We've compared Google Analytics, HubSpot, and MOZ's new Analytics tool to see which software package is the best for small business owners and small business marketers.

1. MARKETING SOFTWARE
BEST BUY FOR SMALL BUSINESSES

2. INTRODUCTION
This deck is a representation of what we consider to be the best marketing software
choices for small business owners that want to improve their website’s performance
across three critical dimensions of inbound marketing: SEO, conversions, and lead
attribution. Each dimension contains three tools necessary to achieve success in that
dimension and each tool is individually graded on its usability, data quality, and the
tool’s flexibility in reporting collected data.
Each tool was graded on their entry-level products and assigned 0-5 points (5 being
the best). Individual experiences are highly subject to the size of your business, the
number of websites you manage, your role in the company, and your marketing
budget. This analysis assumes that you are a VSB/SMB with a $250 a month budget
for marketing and have a limited knowledge of inbound marketing.

3. The Contenders
IMG Source:
moz.com
MOZ
Analytics
IMG Source:
hubspot.com
HubSpot
All-in-One
IMG Source:
google.com
Google
Tools

4. Round
#1
SEO

5. Content Analysis
One facet of SEO that we consider to be a universal task is fixing mistakes in a
website’s content. From missing alt text to ugly page titles, somewhere at some point
a mistake has or will be made in your website’s content. Content analysis tools make it
easy to spot the mistakes and take the appropriate measures to correct them fast.
Google Tools provide some indication of more technical and serious SEO issues, but
overall I’m assigning them a score of 0 down the list. They’re not intuitive, they’re not
reliable, and there’s 0 flexibility in them.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
0
3
5
Data Quality
0
5
3
Flexibility
0
3
0
Total Score
0
11
8

6. MOZ
Moz has done a fantastic job with their On-Page Optimization tools. A clear numeric grade is prominent at
the top of the report, the grading system explanation is just below, and a detailed list of contributing factors
is clearly displayed to indicate which areas of a site need attention, in order of their SEO significance, and
with detailed explanations of how to fix them just below the grading criteria.
Pages are graded against a user specified keyword which makes it easy for a viewer to test their content
against several keyword variants.

7. HubSpot
HubSpot’s Page Performance reports also grade a page’s SEO and while HubSpot doesn’t allow you to cross
check a page with a specific keyword, the Page Performance report does detail the ranked keywords for that
page, the number of inbound links to the page, and gives you the opportunity to refresh the data on the page
immediately after publishing a fix.

8. Keyword Tools
In light of Google’s changes to keyword tracking, we are unable to award any
marketing software with a score above 1. Of course, Google allows its users to see
this information so they get an automatic 5, even though the entire marketing
community hates them for this.
For this analysis we’re focused on finding keywords to use as part of an SEO strategy,
determining the level of competition and difficulty for those words, and tracking
changes in rank position over time.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
2
0
5
Data Quality
5
1
1
Flexibility
5
0
5
Total Score
12
1
11

9. MOZ
Unfortunately for MOZ
they’ve lost any potential
points for usability and
flexibility because of
their software. We
actually started a MOZ
trial 1+ week before
taking this screen shot
and it was still stuck on
updating. We ran into
several other parts of the
app that also suggested
we should be happy to
wait a week, 24 hours, or
48 hours to get a piece
of data. Not userfriendly. Not flexible.

10. HubSpot
In terms of user-friendliness and reporting flexibility, there are not too many options out that that can
beat HubSpot’s Keywords tool. Sort and filter by 8 different metrics, examine the difference between
your ranking and your competitor’s ranking, identify long-tail opportunities, get suggestions, and more.
The only downside to this app is their lack of “change” filter on the front page (though you can see it
in a detailed page report).

11. Google
If you integrate Google Webmasters with Google Analytics you can get some decent data
on how people are finding your website in organic search. Their data is top-notch and isn’t
piped through a third party, making it more reliable than other sources, but their UI is
clunky. One thing they do offer that the other two do not is total impressions and average
CTR.

12. Link Analysis
Link building is one of the trickier aspects of SEO to be sure. It’s rife with penalties,
it’s hard to manage, and one slipup can torpedo your website into the nether regions
of Google’s listings. All three of these tools offer marketers an easy way to measure
their link building strategy and to keep an eye out for potentially bad inbound links,
leaving this comparison hinging on usability and the flexibility in reporting.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
3
5
2
Data Quality
4
5
4
Flexibility
0
5
2
Total Score
7
15
8

13. MOZ
MOZ wins the link
analysis portion of SEO
by a landslide. Open Site
Explorer is fast, accurate,
provides an extremely
detailed look at how
pages are being linked to,
as well as the overall
domain authority of the
link’s source. This same
level of detail is
transferred to their inapp link analysis tool, so
no great surprises on
that front.

14. Google
Google’s inbound links analysis tool is far more simplistic than either of the other tools, but
still an effective way to track a link building strategy. The UI feels clumsy however and it’s
relatively inflexible in terms of generating in-app reports.

15. HubSpot
Though HubSpot does offer a dedicated link grader tool the best way to perform link analysis is in
Page Grader. The UI is clean. You can easily toggle between inbound links, internal links, and
outgoing links, and see the type of link and the text being used in the link.

