ClickDimensions is an email marketing and marketing automation platform for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Features include email marketing, web tracking, lead scoring, social discovery, campaign tracking, and form capture.
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Google Analytics
Score 8.5 out of 10
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Google Analytics is perhaps the best-known web analytics product and, as a free product, it has massive adoption. Although it lacks some enterprise-level features compared to its competitors in the space, the launch of the paid Google Analytics Premium edition seems likely to close the gap.
ClickDimensions is great for SMB companies looking for an easy to use, robust platform especially in situations where there are only a few people within the Marketing Department.
A Marketing analyst or paid media analyst is the right person to use Google Analytics. An analyst needs to be technical enough to write the right expressions to fetch correct data. Suppose they are Google Analytics certified, then great. Consumers of this data will be digital marketing managers. The main use case of Google Analytics, as I see it, is web analytics. They can't be used to do campaign analytics or attribution. Though Google Analytics offers these features, I don't find them easy to set up.
The nurture campaign builder was great. Easy to use and to follow along with.
The drop and drag editor was easy to use and you could start using it with no training.
I always like when a service offers a certification for their product. ClickDimensions training was easy to follow, gave good content/tips/tricks and really helped me learn the platform.
I see no reason for us to deprecate use at this point. It is important for us as a business to maintain our partnership with them and keep on the pulse of leading technology. ClickDimensions is a marketplace leader for the world of marketing automation, and in coordination with CRM, it's all the more relevant.
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.
I want to stay neutral. It's not that this product doesn't have appealing features or capabilities, it's that they aren't consistent and stable. So you lose data or your data is not accurate. Or some connection fails and the workflow doesn't trigger as it is supposed to, or the visits or clicks or other metrics contain bad data one month, then the next they're back to normal. This company needs to focus on getting their core product right and not on new features.
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
When creating segments, sometimes Google Analytics will take a bit or more than likely slow down older computers a bit. That said, in general google analytics is extremely reliable and is there when you need it.
You submit a ticket and they will always come back asking for more information. So the next time you try to be proactive and add that information to the original ticket, but then they come back and ask for something else. It gets to the point where you have to believe it is a stall tactic. You ask for more detail into their processes and you get the runaround. 9 times out of ten they will point the finger at Dynamics 365 as the culprit. It is like pulling teeth to get to Tier 2 support and then the questions start all over again, even if you send screenshots.
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.
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.
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.
Clickdimensions is severely impeded by its integration into Dynamics CRM. Consequently it lacks the Intuitiveness of HubSpot, and the straightforward usability of MailChimp. It is a perfect system if you want to exist entirely within Dynamics, but it requires a high degree of expertise in Dynamics to get maximum value out of it. We're currently migrating to HubSpot, and while the initial integration is proving challenging, I already sense we will be able to deliver a lot more of our marketing goals much more easily, and see an ROI.
Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics 360 are both paid/premium options for website tracking. Though there are certain use cases when these might make sense (you operate entirely in the Adobe suite, you're a massive company/site that doesn’t mind the price tag on Google Analytics 360), Google Analytics (standard) should be a no-brainer for every company out there. I’d advise still maintaining the account, even if you operate in the Adobe Suite and use Adobe Analytics, for the synergistic benefits of Google indexing/SEO.
