Google Analytics vs Adobe Analytics: Which Web Analytics Tool is Better?
Hey! It's time to talk about web analytics tools. In this article, we will analyze the two most popular tools - their features, the pros and cons of each option. We will also tell you what tool is used on our site - becomingnerd.com and why. Let's try to explain with real examples.
After reading this article, we promise that you will have no questions about which web analytics tool to use - you will clearly understand why you choose this particular one, based on the information received, and not on luck, choosing randomly. Usually you immediately write what conclusion and choice according to our article. This post is no exception - we definitely prefer Google Analytics. More details about each tool below.
Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is a powerful web analytics platform that enables businesses to collect and analyze data from multiple sources to gain insights into customer behavior, marketing performance, and more. Here is a detailed review of Adobe Analytics:
✔️ Powerful Data Collection: Adobe Analytics collects data from multiple sources, including websites, mobile apps, and offline channels, enabling businesses to get a complete view of their customer journey.
✔️ Real-Time Data: Adobe Analytics provides real-time data on website and app performance, allowing businesses to quickly respond to changes in customer behavior.
✔️ Advanced Segmentation: The platform offers advanced segmentation capabilities, enabling businesses to segment their audience based on a variety of attributes such as demographics, behavior, and location.
✔️ Integration with Adobe Marketing Cloud: Adobe Analytics integrates seamlessly with Adobe Marketing Cloud, allowing businesses to optimize their marketing campaigns based on data-driven insights.
✔️ Customizable Dashboards: The platform offers customizable dashboards, enabling businesses to create reports that are tailored to their specific needs.
Adobe Analytics - Interface (source)
After looking at all the advantages, we, the team working on maintaining this site, would choose this particular platform for web analytics, however, for us, the disadvantages of this platform crossed out all the advantages. These shortcomings make it impossible or unlikely to use Adobe Analytics for small projects or small businesses. Let's analyze the disadvantages in more detail:
❌ Steep Learning Curve: Adobe Analytics can be challenging to use for beginners, as the platform has a steep learning curve. Ok, this is a subjective factor - after all, if you want, you can learn everything overnight, but what about the following points.
❌ Expensive: Adobe Analytics is an expensive platform, which may not be suitable for small businesses with limited budgets. For us personally, this was almost the key reason why we abandoned this web analytics platform. We considered that the alternative solution has a much more attractive cost (spoiler - its absence). In order to find out the cost, I advise you to make a request from the official website (link). This way you will get the most up-to-date information.
❌ Limited Customer Support: Adobe's customer support can be slow and unresponsive at times, which can be frustrating for businesses that need help quickly.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is a web analytics service that is widely used to track and report website traffic. It is a free tool that provides a wealth of information about your website's performance and user behavior. Here's a review of the tool:
✔️ Comprehensive Reporting: Google Analytics provides a wide range of reports that give you detailed information about your website traffic, including audience demographics, traffic sources, and user behavior.
✔️ Customizable Dashboards: The tool allows you to create customizable dashboards that provide a quick overview of your website's performance.
✔️ Real-Time Reporting: Google Analytics provides real-time reporting that allows you to monitor website traffic as it happens.
Google Analytics - Interface (source)
✔️ Integration with Other Google Tools: Google Analytics integrates seamlessly with other Google tools such as Google Ads, Google Search Console, and Google Tag Manager. This is perhaps the most important plus, which led us to this particular choice. All Google tools and their ecosystem is a streamlined process that works quickly and conveniently. Why do you need to go to butchers, vegetables and dairy shops when you can go to the supermarket? The question is rhetorical.
✔️ Free to Use: Google Analytics is a free tool that provides a wealth of valuable information about your website.
To be honest, it was difficult for us to single out any disadvantages of this tool, since our team members have been using it for years and all the shortcomings can be seen and noticed only through inexperience, but we still tried to highlight one drawback so that the comparison was not so obvious.
❌ Steep Learning Curve: Google Analytics can be overwhelming for beginners, and it may take some time to understand all the reports and features. It is worth noting here that there are much more open resources for Google Analytics on the network than the previous competitor, which will make learning much easier, and most importantly, the material in open sources is understandable, that is, you will not need to watch YouTube videos 100 times. to understand what each specific metric means. If you still prefer this tool, which I really hope, I recommend that you still read the documentation and only then watch the analysis on YouTube.
As you already understood, we 100% prefer Google Analytics. This free tool is enough to create simple but effective dashboards, to get all the necessary information on your web project to analyze and improve business performance.
Conclusion
So, we have already expressed our preference - definitely Google Analytics. This is a simple and understandable tool, which is devoted to a huge amount of material on the network from video analysis to well-written tutorials and, most importantly, documentation that will be understandable even to an 80-year-old pensioner.
Of course, your web resource is your choice, however, if you still want advice, then I would, in any case, recommend starting with Google Analytics, as it is a good tool to practice and understand what web analytics is. Having already figured it out, you will be able to make a choice yourself, on your own, however, something tells me that you will not change the platform for web analytics.