16. Round
#2
LEADS

17. Conversion Attribution
While it may no longer be possible to identify which keywords led to a conversion on
our websites, understanding the source of conversions will remain a critical
component of marketing. We use the data to measure our SEO, to develop better
customer personas, and to identify which channels are delivering in terms of lead
volume and quality.
At this time, MOZ doesn’t provide any contacts integration, making attribution
impossible and resulting in a score of 0.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
2
0
5
Data Quality
4
0
4
Flexibility
5
0
5
Total Score
11
0
14

18. HubSpot
HubSpot not only provides data about your incoming traffic but when that traffic results in a
conversion on your website that contact information is attributed directly to the visitor’s original source
in the sources report. You can use this data to run reports, generate lists for email marketing
campaigns and more.

19. Google
We actually prefer Google’s Goals tool over Hubspot’s Sources tool but it loses points on a
few key areas. The data is rich, you can do A/B testing using Goals/Experiments, and it
provides more information in terms of bounce rate, visit duration, and pages viewed, but
(with all things Google) the UI is hard to use. It also doesn’t tie back to a specific contact,
so it can’t be used to generate mail lists.

20. CRM Options
The only package to offer any type of CRM is HubSpot.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
0
0
5
Data Quality
0
0
4
Flexibility
0
0
5
Total Score
0
0
14

21. Dashboards
All three packages offer a performance dashboard that segments out by date range.
The MOZ dashboard feels fresh and has a great traffic breakdown. Google has a
dashboard for everything, but also allows users to create a custom dashboard spanning
several apps. HubSpot’s dashboard integrates both contact, content, and analytic
information to give users the biggest “quick view” possible.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
3
5
5
Data Quality
5
3
5
Flexibility
4
0
5
Total Score
12
8
15

22. MOZ
There’s a lot to love
about the MOZ
Analytics dashboard.
The design is so clean
and easy to read. We all
love that social and
brand metrics are front
and center, as well as the
inclusion of domain
metrics and link metrics.
If they add the ability to
track conversion
information into their
app it’s going to elevate
this to amazing.

23. HubSpot
HubSpot’s dashboard’s only limit is the user’s
imagination and desires. You can segment and
run comparisons against several date ranges.
Content performance is broken down by source,
size, conversions, views, and content type, making
it ridiculously easy to see which activities are
performing month over month.
HubSpot customers can also customize the
widgets they want displayed and the order in
which they should be displayed on the dashboard.

24. Google
Google’s custom dashboard really saves it in this challenge. Thankfully, setting up custom
dashboards in Google Analytics is relatively easy for most users and the breadth of data
you can collect in one spot is pretty amazing, but you still can’t track a contact by name
here.

25. Round
#3
CONTENT

26. Landing Pages
HubSpot is the only contender that offers landing pages as part of the package.
These landing pages and forms are fully integrated with HubSpot’s Contacts tool,
Conversions tool, and analytics from the start.
Not only are the pages easy to configure, HubSpot customers also enjoy responsive
design templates for free.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
0
0
5
Data Quality
0
0
4
Flexibility
0
0
5
Total Score
0
0
14

27. Social Monitoring
All three contenders have made monitoring social media interactions with your
company possible and relatively easy. Out of all the social integrations, MOZ was our
winner because of their social dashboard integration and their integrated
followerwonk.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
3
5
5
Data Quality
5
5
2
Flexibility
2
3
5
Total Score
10
13
12

28. MOZ
IMG Source: follwerwonk.com
Social Media remains one
of those ambiguous
marketing techniques that
many folks haven’t quite
yet mastered in terms of
reporting. Followerwonk
makes it much easier to
track ROI, your reach,
your influence, who your
brand evangelists are, and
how your brand is
performing in terms of
social networking than any
tool we’ve ever seen. The
integration of this ability
into MOZ Analytics is
both natural and saves
users a ton of time when
trying to glean a quick
glance at MoM social
performance.

29. Google
We love that Google integrates conversions with social interactions, both in terms of
general interactions and final interaction conversions. They also report on the specific
pages visited by social users, making it easy to see which content is working across different
platforms.

30. HubSpot
Social Monitoring is probably the best feature of HubSpot’s social networking tools. It allows users to
follow streams from connected social accounts and interact with those posts directly from the application,
giving the user real-time ways to build social influence and reach. They also include an auto-publish tool
for blog users, eliminating the need for another app to accomplish that basic task.

31. A/B Testing
I’m not sure which gods at Google we have to thank for this ability, but we thank
them daily. While HubSpot also does A/B testing, it requires a product upgrade and
therefore isn’t eligible to be scored in this review.
Google’s A/B testing is free, contains a ton of segmentation options and metrics, and
comes with some great reporting data to boot. They win this round hands down.
Criteria
Google Tools
Moz Tools
HubSpot Tools
Usability
3
0
0
Data Quality
4
0
0
Flexibility
5
0
0
Total Score
12
0
0

32. FINAL SCORES

33. Total Points
Google
MOZ
HubSpot
64
48
96

34. CONCLUSION
In terms of available features and user-friendliness HubSpot is the clear winner in this
challenge. They make it so dang easy to manage all of your marketing activities in
one place and to understand performance data that it’s hard not to love them. A
basic subscription runs about $200 a month, putting them on the pricier side, but it is
well worth the expense if you can swing it.
We were a little shocked at how poorly MOZ Analytics performed in testing. The
long wait to retrieve data and lack of content management tools really hurt them here,
but this is their beta offering. They have plenty of time to develop content tools and
as they do (if they do) we have no doubt that they’ll reach the 1st or 2nd spot.
Regardless of their performance in terms of small business marketing, we definitely
consider them a must have tool for marketing agencies.
If we had to make a recommendation for a marketer without a budget we’d have to
recommend Google’s free tools in conjunction with MOZ’s free tools. The data is
solid, despite the UI deficiencies, and everything the common marketer needs is
available somewhere in their many packages.

35. THANK YOU!