Lowdown on Performancing Metrics

Last week, Nick Wilson of Performancing mentioned their new blog metrics service has been in Alpha testing and will be released to public beta soon, as in tomorrow possibly.

I believe there’s a huge opportunity in the blog metrics and analytics space. Many blogs use free programs with limited functionality and some have been able to get into Google Analytics. However, the measurable outcomes for a content publisher, particularly a blog, are different than for an ecommerce site. Therefore Google Analytics and many other stats programs are not the best fit for blog metrics.

What options for blog focused analytics are out there?

blogbeat is a fairly new hosted blog stats program that caters specifically to the needs of blog content publishers. It plays well with FeedBurner and offers tabs of information separated by: Posts, Visitors, Referrers, Searches and Links. There’s a free trial period and then a small monthly fee.

Google recently purchased Measure Map which also pays more attention to blog-centric information rather than conversions, but they are not adding any new accounts at the moment and I have not been able to try it myself. However, Solution Watch offers a rundown and screen shots of Measure Map.

Performancing Metrics really stands out as a blog metrics application for blogging pros. To get an idea of the features offered, see the post by Ahmed Bilal who reviews Performancing Metrics. Darren Rowse also breaks down details of Performancing Metrics along with screen shots on his ProBlogger site.

Performancing Metrics offers ad tracking, real-time blog stats, the ability to track mutiple blogs with one user account, RSS 2.0 feeds of your stats (how cool is that) as well as many other features. I am very intrigued by the blog analytics space, so I dropped a line to Nick with a few questions:

It seems the grand Performancing plan is to develop free tools that will help your growing network of professional bloggers be more effective and then roll out an ad network as well as other revenue generating services. Is that on target, and if not, can you clarify?

That’s perfectly on target. It’s always been our intention to build a different kind of blog ad network, one influenced by the pro blogging community. We felt that building that community via authorative posts on the site by us and our member, the introduction of productivity tools such as Performancing Firefox, and now the introduction of an industrial strenght analytics solution would be great way to start.

There are a few other new blog analytics services that have gained visibility recently including blogbeat and Measure Map. Do you intend on competing with those services or is Performancing Metrics really more for the pro bloggers in your network?

Whereas we thing both Blogbeat and Google MeasureMap are great tools, we don’t feel they compete with us, and we have no intention of competing with them. Performancing Metrics is aimed at the higher trafficked, more commercially oriented blogs out there, and although will work for any blog, is definately NOT geared for everyone.

The ads and outbound link tracking is pretty unique for “built-in” functionality of a blog stats program. What other unique features should bloggers know about with Performancing Metrics? What do you plan on adding after the initial beta?

One of the things we’re really excited about is the ability to add limitless blogs under one account. Currently we have it throttled at 500, as there has to be a limit, but should we encounter a network that exceeds that, we’ll raise it again.

There are a lot of features inherent in Performancing Metrics that make it a cut above average, but we’d be here all day if i started to list everything i thought was special about this service heh..

Is there any insight you care to provide regarding your revenue generating products being developed?

No. Other than we develop with community in mind, and all of our tools and services, and future products reflect that philosophy.

Thanks Nick!
I am just starting to play around with Performancing Metrics myself, and will post feedback after I’ve had a few days to gather some data. In the meantime, sign up for a Performancing account and when the metrics service becomes available, you’ll be able to try it yourself.

Update: Performancing Metrics is now available!