Parse.ly vs. smartocto

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Parse.ly
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Parse.ly is a content optimization platform for online publishers. It provides in-depth analytics and helps maximize the performance of the digital content. It features a dashboard geared for editorial and business staff and an API that can be used by a product team to create personalized or contextual experiences on a website.N/A
smartocto
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Smartocto creates smart editorial analytics: analytical tools for newsrooms and content creators, to track and analyse the performance of the content they publish online. Its goal is to make data actionable, because content creators are not data analysts. They need data that's easy to interpret and attractive to look at. Analysing content performance consists of two things: keeping an eye on…N/A
Pricing
Parse.lysmartocto
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Parse.lysmartocto
Free Trial
YesYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeRequiredOptional
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Parse.lysmartocto
Features
Parse.lysmartocto
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Parse.ly
7.6
Ratings
5% below category average
smartocto
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking6.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement6.70 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.30 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.20 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking7.80 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time8.40 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards7.60 Ratings00 Ratings
User Ratings
Parse.lysmartocto
Likelihood to Recommend
7.8
(0 ratings)
8.9
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.7
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
7.8
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Parse.lysmartocto
Likelihood to Recommend
For people working in online media, or digital content creators, the platform could help them understand their audience and allow them to interact with them in a user-friendly way. Since the digital media industry is booming, Parse.ly can allow the user and the content creators to meet each other's demands and reduce redundancies and bombard the users with unnecessary content.
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smartocto is very well suited to measuring blog performance, gaining insights into topics that resonate & measuring how well your content team is performing. It makes for a good, user-friendly alternative to GA4. It could do with better SEO tracking features as this is what most B2B content teams are focused on.
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Pros
  • Real-time metrics are great and help us decide what content to follow up on.
  • Audience segmenting is key, helps us determine where we're strong and where we're not.
  • Historical metrics are also helpful in helping us see what readers come back to overtime, which drives decisions about what content to devote more resources to producing.
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  • Providing actionable data the moment that you need it
  • Providing a clear and easy to use UX
  • Very flexible when it comes to the configuration for your particular business
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Cons
  • Traffic source. I would like to be able to find the exact social media page a view comes from. Now I can only tell which platform.
  • I would like to be able to compare traffic more than one year ago. Now I'm limited to one year.
  • Some more customization of reports (or maybe more training).
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  • CPI is sometimes harder to understand but once you do it is of great help for business strategy
  • Video content analysis could be improved but it is sufficient enough.
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Likelihood to Renew
Cost is always a factor when considering any renewal, so we will always see how that compares to other offerings, but we have been pleased with the functionality from Parse.ly. Importantly, it has engaged news teams, and writers can easily assess their own performance--it is not just a management tool. This wider take-up makes it more likely that we would renew.
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Usability
The Parse.ly platform is very user-friendly and easy to use. User management is simple, and reporting setup only takes a few minutes. They provide very helpful documentation for implementing the scripts on your site and have great customer support to help with custom development such as implementing their content recommendation engine.
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smartocto is a very user-friendly tool, with a smart & clean interface.
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Support Rating
Seems to be more bugs than I encounter in Google Analytics, but Parse.ly is always very quick to answer my questions or fix something. It seems like most of my issues are due to communications around my requests being outside of the package we pay for with this tool (i.e., only two years of data).
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No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Parse.ly excels in providing detailed insights into how users are interacting with specific pieces of content, allowing us to make data-driven decisions about content strategy and optimization. Its real-time reporting also provides us with immediate feedback on the effectiveness of content changes, which is particularly important for content-heavy sites that need to iterate quickly.
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Google Analytics is a general type analytics better suited for sales than media environment. It gives good overview data but it is hard to setup a system in a newsroom where you could make data driven decisions on future content. smartocto is editorial analytics suite and is easier to use in a newsroom.
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Return on Investment
  • Sometimes in meetings our editorial director will point out stories that didn't perform well. To us, that means readers don't really care about the topic, so we'll pivot away from writing about that in the future. That might not be "business objectives" though.
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  • We have onboarded 70 old-school journalists to daily reporting and data retrospect. The a/b testing solution had proven that we have drastically improved our CTR.
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ScreenShots

Parse.ly Screenshots

Screenshot of Overview in full-screen mode: Many Parse.ly pages, like the Overview, are TV-ready. Keep your entire team up-to-date with live, full-screen dashboards on TVs in your office.Screenshot of Overview screen: See a snapshot of what your audience is paying attention to today so you can make fast decisions about what content to produce or distribute. Customize it to show only what your team cares about by filtering it to a particular author, section, or tag. You can pick what stats and listings are displayed.Screenshot of Real-time posts page: See what’s gathering steam so you can capitalize on attention to every post, campaign, or section.
Real-time data includes the last 24 hours and updates every five seconds. It can be seen, filtered, and sorted on most screens.Screenshot of Historical posts page: Explore historical trends by post, author, section, topic, referrer, or campaign. Compare today’s performance to last week, month, or year.Screenshot of Campaign tracking: Easily tie in your off-site promotion to engagement with your on-site content using UTM parameters.Screenshot of Multi-channel tracking: Track all your content in one place, no matter where it lives.
Compare how your content performances on various distributed channels including your website, AMP, Facebook Instant Articles, and Apple News.

smartocto Screenshots

Screenshot of Realtime and smart notificationsScreenshot of Historical insightsScreenshot of Customisable BigscreenScreenshot of Realtime A/B testing of headers and lead-in texts