Adobe Analytics vs. Looker Studio

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Adobe Analytics
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Adobe acquired Omniture in 2009 and re-branded the platform as SiteCatalyst. It is now part of Adobe Marketing Cloud along with other products such as social marketing, test and targeting, and tag management. SiteCatalyst is one of the leading vendors in the web analytics category and is particularly strong in combining web analytics with other digital marketing capabilities like audience management and data management. Adobe Analytics also includes predictive marketing capabilities that help…N/A
Looker Studio
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Looker Studio is a data visualization platform that transforms data into meaningful presentations and dashboards with customized reporting tools.
$9
per month per user per project
Pricing
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Looker Studio Pro
$9
per month per user per project
Looker Studio
No charge
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
YesNo
Entry-level Setup FeeOptionalNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Considered Both Products
Adobe Analytics
Chose Adobe Analytics
Clients usually select Adobe Analytics because it suits them better than the alternatives and they want more customisation than GA4 offers. Also because they might be with Adobe Experience Cloud for a few other things like tag management, A/B testing, audience manager, campaign …
Chose Adobe Analytics
Adobe analytics integrates well with its other digital marketing tools. The interface is very slick and easy to navigate.
Chose Adobe Analytics
There are some usability features that we no longer have to think about in Adobe Analytics. Of course, Google Analytics can accomplish a lot as a free plug-and-play tool, but it is also without proper support. I've had to go without any insight into our website for 1-2 days …
Chose Adobe Analytics
Adobe Analytics is a more sophisticated tool than Google Analytics, especially because of its integration with other Adobe products. While Google Analytics is easier to use, implement, and train others on, specific organizations prefer Adobe Analytics because of data privacy …
Chose Adobe Analytics
Adobe has good journey monitoring and is easy to connect to marketing automation, has a strong API and good visualization.
Looker Studio
Chose Looker Studio
Compared with Tableau and Power BI, I would say Google Data Studio is fairly placed or a pretty decent tool. We need to understand, this is a free tool and it will have its own limitations - apart from that this is a pretty decent tool compared to the biggies in the market.
Features
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Web Analytics
Comparison of Web Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
8.1
68 Ratings
1% above category average
Looker Studio
-
Ratings
Lead Conversion Tracking7.762 Ratings00 Ratings
Bounce Rate Measurement7.866 Ratings00 Ratings
Device and Browser Reporting8.566 Ratings00 Ratings
Pageview Tracking8.965 Ratings00 Ratings
Event Tracking8.665 Ratings00 Ratings
Reporting in real-time6.964 Ratings00 Ratings
Referral Source Tracking8.065 Ratings00 Ratings
Customizable Dashboards8.664 Ratings00 Ratings
BI Standard Reporting
Comparison of BI Standard Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Looker Studio
7.6
55 Ratings
8% below category average
Pixel Perfect reports00 Ratings7.339 Ratings
Customizable dashboards00 Ratings8.454 Ratings
Report Formatting Templates00 Ratings7.153 Ratings
Ad-hoc Reporting
Comparison of Ad-hoc Reporting features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Looker Studio
7.9
54 Ratings
1% below category average
Drill-down analysis00 Ratings9.046 Ratings
Formatting capabilities00 Ratings8.350 Ratings
Integration with R or other statistical packages00 Ratings5.025 Ratings
Report sharing and collaboration00 Ratings9.253 Ratings
Report Output and Scheduling
Comparison of Report Output and Scheduling features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Looker Studio
8.5
54 Ratings
2% above category average
Publish to Web00 Ratings8.248 Ratings
Publish to PDF00 Ratings9.547 Ratings
Report Versioning00 Ratings8.235 Ratings
Report Delivery Scheduling00 Ratings7.837 Ratings
Delivery to Remote Servers00 Ratings9.020 Ratings
Data Discovery and Visualization
Comparison of Data Discovery and Visualization features of Product A and Product B
Adobe Analytics
-
Ratings
Looker Studio
6.7
53 Ratings
18% below category average
Pre-built visualization formats (heatmaps, scatter plots etc.)00 Ratings8.653 Ratings
Location Analytics / Geographic Visualization00 Ratings8.450 Ratings
Predictive Analytics00 Ratings5.027 Ratings
Pattern Recognition and Data Mining00 Ratings4.73 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Small Businesses
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 9.7 out of 10
Supermetrics
Supermetrics
Score 9.6 out of 10
Enterprises
Optimal Workshop
Optimal Workshop
Score 9.2 out of 10
Dataiku
Dataiku
Score 8.4 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(245 ratings)
8.7
(56 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.6
(105 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
8.2
(98 ratings)
8.5
(7 ratings)
Availability
8.1
(12 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
8.0
(11 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
3.6
(41 ratings)
6.7
(10 ratings)
In-Person Training
1.1
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
7.0
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
8.1
(10 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Contract Terms and Pricing Model
7.3
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Professional Services
7.9
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Adobe AnalyticsLooker Studio
Likelihood to Recommend
Adobe
Maybe for a small company with small products for their thing, Adobe may be bit of an implementation too much for them, but when it comes to companies like us, like a life sciences or large enterprises and even small enterprises, but with more products, more analysis that they need to make their marketing experience better, maybe Adobe product is the best suitable.
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Google
Looker Studio is well-suited for those wanting to analyze web/site data and performance quickly. It is simple enough to learn/use for quick report-building or drilling into data. Looker Studio is easier to use/understand than the GA4 console and thus has a better UI/UX. It is an efficient tool for fast, simple data needs—especially for team members with limited analytical capabilities and knowledge.
Read full review
Pros
Adobe
  • It summarizes large complex data better than any other analytics solution I've dealt with without the need for sampling, gives the right level of detail, does the right level of breakdowns, aggregation. I consistently not only use Adobe Analytics, but I use other data sets and compare against Adobe Analytics. And as I go into Adobe Analytics and compare, as long as I've done the query right and the other systems, they're very, very close. And if anything, with a lot of Adobe's newer products, they've gotten more accurate over time. So that's basically, you asked me what I liked about it. I like that it's accurate. I like that I don't have to do a lot of explaining. There's enough explaining in the world of web analytics to have to go back and explain why data's problematic. And so like I said, provided that the implementation is correct, it's a very easy conversation. Even if people may not like the answer.
