Ensighten Manage vs. Google Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ensighten Manage
Score 6.8 out of 10
N/A
Ensighten Manage is a popular tag management system used globally, promising to increase page loading speed, accelerate tag deployment, and facilitate omnichannel 1:1 customer engagement across platforms and devices. Ensighten provides tag control by visitor, session, and page, and harmonizes data collection. The company’s Tag Delivery Network serves billions of tags annually for familiar brands like Sony, Staples, Symantec, T-Mobile, and United Airlines.N/A
Google Analytics
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
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.
$0
per month
Pricing
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Considered Both Products
Ensighten Manage
Chose Ensighten Manage
Ensighten Manage has more tagging functionality, facilitating multiple tagging technologies, while Google Tag Manager (GTM) supports only Google Analytics. It has better security configuration, with custom role definitions that can define more detailed access characteristics. …
Chose Ensighten Manage
We did not compare to any other companies, Ensighten was bought without any due diligence being completed, which I raised as an issue when we first got Ensighten but it was too late at this point.
Chose Ensighten Manage
We chose (and have stayed) with Ensighten over their competitors because they are tag agnostic and offer great support every step of the way. While other tag managers may have strengths over Ensighten in a particular feature or tag type, Manage is a great overall solution that …
Chose Ensighten Manage
It was an easy choice...more features, great support, market leader, easy & intuitive.
Chose Ensighten Manage
I have no means for comparison except to say that Manage 2.0 has many improvements from Manage 1.0. The UI improvements alone make it a good switch, and the ability to use the apps to templatize deployments is a great feature.
Google Analytics

No answer on this topic

Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Security
Comparison of Security features of Product A and Product B
Ensighten Manage
7.6
22 Ratings
12% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Role-based user permissions7.622 Ratings00 Ratings
Tag Management
Comparison of Tag Management features of Product A and Product B
Ensighten Manage
7.7
23 Ratings
4% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Tag library9.421 Ratings00 Ratings
Tag variable mapping7.220 Ratings00 Ratings
Ease of writing custom tags7.423 Ratings00 Ratings
Rules-driven tag execution7.321 Ratings00 Ratings
Tag performance monitoring7.718 Ratings00 Ratings
Page load times8.420 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile app tagging5.48 Ratings00 Ratings
Library of JavaScript extensions8.612 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Management & Integrity
Comparison of Data Management & Integrity features of Product A and Product B
Ensighten Manage
7.5
20 Ratings
10% below category average
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Event tracking7.216 Ratings00 Ratings
Mobile event tracking6.910 Ratings00 Ratings
Data distribution management7.815 Ratings00 Ratings
Universal data layer8.020 Ratings00 Ratings
Automated error checking7.717 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Small Businesses
Google Tag Manager
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Score 8.4 out of 10
StatCounter
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Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Google Tag Manager
Google Tag Manager
Score 8.4 out of 10
Siteimprove
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Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Tealium Customer Data Hub
Tealium Customer Data Hub
Score 8.7 out of 10
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All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
8.1
(27 ratings)
9.0
(183 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.5
(4 ratings)
9.0
(51 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.9
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
7.0
(42 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
6.5
(5 ratings)
9.0
(7 ratings)
Configurability
-
(0 ratings)
6.0
(2 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Ensighten ManageGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Ensighten
Ensighten manage can be setup to be used by non technical business users. However the product provides a lot of flexibility by the way of custom custom Javascript and HTML tags, and advanced features like events, which needs coding experience as well as understanding of web technologies. Ensighten mobile is also a promising tool, but so far we have not had any luck setting it up, mainly due to challenges with Android setup
Read full review
Google
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.
Read full review
Pros
Ensighten
  • Supports typical software development life cycle (SDLC) process by facilitating DEV, QA and PROD deployment stages through spaces.
  • Roles and security can be thoroughly defined.
  • Very good selection of tagging technologies.
  • Site is stable, no availability concerns.
  • GUI in general is straightforward.
Read full review
Google
  • 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
Read full review
Cons
Ensighten
  • While the code templates that are already existent provide an easy interface to leverage existing code sets, custom codes still need to be written a lot of times since the templatized versions apply them to a global scope only and not for individual URLs or regex's for specific use cases for pixel vendors. Also, the library needs to be updated more frequently with new pixel vendors injecting their own variations of codes
  • Professional services (both the shared and dedicated model) definitely needs a lot of improvement since this is something that we have been immensely challenged with as a client of Ensighten in general. General response times and availability of support hours both from an account management standpoint and professional services/support standpoint have been quite challenging in the past year or two and there has been no real progress on this front
  • Ensighten Manage uses its own best practices to modify certain code sets from say JavaScript to Jquery for instance as it may be more compatible within its platform. This needs to change so that the tool is more nimble, agile and flexible in accepting and executing on different vendor codes
Read full review
Google
  • 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.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Ensighten
For the volume of tracking pixels that we plan to implement it only makes sense for us to continue. At this point, development is benefiting significantly from not being bogged down with writing tracking pixel code and the marketing team(s) enjoy being able to stay connected to their tool deployments. As the portfolio of tracking methods increases, the usage of Ensighten will increase with it.
Read full review
Google
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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Usability
Ensighten
The GUI looks professional and is overall very usable. Menu and buttons are laid out well and easy to view. Wizard-like tag configuration is pleasant. Color scheme is pleasant to view, lacking fatiguing colors. Page load progress indicator is reassuring. Filters on past-visited screens are remembered, very handy. Filter options are flexible.
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Google
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
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Reliability and Availability
Ensighten
No answers on this topic
Google
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.
Read full review
Performance
Ensighten
No answers on this topic
Google
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
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Support Rating
Ensighten
The Ensighten Manage support team has been helpful and dedicated to assisting us solve problems that come up with tag deployments even when the issues are completely unrelated to the core Manage product itself. They seem to have the right mix of tag-specific subject matter experts and general support resources.
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Google
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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Online Training
Ensighten
No answers on this topic
Google
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.
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Implementation Rating
Ensighten
Ensighten is a great tool, and as good as any in the industry with strong workflow capabilities, an admin API and a friendly interface. It does have some limitations and is not entirely "marketer friendly" as they claim. Also, note we've experienced some performance/load time issues with the Ensighten data layer, which we are addressing with them.
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Google
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.
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Alternatives Considered
Ensighten
We've used Ensighten Tag Management since 2013 - before this, we used Adobe's out of the box dynamic tagging solution. Since Ensighten is a purpose-built tool, it provides a great deal more flexibility than that of Adobe. Rule-drived spaces and conditions were not available in Adobe's tag container. Ensighten's visual tagger is unique in its ability to place MBOXes on the page for A/B testing. Finally, mobile tagging is simply not possible without going through the release process, which Ensighten has freed us from
Read full review
Google
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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Scalability
Ensighten
No answers on this topic
Google
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
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Return on Investment
Ensighten
  • Increased complexity when debugging so bug are taking longer to fix when they are related to Ensighten
  • Our sites are loading about 10 seconds faster and have opened our eyes as to how much javascript we are rendering onto our sites which is no longer needed.
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Google
  • 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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ScreenShots