Is it worth working with an Adobe Analytics implementation partner?

[future_vision]

Part of the quoting process with Adobe they strongly suggest we work with an implementation partner. How necessary is that? What do we gain by working with an implementation partner? I don't have pricing yet, but if it is anything like the pricing I've seen from Google partners to implement GA4 360 I imagine it's going to be at least the price of a single year's license cost if not more. I'm trying to understand if the that cost can be justified especially since we have in-house resources.

[yuhuisg · Accepted solution]

The single year's licence cost that you mentioned applies to the cost of using GA360-the-product. It is not the cost of working with an implementation partner. The partner would normally have their own cost, and they would normally present the final GA360+partner cost to you.

Likewise for AA. AA-the-product has its own licence cost, and if you go with an implementation partner, then the partner would add on their cost too. However, whereas GA360-the-product has a fixed licence cost, AA-the-product can have a flexible licence cost that normally boils down to what kind of deal you can work out with the Adobe sales rep.

Unless you know AA backwards and forwards, I would strongly advise you to work with an implementation partner. This is because they can guide you properly to ensure that your business metrics are measured correctly (not just properly) in a manner that allows you to answer your business questions correctly.

Good luck!

[future_vision]

Thanks for the feedback. I was aware that the partner pricing is separate from the licencing. Sorry if I didn't word that correctly. In case of GA4 260 the license is $50K (depending on traffic) and the partners I spoke with were charging between $40-$70K for that implementation. I imagine AA is going to be the same where the partner implementation is going to be, at least, around the cost of the license itself but I suspect it'll be significantly more and that is likely to be a real sticking point when it comes to budgeting. We have until the end of the year to get off our current platform which, I feel, gives me enough time to make the transition. Granted, it might not be as fast as using a partner, but there isn't the urgency that folks are facing with free UA going away on July 1.

From the implementation perspective it sounds like the service is more aligned with the goal of creating parity between the old analytics platform and AA? If that is the case I am not too worried about that. The old platform wasn't used to its potential and the sophistication of what was measured was relatively minimal. In other words, not much was done outside of the box of the default reporting. If it wasn't for the need features like data retention  that exceeds the 14 month cap free GA4 has we could probably get away with GA4 for some time especially if exported to BigQuery and reported on from there which we actually have capabilities to do using an our enterprise-level ETL/dashboarding system.

[yuhuisg]

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@future_vision wrote:

From the implementation perspective it sounds like the service is more aligned with the goal of creating parity between the old analytics platform and AA?

I'd say that it depends on how that partner approaches the deal. Creating parity would be the low hanging fruit, because it would help your organisation's users get familiar with AA (or whatever analytics product you get) fairly quickly.

But if you're going for a clean slate -- and it sounds like you're leaning towards that, then this would be a good opportunity to ensure that your business requirements can be reported on satisfactorily.

If you are confident of doing that within AA by yourself, like what Jennifer mentioned, then you can certainly go ahead without a partner. But if you're not, then you could go with a partner for the first year to get ramped up, and then decide later if you want to continue the partnership. AA has several nuances that might not be obvious, and a partner should be able to help you to identify those to ensure that your implementation and subsequent reporting don't "fall between the cracks".

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Right.. we can only give advice, but only you can know how confident you feel and look at the costs associated with this to decide if this is the right approach.

If you go with a partner, and at the end feel like it was a waste of money, then you won't be happy...

If you go with a partner and they show you a lot, and teach you a lot about the system, then at the end, you will be happy that you hired them...

Likewise, if you don't go with a partner, and learn how to use the system through available resources, you could be glad that you didn't spend the money..

Or, you could try to do it yourself, struggle and result in reports that are wrong, leading to the company losing confidence in the tool...

However, with AA, you can always hire a partner at any time.. so you could start the project, and if you run into issues, or start to feel that things aren't working, you can re-evaluate then and always hire someone.....

I assume during this transition you will be running in parallel with the old implementation... while it won't match 100%, the values should be similar and follow the same trends, and that goes a long way to building confidence in your work.

[future_vision]

Fair enough. I guess this also boils down to whether leadership has confidence in their internal resources to make the transition or are motivated to save money wherever they can. So many variables for sure but I am pretty confident it can be done. My last experience with a partner was sub par and they are a well known agency. That influences my personal decision process. That and maybe a tiny little bit of hubris that this can be done without a partner. 

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Yeah.. I have heard stories on both sides of the fence... partners or contractors that were good, and others that basically caused a massive mess... 

So I am always cautious when considering a third party.... I tend to like in-house... there is a clear consolidated team, with clear goals, and proper "ownership" of the system.... a third-party may just have the goal to "get it done, however"... and it may not be the best implementation, may not grow with your system, etc...

