Pirsch Analytics

Being a website owner focused on maximizing conversions, it’s essential to choose an analytics tool that effectively tracks user interactions. My journey led me to create Conversion Bridge, driven by a desire to move beyond Google Analytics to a more user-friendly option that eliminates the need for cookie banners while delivering important stats. Having stumbled across it on Twitter, I decided to explore what was behind this less known, but noteworthy analytics platform.

About Pirsch Analytics

Emvi Software GmbH, founded in 2019 by Marvin Blum and Daniel Schramm, created Pirsch Analytics. Marvin, with a computer science background, handles the technical aspects like backend and server infrastructure. Daniel, with expertise in product design and mechanical engineering, focuses on UI/UX. Pirsch began when Marvin sought a simple way to track his website’s performance, leading to an open-source library for server-side traffic analysis, addressing the unreliability caused by ad blockers in tools like Google Analytics. Pirsch evolved into a SaaS with a user-friendly dashboard, maintaining its core as open-source for transparent data collection. Emvi Software champions ad-free, privacy-respecting software, offering Pirsch through a subscription model.

Features of Pirsch Analytics

Pirsch is a great option for agencies or freelancers looking to offer privacy-focused, quality analytics for their clients. Here is what I found to be great about this analytics platform:

1. Simple Dashboard: Pirsch Analytics features a user-friendly dashboard that requires no prior training (unlike Google Analytics!). It offers filters and saved views for easy navigation and data retrieval.
2. Share Dashboards: Agencies can share dashboards with clients, choosing between public or private access. Private links and team management options are available for handling multiple dashboards.
3. Regular Email Reports: Customizable email reports can be automated, allowing for regular updates to clients.
4. White Label Analytics: The platform provides full white-labeling capabilities, allowing agencies to offer a personalized analytics experience under their own brand.
5. Google Analytics Import: Pirsch simplifies the transition from Google Analytics by offering an easy import feature for existing data.
6. Google Search Console: Pull in data from your Google Search Console account to see what keywords people are searching to find your site
7. Ownership Transfer: There’s a straightforward process for transferring site ownership to clients, enhancing client management.
8. Fast Website Performance: The lightweight script ensures minimal impact on website speed, and server-side integration helps in bypassing ad blockers.
9. Compliance with Privacy Laws: Adherence to major privacy regulations like GDPR, CCPA, PECR, and Schrems II is a key feature, ensuring legal compliance.

Who Should Use Pirsch Analytics?

Pirsch Analytics is designed to cater to a diverse cross section of websites including small to medium businesses, startups, blogging platforms, content creation sites, and sizable e-commerce entities. Its dashboard is notably straightforward, facilitating simple access to important analytics stats. With the white labelling features and simple ownership transfers, it is particularly valuable for SEO and PPC professionals who are the ones regularly looking at website metrics and rely on accurate data to fine-tune their strategies and assess the effectiveness of their campaigns. But you don’t need to be an agency to use Pirsch, it is well suited to pretty much any website who places an importance on having quality website tracking data.

Pricing and Plans

Pirsch Analytics offers several pricing plans starting at $6 per month for the Standard plan is the cheapest paid offering I’ve found which will be well suited for budget conscious site owners who want essential features while being able to track 50 domains. The Plus plan at $12/mo gets you custom domain names which help provide more accurate data and white labeling which agencies can take advantage of – especially since you can add unlimited websites.

Is Pirsch Analytics Good for Conversion Tracking?

I believe Pirsch Analytics is a very good option for most small to medium sized businesses (which are most websites on the web today) that are interested in tracking conversions. Pirsch allows for simple conversion tracking like form submissions and account sign ups, but also more advanced tracking with metadata. By allowing metadata to be passed for each event along with their advanced report filters, you can drill down in more depth and get better insights into your conversions.

Where Does Pirsch Struggle?

A common thread amongst most of the alternate platforms is more advanced e-commerce specific reporting and Pirsch is the same. Because it does not have structured data specifically for online purchase conversions, it requires a little more work to pull out data many marketers want such as most popularly sold products.

Conversion Bridge enhances Pirsch Analytics by adapting to its capabilities. While it currently passes order amounts for purchase conversions, Conversion Bridge enables tracking of each purchased item as separate events. This feature, although not perfect, provides valuable insights into which ads and sources are most effective in driving product-specific purchases. This adaptation allows for more detailed analysis of customer buying patterns and marketing campaign effectiveness.

Do I recommend Pirsch Analytics?

Absolutely! I’ve found great satisfaction in both developing for and using Pirsch as an analytics platform. It’s highly recommended for almost all types of websites, except perhaps for very large e-commerce sites with massive advertising budgets. Its simplicity, commitment to privacy, and elimination of the need for cookie banners, combined with being one of the most cost-effective solutions I’ve encountered, make it an excellent choice for analytics needs.

Feature comparison for Pirsch Analytics

Derek Ashauer is the lead developer of the Conversion Bridge WordPress plugin. He has helped build hundreds of custom websites using WordPress and helped business grow using marketing strategies and various analytic platforms. He now focuses his energy and experience to build highly-rated and helpful WordPress plugins.