Adobe Analytics vs. Google Analytics vs. SAS Viya

Honestly, because Adobe Analytics is so customizable, I found that it is very well-suited for almost any type of web digital experience tracking of behavioral analytics. It has a very robust mech architecture for any type of e-commerce platform. But it is extensible and is easily adaptable to other circumstances. For example, in our university situation, we've been able to use it for student portal experience tracking, how well they are interacting, interfacing with our internal sites, and how well they are working with our task submission processes. But it does a great job of managing all aspects of the key journeys, especially from a marketing perspective. So while it might not be as out-of-the-box for some of those other alternative use cases outside of marketing, it's extensible and customizable enough that it's worked really well and met our needs.

Incentivized

Google Analytics is particularly well suited for tracking and analyzing customer behavior on a grocery e-commerce platform. It provides a wealth of information about customer behavior, including what products are most popular, what pages are visited the most, and where customers are coming from. This information can help the platform optimize its website for better customer engagement and conversion rates. However, Google Analytics may not be the best tool for more advanced, granular analysis of customer behavior, such as tracking individual customer journeys or understanding customer motivations. In these cases, it may be more appropriate to use additional tools or solutions that provide deeper insights into customer behavior.

SAS Advance Analytics is well suited for data that is visual. Data where you want to see multiple graphs and models are good for this software. However, if your data is more descriptive this may not be the best program. SAS is well suited for data where you need to make comparisons on the feasibility of two different programs. Data that can be compared is perfect for this software.

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• Within my role of advertising, I can come in, and I can see I'm paying for visitors, paying to drive people to the website. So I can see the differences in my different traffic sources, whether that's a Google search campaign or a Facebook social campaign. I can measure the quality of that traffic and see what they're doing, whether they're bouncing right away and leaving the website, or spending more or less time on the website. And whether they're taking the actions. My ad campaign is focused on filling out forms, and ultimately, that's it. Just measure and see if my campaigns are successful or not.

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• Multiple reports to see website use and behavior
• Allows you to customize reports with days, weeks, months, and years
• You can build out a dashboard to easily view stats from multiple websites in one place
• You can share analytics reports via the dashboard, automatically emailed PDFs or in other formats

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• SAS is can be used as query builder tool which can automate a lot of excel process.
• There are variety of statistical options available that tie up good visual analytics.
• There are inbuilt models available for different operations which doesn't require any coding and are easy to run.

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• I think the biggest room for improvement is performance. When I go in certain times of the day or for certain clients, it's slow and it won't load the reports that I need. And as a result, needing to answer a question where you normally have the expectation of it being a near real-time answer that you get when you have to wait for reports to load or you have to wait because the reports can't load at all. It's a really unfortunate thing. It's a big problem actually. So I'd say that's one area of improvement. It's just improving the performance of the reports so that they'll load consistently all the time quickly and effectively.

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• Data sampling is somewhat inaccurate on the free tier - this is addressed in premium but is expensive.
• Some of the UI is very similar in naming when presenting different data, some in-situ information might be useful.
• Gotchas around filtering and data validation.
• Implementation can be tricky, it can take a lot of time and expertise to get a full, accurate picture of your metrics.

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• SAS Analytics does not have very good graphic capabilities. Their advanced graphics packages are expensive, and still not very appealing or intuitive to customize.
• SAS Analytics is not as up-to-date when it comes to advanced analytical techniques as R or other open-source analytics packages.

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We need it to discover threats long before they become a loophole in the security ecosystem. Also, it is very much compliant with customer standards and expectations. It provides marketing intelligence through in-depth analysis. Overall, a very good product to gain customer attention and thereby improve market

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We will continue to use Google Analytics for several reasons. It is free, which is a huge selling point. It houses all of our ecommerce stores' data, and though it can't account for refunds or fraud orders, gives us and our clients directional, real time information on individual and group store performance.

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Not only does SAS become easier to use as the user gets more familiar with its capabilities, but the customer service is excellent. Any issues with SAS and their technical team is either contacting the user via email, chat, text, WebEx, or phone. They have power users that have years of experience with SAS there to help with any issue.

It is necessary to have a minimum knowledge on tracking tools so you can use the tool on full performance. It is not an introduction tool, so please bear that in mind. Once you got the knowledge you just need a small training on how to create your custom reports, where to find the components you need and how to add them to your dashboard. Then you share your report or create a rule for periodic sharing and it's done. Finally, if you have a lot of data stored the tool might be a little slower but that's ok.

