BrightEdge vs. Coremetrics / IBM Digital Analytics (discontinued)

BrightEdge is great for large companies and large SEO teams since it's pricey but worth it if you have a large team or organization using it. For small businesses, I would use a different tool like Semrush because of the price and the variety of tools it offers.

Incentivized

IBM analytics has continued to improve upon the days of being the original core metrics. After using the updated version for quite some time, it has been great at providing the needed analytics to measure ROI and goal performance for our quarterly KPI's. It has resulted in a great increase in web engagements although we are a midsize company, smaller outfits may not need such an expensive option.

Incentivized

• Instant - Keyword research tool is by far our team's favorite item on the platform
• DataCube - We are able to uncover competitive gaps and hone in on specific sets of pages using filters containing our business product assortment attribute.
• Professional services have been attentive when asking for changes

• IBM CXA comprises an acquisition called Tealeaf. This tool has deep heritage and this is evident in its present-day capabilities.
• The Universal Behaviour Exchange or UBX puts the concept of personalisation at the forefront. The ability to combine physical (analog) and digital transactions to create the complete picture of a customer journey, is a stand out benefit.
• The solution does not have to involve the purchase of software. IBM CXA can be sold as a service bundled with analytics as a service. This not only lowers the cost of ownership, it gets around one of the principal issues. Strong staff with design and analytical capability to drive the solution and deliver tangible benefits.
• The seamless integration of Watson AI services to help with the heavy lifiting. Watson reinforces the analytical focus this solution has and can learn to recognise situations specific to a company.

Incentivized

• The storybuilder feature isn't anything outstanding. I feel like I can get the same type of data and format from Google Data Studio.
• I feel like the Hyperlocal feature is still very junior compared to other features. It provides you good insights, but you have to set all the data fields before you can get a picture as well as it doesn't really give you an idea of how you can improve.
• The mobile SEO solution is a good concept, but it needs some tweaks to be better, especially when building out a mobile story builder. Some of the data isn't simple to read and the mobile keywords functions don't also account for voice searches.

Incentivized

• The user interface is in Flash, which can be very frustrating and slow at times. Apparently, this is to be transitioned in a future release.
• Can only segment the last 93 days of data. Any historical segmentation beyond the 93 days must be run in Explore (which is credit based, and has its own limitations with the number of credits per month, based on the initial contract with IBM).
• Reports can only display 93 days of data at a given time for custom date ranges. There are pre-programmed date ranges setup with IBM during implementation (last week, last month, last quarter etc.), but are not flexible enough to answer more specific questions.
• Certain reports cannot have segments applied, making answering some simple questions a bit more tricky. For example, I can create a segment around mobile devices and apply it to the marketing channels report, but I can't create a marketing channel segment and apply it to the mobile reports.
• Built in API calls allows for nice report design and automation.

I would renew, as I don't feel there is a product out there that would have the impact on our SEO efforts as effectively as BrightEdge. It provides the information I need and integrates with other tools like Google Webmaster Tools, to truly have the depth of information that makes their suggestions for SEO changes so valued.

IBM Digital Analytics is a great solution for our clients and I believe they offer the best solution for the retail space. We have access to IBM support via email or live chat and they can answer many of the reporting questions that come up. IBM is receptive to our feedback of the product so I am confident they will continue making improvements

Because it depends on the feature, it's either easier or not to use. Some of them, not being particularly friendly, I no longer use, and I focus on the ones where insights are easy to understand and data seems well-elaborated.

Incentivized

Very easy to implement and use.

Never had any issues

As reports are templated, the system is pretty quick. Sometimes you have to wait a bit for a report to render. Or you might have to re-load the page. But there is no real issue here and the system is on par with other similar systems.

This is a area where the BrightEdge team really shines. Their commitment to training and product support is unmatched not only for SEO platforms, but life in general. I often find myself wishing my internet provide and similar would go to BrightEdge for training on support and attitude. I would rank them an 11 if I could.

Overall, the level of support is very good and I would say it is a strong asset of the solution. However, you can sometimes feel that there is a difference of level among the support team.

Online training is really great. One of the best assets that they have. Lots of great videos, pop quizzes at the end of each module. Fantastic. Other tools have similar features, but not as good.

For the most part it was seamless. The load time of clients was a little long, but otherwise was quite easy.

See previous comment: reading and understanding the encyclopedic implementation guide is a must.

While relatively expensive, Brightedge really does offer the best quality product but just as importantly (if not more so) the level of client/agency support. We have biweekly training with the entire team to continually stay up to date on Brightedge's offerings and strategies. They also offer the ability to do ad hoc reporting using some of their tools that can help us win new business and recommend Brightedge to additional clients, expanding our business as well.

Much of the work we did in IBM Digital Analytics could have been answered through Google Analytics, a much simpler, agile and FREE solution set. Not mention, given the vast number of Google Analytics USERS, free and actionable support is simply a click away ... this compared to IBM Digital Analytics fractured and often absent support service.

This solution can support large amount of data and transaction. The way that user management features are built, it shows it is meant for large organizations.

• We have only started with BE a few months ago and so I don't have any hard numbers from an ROI perspective, but i can say that what we spent on BE is a fraction of what we were spending with agencies and we are actually getting results by doing this ourselves. From that perspective we have seen a cost savings.
• With focused SEO campaigns and projects we have been able to move the needle on our SEO rankings for specific products and services. This is going to have a great impact for us in 2019 as we have some specific product goals and campaigns for 2019 that we have been working to build up over the last couple months of 2018.

Incentivized

• We spend too much time trying to work around bugs on the new UI.
• We spend too much time trying to figure out how to make certain segments work because support and the knowledge center are lackluster.
• Our sales rep is very unresponsive and leaves us searching for a lot of answers on our own, including what other products we may benefit from that IBM offers.

Incentivized