Google Analytics vs. Adobe Analytics: Which One Is Right For You?

For many businesses, deciding between Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics can seem a bit like picking between different brands of eggs at the grocery store – no matter which brand you pick, they’re all eggs, right? 

Not quite. While both programs deal with capturing data from your website and web traffic, they both approach data collection differently. Picking the best platform for your business will ultimately come down to how you plan to use the data you collect. Hoodoo has worked extensively with both platforms during Adobe Experience Manager implementations and is intimately familiar with the different strengths of each program.  To help you identify the best solution for your business, we’ve outlined the main differences between both platforms. 

Function 

Google Analytics puts the vast majority of its tracking power into collecting data about website and page traffic and performance. This type of approach to data collection allows marketers to glean insights into site traffic, page traffic, and content traffic. For marketers who base their marketing strategy on site and content performance, Google Analytics is an excellent tool. This allows marketers to identify the most valuable content for their users, and use those insights about that content to push people toward specific actions. 

Adobe Analytics has a very different approach to analytics. It was designed to allow marketers to collect the data they need to identify demographic trends, segment their audiences, and develop user profiles. Adobe is focused more on the paths and actions of the individual site users rather than the page performance. The ultimate purpose for Adobe Analytics is to collect the data that will allow businesses to personalize the user experience on their site. As such, it is the better tool for businesses that are including personalization in their digital strategy. 

Cost 

The cost of the two platforms, like all things, depends on the features you want. Out of the box, Google Analytics is free – and that’s a number that’s impossible to beat. In contrast, Adobe Analytics is an adaptable, robust enterprise platform with that comes at a significantly higher price than the free version of Google Analytics.  

But, for many businesses, the free version of Google Analytics will not suffice for their analytics needs. This is where the pricing of Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics becomes comparable. Unlike the base package of Google Analytics, the more robust versions are not free, and they are not easy to implement. 

Not only are the more robust platforms priced competitively – but the vast majority of companies will need an implementation partner to stand up either analytics platform – especially if there are customizations. Simply put, if you want more functionality, you’ll need to invest money into the platform and an implementation partner – regardless of which platform you choose. 

Customization & User Interface 

Speaking of customization – Adobe Analytics was designed to be adapted to capture the specific analytics that the business needs. As a result, it is significantly easier to customize than Google Analytics, and can often cost less to implement than a custom Google Analytics implementation. 

While the user interface of the Google Analytics base package is very simple and easy to use, once you upgrade from the basic Google Analytics package and start using unique customizations, the user interface becomes much less user-friendly than Adobe’s. Since Adobe Analytics is based on customization, it has done a better job creating a unique and user-friendly dashboard, Adobe Workspace. This dashboard offers excellent statistical tools and visualizations that are significantly more insightful and helpful in situations that require breaking down the data or turning the data into visualizations or charts. This makes it easy for digital analysts to capture the specific data they are looking for and slice and dice it in different ways. 

Integrations 

Both platforms integrate well with other tools under the same umbrella - Google Analytics with Google Marketing Platform and Adobe Analytics with other Adobe Experience Cloud technologies. For example, Google Analytics integrates very well with Google AdWords. Since Google is such a major player in the paid search industry, this integration is one of the main reasons businesses may choose to utilize both Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics – to ensure that they are easily capturing the rich data from AdWords that you can’t get in Adobe Analytics.  

Similarly Adobe Analytics integrates very well with Adobe Target, Adobe Experience Manager, Real-time CDP, etc. That’s not to say that you can’t adapt Adobe Analytics to work with Google platforms or vice versa – but it is more complicated and it takes longer - a detail to keep in mind if you are looking to minimize cost and time-to-market during your implementation process. Additionally, if you have longer-term goals to use more Adobe Experience Cloud technologies, moving forward with Adobe Analytics from the start can lead to cost and time savings down the road because you won’t have to transition to a new analytics platform.  

Events 

An event is a specific scenario that triggers data collection on the analytics platform – basically, events are what tell the platform which data to collect. For example, a common event that most analytics platforms automatically collect is the page view event. This event is triggered when a user visits a page, and it tells the analytics platform to add one to its current tally of page visits. 

Both Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics have standard events (like the page view event) that come with the platform, and both platforms allow for custom events – where the business decides which specific scenarios lead to data capture. For example, a custom event may be when one user visits the same page three times, or when a user follows a specific sequence or path through the website. 

Adobe Analytics allows users to create up to 1000 custom events, and the latest version of Google Analytics (Google Analytics 4) has recently made it available on their platform as well – allowing businesses to create up to 50 custom events. 

Custom events allow the business to capture highly targeted information about how users are relating to their digital brand. On the journey to personalization, these types of insights are critical. For businesses that aren’t looking to take a deep dive into audience segmentation or personalization, 50 custom events may be sufficient; businesses that are really growing their personalization practice will likely require more custom events to meet their digital marketing needs. 

On the whole, both platforms are robust data capturing technologies. By understanding the unique benefits and strengths of each program, businesses can make a better decision about which platform will better serve the future of their digital marketing strategy. Our analytics team at Hoodoo Digital is experienced in implementing, integrating, and customizing both platforms and can help address any questions you may have about either tool.