Read full review
Google
  • Self-service
  • Easy to use, point and click
  • Little to no training required
  • Easy to share internally and externally
  • Rich visualizations
  • Canned reports
  • Easy to copy/paste/dupe existing reports
  • Ability to join data sets
  • Easy integration with various data sources
  • Flexible data integrations, including lowest common denominator (CSV, XLS, G-Sheets)
  • Wide range of APIs
  • Secure / authentication via Google SSO
  • Easy to share / re-assign ownership of reports and data sources
Read full review
Cons
Adobe
  • Support. I mentioned this earlier and we don't know what we don't know. Researching the massive amounts of documentation isn't realistic with bandwidth constraints, and our rep getting frustrated with us when we go through what we are seeing is disappointing.
  • Education. More please, and designed more towards the "business side". I get with the many many many different implementations (every company is different!), that it's tough, but even a basic of the basics would be nice for situations that everyone is looking at, like the engagement with the merchandising on the home page (or any certain page).
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Google
  • Few functionalities are very exclusive only for data studio.
  • It's time taking to load data and at the same time only single Data source can be connected.
  • When editing the reports you have to switch between Edit and View mode to see how does the change looks like.
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Likelihood to Renew
Adobe
We've found multiple uses for Adobe Analytics in our organization. Each department analyzes the data they need and creates actionables based off of that data. For E-Commerce, we're constantly using data to analyze user engagement, website performance and evaluate ROI.
Read full review
Google
It is the simplest and least expensive way for us to automate our reporting at this time. I like the ability to customize literally everything about each report, and the ability to send out reports automatically in emails. The only issue we have been having recently is a technical glitch in the automatic email report. Sadly, there is almost no support for this tool from Google, but is also free, so that is important to take into consideration
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Usability
Adobe
Sometimes the processing times are very long. I have had reports or dashboards time out multiple times during presentations. It could be improved. It is understandable since there is a huge data set that the tool is processing before showing anything, however for a company that large they should invest in optimizing processing times.
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Google
It is not ideal and requires time and dedication to understand how to work with it. Also, it has a lot of limitations around data it can accept. But in most cases, this tool is sufficient for everyday tasks of product and marketing departments. I wouldn't say that the interface is very user-friendly, but for people who regularly work with analytical tools, it must be ok.
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Reliability and Availability
Adobe
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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Google
No answers on this topic
Performance
Adobe
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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Google
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Adobe
I barely see any communication from Adobe Analytics. The content on the web is also not that great or easy to read. I would recommend a better communication about the product and the new addons information to come to its user by a better mean.
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Google
I give it a lower support rating because it seems like our Dev team hasn't gotten the support they need to set up our database to connect. Seems like we hit a roadblock and the project got put on pause for dev. That sucks for me because it is harder to get the dev team to focus on it if they don't get the help they need to set it up.
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In-Person Training
Adobe
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
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Google
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Adobe
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.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Adobe
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.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Adobe
Google Analytics comes across more of a reporting tool whereas Adobe Analytics is more of an Enterprise level analytics tool. Contentsquare provides some traffic and flow capabilities but not to the same level as Adobe Analytics. However, Contentsquare's major advantage is its Zoning (Heatmapping), Impact Quantification and Find 'n' Fix modules; none of which are knowingly available in Adobe Analytics.
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Google
The free version of Looker Studio is still better than the leading enterprise-embedded BI tools, despite its weaknesses. The leading embedded BI platforms have terrible visualizations that can be spotted a mile away. They are also primarily locked to a grid, making it very hard to fully customize. The price point is also a major deterrent, since users end up paying for lots of features they might never use. Looker Studio has weaknesses on the blending and modeling side, but we've been able to get by via connection to GBQ and transformation done in dbt.
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Contract Terms and Pricing Model
Adobe
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.
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Google
No answers on this topic
Scalability
Adobe
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
No answers on this topic
Professional Services
Adobe
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
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Google
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
Adobe
  • 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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Google
  • Free, so the only investment is time
  • Because it doesn't have native support of non-Google sources, it can cost more money than Tableau
  • The time spent formatting the templates or building connectors can have a negative impact on ROI
  • As a agency, charging for the reporting service is profitable after the first month or two after building the dashboard.
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ScreenShots

Adobe Analytics Screenshots

Screenshot of the Alert Builder in Adobe Analytics.Screenshot of an Analysis Workspace Training Tutorial in Adobe AnalyticsScreenshot of attribution in Adobe AnalyticsScreenshot of the Segment Builder in Adobe AnalyticsScreenshot of anomaly detection in Adobe AnalyticsScreenshot of the Alert Builder in Adobe Analytics