Web Analytics Solutions: Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics

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These days, every business with an online presence has invested their time and resources into publishing content on their website, optimizing their landing pages to drive conversions, and more. It’s important for these businesses to understand and track the performance of their digital strategy, and ensuring that they are reaching the intended audience.

Built With. (2019).
For many businesses, Google Analytics is their solution when thinking of a tool that can track new and returning visitors, bounce rates, referral sources, and other metrics. The current consensus shows that Google Analytics is one of the most popular analytics platforms out there today- with some sources reporting more than 27 million live websites currently using Google Analytics (see graph on right) (BuiltWith, 2019). The popularity of Google Analytics comes to no surprise, as it provides a powerful suite of tools for businesses any stage, and it is used by big names- of course, even Google itself.

There is a shift in the market, though, as Google Analytics has recently come under fire with concerns ranging from inaccuracies to data privacy concerns (Schwab, 2019). With this shift happening, new platforms specializing in web analytics have started up to provide an alternative to Google Analytics. One of these tools that are fast-growing as an alternative choice in the market is Adobe Analytics. In this article, we’ll learn more about Adobe Analytics and how it compares to Google Analytics.

Adobe Analytics: What is it?

Adobe Analytics is part of Adobe’s Experience Cloud suite, which was created to serve enterprise-level companies. This analytics platform tracks website, mobile app, and brand channel’s real-time user behavior and campaign performance data. It then uses this data to create personalized experiences for the customers,  such as product recommendations and custom landing pages (Brown, 2018).

Adobe distinguishes its analytics platform from other platforms by stating it does not simply collect this data, it provides intelligence so anyone that is not a data scientist can make strategic decisions and take immediate action with the insights collected and analyzed directly in its platform.

To give you a better high-level view of what this platform has to offer, see what Adobe Analytics website (2019) provides the in terms of product highlights:

  • Web analytics: Organize vast streams of data, traffic, and site navigation patterns into crisp visualizations and reports.
  • Marketing analytics: Use artificial intelligence and machine learning to discover hidden opportunities and act fast.
  • Audience analytics: Build unique audience profiles to identify your most valuable segments and use them across channels.
  • Mobile analytics: Know why they come to your apps, why they stay, and how to keep them coming back.
  • Make it predictive: Data no longer just informs, it predicts. Get answers to the questions you don’t even know to ask.


Adobe Analytics vs. Google Analytics 360

Both Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics platforms offer similar features- eCommerce tools, cloud integration, custom variables, audience segment classifications, etc- but there are some distinct differences that would distinguish these two platforms from each other. Some of those differentiating factors include costs, set-up, customer support, and dashboard reporting.

In terms of cost, Adobe Analytics can be pricey- but so can Google Analytics if the website reaches more than 1 billion hits. The big differentiator here is that Google Analytics has a free version for 10 million hits but quickly goes up depending on usage, with upwards of $150K for websites that are reaching 1 billion hits. Adobe Analytics starts at $100K, and can go up in price depending on usage. If an enterprise company is considering these two platforms, the cost may not be a factor, since they will be paying a similar price for each, but it will be a big factor for smaller businesses who have lower budgets to invest in their analytics.

Set-up for these platforms may add to that cost, as well. Adobe Analytics implementation is a lengthy process- compared to Google Analytics- and may even require a trained professional. Google Analytics has fewer steps, and the process can be pretty seamless. Adobe Analytics has a dedicated support team, though, should anything go wrong- Google Analytics does not.

A major difference between these two platforms is really the way the data is handled. Some key highlights of Adobe Analytics include having no limit to the number of hits captured, it can store cookie data for 15 years, it allows you to store data for an unlimited amount of time for licensed customers, and it allows businesses to track up to 100 goals on its platform. With these great factors comes some big shortfalls, though: Adobe Analytics platform does not have the capability to show real-time data (with about a 2-hour delay), and it does not have predefined reporting structures. Although these are shortfalls to many, it is important to keep in mind that Adobe Analytics is upgrading their platforms on a consistent basis, increasing the possibility of solving some pain-points their customers may be having.

Which Web Analytics tool do I use?

“The right tool for your company is one that leads to insights and the insights enable you to take action” (Christopher, 2017). Businesses should really be taking a look at their needs, their processes, and their resources to determine which analytics platform is best for them. Some factors to consider:

  • If a business has a small budget and is only looking for a basic level of capability within web analytics, Google Analytics may be right for them. It is simple to implement, there is little to no cost for sites driving small amounts of traffic, and it takes no time to start seeing basic site metrics on the platform.
  • If businesses want to retain analytics data for as long as they want, Adobe Analytics is for them. Adobe Analytics has no cap on how many hits it can capture, and it stores cookies data for 15 years (as opposed to Google Analytics’ 30 days) (Aducba, 2018). 
  • If real-time data is a must-have, Google Analytics is it. Adobe Analytics is unable to show real-time data for those immediate business decisions. 


At the end of the day, both platforms offer its users access to the raw data so data scientists and other users can do what they’d like on their own- and still come to similar conclusions. It may easily come down to having the right expertise on your team to use the data available to make strategic and informed business decisions.



Resources.

Adobe Analytics (2019) About Adobe Analytics. Retrieved from https://www.adobe.com/experience-cloud/topics/analytics.html?promoid=4JW79HWC&mv=other#x

Adobe Analytics (2019) Analytics Implementation Guide. Retrieved from https://helpx.adobe.com/analytics/kb/analytics-standard-implementation-guide.html

Brown, E. (2018)20 Google Analytics Alternatives for 2018. Retrieved from https://www.leadfeeder.com/blog/google-analytics-alternatives/#full-marketing-suites

Built With. (2019). Google Analytics Usage Statistics. Retrieved from https://trends.builtwith.com/analytics/Google-Analytics

Burtch Works (2018) Adobe Analytics vs. Google Analytics: Which One is Right for You? Retrieved from  https://www.burtchworks.com/2018/10/03/adobe-analytics-vs-google-analytics-which-one-is-right-for-you/

Christopher, J (2017) Enterprise Analytics Tool Comparison: Google Analytics 360 vs Adobe Analytics. Retrieved from https://www.blastam.com/blog/analytics-tool-comparison-google-vs-adobe

McGee, M. (2015) As Google Analytics Turns 10, We Ask: How Many Websites Use It? Retrieved from https://marketingland.com/as-google-analytics-turns-10-we-ask-how-many-websites-use-it-151892

Schwab, K. (2019) It’s time to ditch Google Analytics. Retrieved from https://www.fastcompany.com/90300072/its-time-to-ditch-google-analytics

Si, S (2019) Finding Problems in your Google Analytics Data (And How to Fix Them). Retrieved from  https://seo-hacker.com/finding-problems-google-analytics-data-fix/

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