Comparing Adobe Analytics vs Google Analytics 360?

[muthu1985]

Hi,

Is there any particular reason why people are more interested to move away from Adobe analytics to GA 360? Is is because GA 360 comes as a packages(Analytics 360,Tag Manager 360, Google Optimize 360, Attribution, Google Data Studio) or cost effective?

Anyone else experience this? or any thoughts

thanks,

Muthu

[pankajb58197403]

There are some points where Google 360 would lead whereas some where Adobe Analytics would.

Highlighting 6 points here:

• Google 360 is easy to setup with a single step process whereas Adobe Analytics would require some basic steps
• The latency is less in AA vs GA and so is the level of granularity (AA is far more granular than GA with multiple level breakdowns)
• Dimensions and metrics are more in AA vs GA which could help in enhanced custom implementations
• Cost wise, google is cheaper and provides great collaboration with tools like adwords, display networks.
• With Google, data studio would help in better visualizations with easy steps however with Adobe, there is some manual work even agter report builder automation (excel formulas,etc)
• For a more data driven and decision making projects, Adobe Analytics should be considered as my point of view, however for integration between various google partners and optimization stuff, GA is a better player.

[chrisbons02]

The fact of the matter is, Google Analytics has changed in the past few years in ways that make the differences between it and Adobe fairly negligible. Yet, the following myths persist:

You can capture more data points with Adobe than with GA

While you have unlimited custom data points with Adobe, that doesn’t mean there isn’t a workaround with GA. Yes, GA only allows you to have 20 custom data points. I don’t think that’s necessarily a con since it forces you to create an approach instead of capturing every single available data point. (There can be such a thing as too much data.)

If you’re still interested in gathering more than 20 custom data points, you can shoehorn them into GA by using the unlimited custom events!

Reporting is more transparent with Adobe

Adobe is known for making it easy to access all of your data. GA comes with some data gaps. Depending on your site traffic, budget, and data needs, it may make sense for you to get Adobe. Barring that, you can work around by using an API. I recommend using GA to Google Sheets, which pulls each individual data point with no gaps.

Adobe is more straightforward than GA

I have a suspicion that the persistence of this myth may be due to the need for a consultant for Adobe, where GA folks usually fend for themselves. If we’re really getting into ease of use, Adobe has Custom Queries that are more complicated than much of what GA has to offer. GTM (Google Tag Manager) is also much easier to use than Adobe’s approach, which is usually to add Xcode directly to the site.

Adobe wins at boilerplate data collection

Adobe has a bunch of useful default data collection points that make sense for a lot of sites. Dedicated E-commerce event tracking like Add to cart and check out are tracked by default, which is definitely helpful.

GA has essentially rolled out the same sort of tracking, but without much fanfare. Enhanced e-commerce is super-easy to implement via GTM, and it will give you all these metrics and more.