[Krishna_Musku]

I agree on this, If we going on this route, I lean towards adobe In-house implementation support team rather that going to a third-party partner or contractor. @future_vision Adobe has in-house support team. As i mentioned in another reply we are supported by in-house team at the time of our implementation.

[future_vision]

Did you do any cost comparison for in-house vs 3rd party? I haven't seen any numbers from the partner Adobe arranged for us to meet with but I suspect Adobe's pricing is going to be higher.

[Krishna_Musku]

As @yuhuisg mentioned, yes, I agree that you to work with an implementation partner.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

Maybe I will have the unpopular opinion here... but I have never worked with an Implementation partner... and I am not sure if I would recommend that or not... 

If you are comfortable implementing analytics (not necessarily AA, but other analytics programs) you should already have a base understanding that you can build on.

Adobe has instructor led training courses (https://learning.adobe.com/catalog.html) that you probably should consider taking one or more of these to understand the specifics of Adobe Analytics, and those will cost far less than a Partner. (The "Adobe Analytics Implementation" course would probably be one of the better places to start).

If you have a simple implementation in GA currently (from the sounds of it you do), a simple implementation in Adobe is pretty easy, and as you gain confidence in the system you will learn and grow into it. Not to mention there are tonnes of learning resources available from Experience Leagues, Adobe's YouTube channel, Adobe Analytics User Groups (https://analytics-augs.adobe.com/chapters/), and more. An implementation partner may be able to help you get going on more advanced things sooner, but if you are pro-active, you can learn these things from the wide community around you.

The other option is to hire an independent consultant (basically someone with a lot of experience implementing Adobe Analytics under a short term contract, with the potential to extend) who would be a part of your team for the duration of getting up and running.

Anyway, that is my 2 cents on the matter...  but it might be coloured by the fact that a few months ago our company was thinking about buying Google 360 (on top of Adobe Analytics - I really don't know why), and the "partner" was mandatory... so basically we would have handed over a tonne of money for them to basically do nothing (since we already know how to implement GA and already use the free version as our backup analytics).

[future_vision]

Thanks for the thorough response. I tend to lean that way too but was wondering if I might be missing anything.

"and the "partner" was mandatory"

This was my experience too but there are 'partners' that will sell you just the license although they push their services pretty heavily. Napkyn is one such partner that sells just the licence.

[yuhuisg]

The margin from GA360 is really not a lot to partners. That's why partners push their own services. Otherwise, they really can't cover their overheads from selling GA360 alone.

The same might apply to AA. I'm not as familiar with AA's margins, but I imagine that partners don't earn a lot from selling AA licences only. However, unlike GA360, I believe that you can buy AA directly from Adobe. If so, then there's that option to lower your 3rd party costs.

[Jennifer_Dungan]

The point is.. we should be able to buy GA360 directly... paying a "middle man" to basically do nothing is a waste of money. As far as I am concerned, that sort of business model is absolutely ridiculous.... that's kind if like saying, "if I want to buy a license for Microsoft Office, I need to also pay for a partner that can show me how to write a doc or how to use a spreadsheet, in case I run into issues".... 

Long story short, our company decided not to go this route... 

You do not need a partner to buy AA... you can just buy it... direct from Adobe.. IF you choose to hire a partner to help you with setup, that is up to the business to decide if the cost is worth it....

[future_vision]

At least you can buy GA4 360 only. Before you had to buy the whole suite for $150K. That was an instant 'remove from shortlist' the last time the looked for a new analytics product. Who wants to pay for tools you aren't planning to use?

[yuhuisg]

That GA reseller tried to sell a suite of products? That's the first time I've heard of that.

From what I know, the GA, or now, GA4 licence is for Google Analytics 360 and Google Tag Manager 360. If that is what the GA reseller had tried to sell as a "suite", i.e. GA360 + GTM360, then yes, that's considered a standard 360 suite. GTM360 is really considered a "freebie".

But if the reseller had tried to bundle more than those 2 products, yet sell it as a "suite" at $150k, then... hmm, that sounds like a huge loss for the reseller. If so, then I'm not surprised that they pushed their services hard on you.

[future_vision]

It used to be that way. You would buy 360 for $150K. This included GA 360, GTM, and the rest of the marketing platform. Now you can buy just GA4 360 for $50K. 

[future_vision]

Thanks. We would be buying directly from Adobe and Adobe is the one pushing the partner implementation. Probably as insurance that whoever they sell to is successful and won't complain about the tool.

[Krishna_Musku]

I don't know who exactly the partner is but, we also had the implementation few years back, even though we had the expertise we did added the adobe resources as part of the package. So that we can get the implementation done smoothly. Same thing going on for our mobile app SDK implementation as well. I think it depends weather you want the implementation support or not. Also, the negotiation part which you will include the support for some added price.