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Google Analytics provides a wealth of data, down to minute levels. That is it's greatest detriment: find the right information when you need it can be a cumbersome task. You are able to create shortcuts, however, so it can mitigate some of this problem. Google is continually refining Analytics, so I do not doubt there will be improvements

If SAS Enterprise Guide is utilized any beginning user will be able to shorten the learning curve. This is allow the user a plethora of basic capabilities until they can utilize coding to expand their needs in manipulating and presenting data. SAS is also dedicated to expanding this environment so it is ever growing.

I do not ever recall a time when Adobe Analytics was unavailable to me to use in the 8 or so years I have been an end user of the product. My most-used day-to-day analytics tool Parse.ly however, generally has a multiple hours planned offline maintenance every two to four weeks, and sometimes has issues collecting realtime analytics that last anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour, and happen anywhere between 1 to 5 times a month.

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We all know Google is at top when it comes to availability. We have never faced any such instances where I can suggest otherwise. All you need is a Google account, a device and internet connection to use this super powerful tool for reporting and visualising your site data, traffic, events, etc. that too in real time.

SAS probably has the most market saturation out of all of the analytics software worldwide. They are in every industry and they are knowledgable about every industry. They are always available to take questions, solve issues, and discuss a company's needs. A company that buys SAS software has a dedicated representative that is there for all of their needs.

Again, no issues here. Performance within the day updates hourly. other reports are updated overnight and available to access by the next morning. Pages load quickly, the site navigates easily and the UX is quite straightforward to get command over. On this front, I give Adobe kudos for building a great experience to work within

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This has been a catalyst for improving our site's traffic handling capabilities. We were able to identify exit% from our sites through it and we used recommendations to handle and implement the same in our sites. We have been increasing the usage of Google Analytics in our sites and never had any performance related issues if we used Analytics

Although nothing is perfect, SAS is almost there. The software can handle billions of rows of data without a glitch and runs at a quick pace regardless of what the user wants to perform. SAS products are made to handle data so performance is of their utmost important. The software is created to run things as efficiently as SAS software can to maximize performance.

Support for Adobe Analytics is ok, it used to be worse years ago. Now, the technology team at Adobe is way more knowledgeable on the product itself as well as the implementation. They also study your custom implementation and have good knowledge of where your company stands. Dedicated support is something worth considering.

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The Google reps respond very quickly. However, sometimes they can overly call you to set up an apportionment. I'm very proficient and sometimes when I talk to reps, they give beginner tutorials and insights that are a waste of time. I wish Google would understand my level of expertise and assign me to a rep (long-term) that doesn't have to walk me through the basics.

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SAS is generally known for good support that's one of the main reasons to justify the cost of having SAS licenses within our organization is knowing that customer support is just a quick phone call away. I've usually had good experiences with the SAS customer support team it's one of the ways in which the company stands out in my view.

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It was a one-day training several years ago that cost the organization several thousand dollars. There were only about 10 people in the training class. Adobe tried to cram so much information into that one-day class that none of our users felt like they really learned anything helpful from the experience. Follow-up training is too expensive

SAS has regional and national conferences that are dedicated to expanding users' knowledge of the software and showing them what changes and additions they are making to the software. There are user groups in most of the major cities that also provide multi-day seminars that focus on specific topics for education. If online training isn't the best way for the user, there is ample in-person training available.

The online training for Adobe SiteCatalyst consists of short product videos. These are ok, but only go so far. For a while Adobe charged a fee for this, but recently made these available for free. There are many great blog posts that help users learn how to apply the product as well.

love the product and training they provide for businesses of all sizes. The following list of links will help you get started with Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented by Google Analytics.

1. How to Use Google Analytics for Beginners – Mahalo’s how-to guide for beginners.
2. A beginner’s guide to Google Analytics – A free eBook walking you through Google Analytics from setup to understanding what data is being presented.
3. Getting to Know Your Google Analytics Dashboard – The title says it all! This is a brief post with one goal: to introduce you to the Google Analytics dashboard.
4. Google Analytics for Beginners: How to Make the Most of Your Traffic Reports– This guide doesn’t cover setup, but it does a great job of helping you to better understand the data being presented.
5. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 1: Setup – A video presentation that walks you through Google Analytics setup.
6. Google Analytics Video Tutorial 2: Essential Stats – A video presentation that introduces you to some of the most important data being presented in Google Analytics.

