve been using it for years.
39.

Erik Hansen (February 10th, 2009, 6:35 pm)

Link [getclicky.com] is awesome.. it’s just what I’ve been looking for.