Web Analytics

What is Web analytics?

Web analytics is the process of collecting and analyzing user interaction data on websites or applications to better understand behavior, improve experiences, and inform decisions.

Whether you’re looking to track how users land on your site, where they navigate, or when they bounce, web analytics gives you the tools to see what’s working—and what’s not.

By observing actions like pageviews, clicks, and session durations, product and marketing teams can pinpoint friction points, uncover engagement patterns, and iterate on user flows with clarity. This process is foundational to digital analytics and usage analytics strategies.

A reliable web analytics tool is essential for modern teams aiming to understand user behavior, from their first interaction with your brand to what they do as a customer.

Why web analytics matters for product teams

Web analytics isn’t just about traffic—it’s about understanding people and what they’re looking for. In fact, McKinsey research found that data-driven companies are significantly more likely to acquire and retain users.

For product teams, web analytics reveals:

• How do users arrive? Did they come inbound via an organic google search? Did ChatGPT refer them to your website? Did they come from an email?
• What drives users to engage? What product(s) are they interested in? Why did they end up on your site?
• Where do users drop off? What part of your onboarding or product experience is misaligned with end-user needs?

These insights are critical for designing intuitive onboarding, surfacing features that matter, and improving user retention. By identifying top-performing channels and behaviors through website analytics and behavioral analytics, teams can shift from guesswork to guidance.

How does web analytics work?

At its core, web analytics relies on lightweight tracking scripts embedded in your digital properties. These scripts capture how users move through your site—whether they click a CTA, scroll a page, or leave (aka bounce) after a few seconds.

Once the data is collected, it’s compiled into dashboards and visualizations that help teams analyze performance, diagnose issues, and test improvements.

Many analytics tools offer deeper capabilities, such as real-time monitoring, audience segmentation, session tracking, event-based tracking, and multi-step funnel analysis—all vital elements in effective digital analytics and user journey analytics.

Web analytics vs. product analytics

Web analytics and product analytics each serve a purpose, but together, they tell the full story of a user’s journey.

• Web analytics shows how users arrive at your brand and what they do before they log in, such as browsing pricing pages or engaging with marketing content.
• Product analytics picks up after acquisition and login, tracking which features users engage with, how frequently they return, and where they might struggle.

Pendo connects these two worlds, providing a continuous view from acquisition to adoption without switching platforms. This comprehensive approach seamlessly bridges website and app analytics, making it a powerful all-in-one web analytics platform.

What key insights do web analytics tools support?

The best web analytics tools go beyond counting clicks. They help teams measure full user interactions across five key categories:

• Engagement: How long users stay, how many pages they view, how quickly they leave
• Acquisition: Which sources—like email, ads, or search—drive the most traffic
• Conversion: Whether users complete goals, like signing up or making a purchase
• Behavior: What users do while on-site, including navigation paths and click events
• Retention: How often users return and whether they stick around over time

Selecting the right web analytics platform means having access to comprehensive metrics that drive better decision-making.

Why product teams are using Pendo for web analytics

Pendo Web and Product Analytics give teams a single place to understand the full user journey—from how visitors find your site to what they do after logging in. Pendo eliminates the need to toggle between marketing tools and product analytics platforms.

With Pendo, teams can:

• See which campaigns bring in users who stick around
• Replay sessions to see how visitors actually engage
• Visualize conversion paths across both marketing and in-app experiences
• Sync structured data into BI platforms like Snowflake to build advanced predictive models

Pendo acts as a web analytics platform and product analytics suite in one—reducing complexity and aligning teams around user behavior.

How to use web analytics with Pendo

Pendo unlocks a wide range of possibilities for teams looking to use web analytics data in meaningful ways:

• Acquisition insights: Understand which campaigns drive high-quality users, not just traffic.
• Funnel optimization: Identify drop-off points across entire journeys—from first touch to product usage.
• Personalized onboarding: Align onboarding with pre-signup behaviors to increase activation.
• Cross-team alignment: Give marketing and product teams a shared view of success.
• Predictive analysis: Enable data scientists to forecast churn or revenue with integrated behavioral data.

These use cases demonstrate how a purpose-built web analytics tool like Pendo accelerates time-to-insight.

FAQs: Web Analytics

What is web analytics, in simple terms?

It’s a way to track and understand how people interact with your website or app. It helps you see what content works, where users drop off, and what drives conversions.

How does Pendo compare to tools like Google Analytics?

While Google Analytics is a popular website analytics tool, it focuses primarily on traffic and marketing data. Pendo combines web and product analytics in a single platform, offering deeper insight into user behavior across the full journey.

How does Pendo collect web analytics data? 

Pendo uses a simple tracking script to capture user behavior on your site and within your product. The data is available in real time and doesn’t require engineers to manage tags or code changes.

Can web analytics improve user onboarding?

Yes. By understanding what users do before they sign up, teams can design more personalized, relevant onboarding flows that reduce friction and boost activation. Web analytics also tells you if you’re targeting the right audience to begin with, so you can improve targeting and, ultimately, user conversion rates.

What’s the difference between web analytics and product analytics?

Web analytics covers what happens before users log in—like which marketing channels bring them in and what they do on your site. Product analytics focuses on what happens after login, like feature usage and retention. Pendo brings both together.