There are online videos, live classes, and resource material which makes training very easy to access. However, nothing is circumstantial so applying your training can get tricky if the user is performing complex tasks. When purchasing software, SAS will also allocate education credits so the user(s) can access classes and material online to help expand their knowledge.

One of the benefits and obstacles to successfully using Adobe Analytics is a great / more accurate implementation, make sure your analytics group is intimate with the details of the implementation and that the requirements are driven by the business.

I think my biggest take away from the Google Analytics implementation was that there needs to be a clear understanding of what you want to achieve and how you want to achieve it before you start. Originally the analytics were added to track visitors, but as we became more savvy with the product, we began adding more and more functionality, and defining guidelines as we went along. While not detrimental to our success, this lack of an overarching goal resulted in some minor setbacks in implementation and the collection of some messy data that is unusable.

Ask as many questions you can before the install to understand the process. Since a third party does the installation your company is sort of a passanger and it is easy to get lost in the process. It also helps to have all users and IT support involved in the install to help increase the knowledge as to how SAS runs and what it needs to perform correctly.

We evaluated and we currently use Mixpanel and we have Google Analytics on a couple of our properties. And honestly, once you get the hang of the Adobe Analytics workspace, the other products really don't stack up against it because the segmentation and the ability to create reports pretty rapidly are invaluable.

I have not used Adobe Analytics as much, but I know they offer something called customer journey analytics, which we are evaluating now. I have used Semrush, and I find them much better than Google Analytics. I feel a fairly nontechnical person could learn Semrush in about a month. They also offer features like competitive analysis (on content, keywords, traffic, etc.), which is very useful. If you have to choose one among Semrush and Google Analytics, I would say go for Semrush.

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SAS was the incumbent tool, and what the team knew. We did look into using Revolution Analytics enterprise version of R, but the learning curve on that caused us to stick with SAS. In my current position, I've opted for WPS over SAS. I can still leverage my SAS experience, but the price is about 15% of what SAS charges, with extra functionality, such as direct database access. I can supplement WPS with free software, such R for anything that it might be missing.

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Adobe Analytics is relatively affordable compared to other tools, given it provides a range of flexible variables to use that I have not found in any other tools so far. It is worth investing in if your company is medium or large-sized and brings a steady flow of revenue. For small companies, it can be overpriced.

Incentivized

My organization uses Adobe Analytics across a multitude of brand portfolios. Each brand has multiple websites, mobile apps and some even have connected TV apps/channels on Roku and similar devices. Adobe can handle the multitude of properties that have simple, small(ish) websites and the larger brand properties that include web, mobile and connected TVs/OTT devices.

Each of those larger brands has multiple categories and channels to keep track of. We can see the data by channel/device or aggregate all the data together. This gives our executive teams the full picture and the departmental teams the view they need to see their own performance.

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Google Analytics is currently handling the reporting and tracking of near about 80 sites in our project. And I am not talking about the sites from different projects. They may have way more accounts than that. Never ever felt a performance issue from Google's end while generating or customising reports or tracking custom events or creating custom dimensions

It all depends on the type of SAS product the user has. Scaleability differs from product to product, and if the user has SAS Office Analytics the scaleability is quite robust. This software will satisfy the majority of the company's analytic needs for years to come. In addition, if SAS is not meeting the users needs the company can easily find SAS solutions that will.

The professional services team is one of the best teams for complex adobe analytics implementations, especially for clients having multiple website and mobile applications. However, the cost of professional services is a bit high which makes few clients opt out of it, but for large scale implementations they are very helpful

Incentivized

• Adobe Analytics impacts nearly every aspect of a billion plus dollar revenue eCommerce business. From measuring the impact of new build features to marketing campaigns.
• We are saving substantial money and resource effort by consolidating all of our properties to Adobe Analytics from alternative solutions, at which point we will finally be able to report on Total Digital, rather than disparate reports.
• We support experimentation on every platform and the performance is only known through Adobe Analytics tagging.

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• It has helped us gain understanding of what is going on on our website.
• It has helped us determine areas that need fixing (i.e. pages with extremely high bounce rates may need to be redone).
• It has helped us understand our biggest avenues for bringing traffic to the website and business in general.
• It has helped guide our website redesign.

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• SAS is pretty expensive, so a company would need to take that into consideration before purchasing a license.
• A lot of companies are now starting to use SAS Advance Analytics, it is great for sharing data between departments.
• Presentations come out better when using SAS, and estimates are more precise to the confidence interval.

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