Google Ads vs. Google Analytics

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Ads
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.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
Google AdsGoogle Analytics
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsGoogle 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
Google AdsGoogle Analytics
Considered Both Products
Google Ads
Chose Google Ads
Against Bing, Adwords is the better platform, because many more users search on google instead of bing. This means the reach is quite restricted to Bing. As a whole, AdWords gives much better experience and support than Bing. Google Analytics is an additional tool to AdWords, …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads generally results in a much larger volume of users & available traffic. Generally, by comparison to other search engine platforms, the impression count, overall number of clicks, and impression share are much higher on Google as a result of nearly 65% of all search …
Chose Google Ads
We have observed that the Bing Ads performs better than the Google Ads when we target the older audience. The cost per conversion is also better than the Google Ads on Bing because of low competition possibly. However, Google Ads is preferred by us mostly because of the …
Chose Google Ads
Our agency invests heavily in Google Ads (particularly paid search advertising) on behalf of our clients relative to competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo because Google is the top search engine in the world. Google collects the most search data which enables the company to …
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads clearly has high potential as more users search for their product when compared to other channels hence getting the desired audience.
Chose Google Ads
Google Ads is pretty strong when it comes to search and shopping campaigns. It's a great tool to target people who are ready to buy and actively looking for products we have to offer. On the other hand, Facebook has been a great tool for raising awareness, brand uplift, and …
Chose Google Ads
Bing Ads is an indirect competitor to AdWords, which does much of the same as AdWords (with a reduced level of detail) on Bing searches. We mainly used Bing Ads to complement AdWords activity, meaning, if we have saturated the market via Google, we will then use Bing Ads to get …
Chose Google Ads
It really depends on the objective of the campaign. Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is great for service businesses and e-commerce stores, whereas Facebook is really great for brand awareness and e-commerce. LinkedIn is best for B2B and finding job seekers. I believe that if used …
Chose Google Ads
They stack up similarly except Google's reach is a lot more than Bing's. My current position has no Bing search enabled.
Chose Google Ads
Bing is very similar (to the degree that you can essentially import and export campaigns between AdWords and Bing). Generally though, it gets less volume overall, and we've found the quality of leads that we do get from Bing to generally be more inconsistent than what we see …
Chose Google Ads
I purchase a lot of Facebook advertising and continuously wish Facebook would study the Google system for training on AdWords. If you take the time, AdWords offers incredible support and tools to help anyone be successful.
Chose Google Ads
AdWords has the best ad management system in the marketplace, way more advanced and powerful features.
Chose Google Ads
The amount of users is bigger in Google AdWords.
Google Analytics
Chose Google Analytics
Google provides a wide suite of products that all tie into Google Analytics. Some that I use most often are Tag Manager, Ads and Datastudio. All of these connect directly with Analytics and allow me to accomplish my goals. For example, Ads will connect and show me what Ads are …
Chose Google Analytics
We have not used anything else that is similar to Google Analytics. As far as I am concerned, nothing compares to Google Analytics.
Chose Google Analytics
I used Facebook Analytics for mobile and web games but Facebook Analytics was discontinued. Google Analytics is more universal and is suitable for both web and native mobile applications. Facebook Analytics is more suitable for apps and games on web and mobile. For mobile …
Chose Google Analytics
Handles the basics better with minimal training and investment, but falls short at optimization work. Google Analytics has remained the backbone of our web analytics work for a very long time, so it is a nice "default" option to always have present in our programs even if we …
Chose Google Analytics
I haven't really used other competitors of Google Analytics because most of my clients are not heavily eCommerce based. Most of our clients host things like blogs or product information within their website, and are curious to see what level of viewership they're getting, or …
Chose Google Analytics
I chose Google Analytics because, without the Premium version, it is affordable and easy to use for basic ad tracking. It is a great way to see who is viewing our ads, which is a big part of my job. I am able to really collect all the data we need in order to better target our …
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics has its advantages over its competitors. It is well suited to smaller companies.
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics, hands-down, provides a greater scope and higher-level of data availability ACROSS multiple platforms. Not only does Google Analytics natively allow for a vast array of data collection, analysis, reporting, and visualization opportunities, but it also affords …
Chose Google Analytics
Both are great, just different. Most clients believe Google is the golden standard due to the strong presence of Google's brand everywhere, but Adobe seems to have stronger, drill down tracking at the expense of a harder to use interface.
Chose Google Analytics
We like Google Analytics because it's free and powerful. And it works well for websites small to large.
Chose Google Analytics
Mixpanel and Kissmetrics are good systems, and for the most part they can do the same thing that GA does, but they are more basic. If an average person, if you don't have a desire for deep data, I think these two platforms are better choices.
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics provides a more comprehensive set of data when it comes to website analytics and it is free. While Alexa will cost you an amount to view the full data it provides, it still simply does not provide the necessary data you need to analyze and customize your …
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows for further analysis where Google AdWords doesn't enable us to see. You can view very granular performance.
Chose Google Analytics
Hard to compete with the free and comprehensive Google Analytics.
Chose Google Analytics
We also use Pardot to monitor traffic to our site. Google Analytics gives you a lot more data. Pardot is more focused on once the traffic to our site identifies themselves (by filling out a form) and how they engage with us after that (email opens, website views, etc.).
Chose Google Analytics
We haven´t really worked with so many other products. But looked at quite a few, and they can never compare when it comes to the balance between price and features.
Chose Google Analytics
Smaller analytics packages can be very useful, even if you're fluent in GA. I love Gaug.es. It's real-time and can give me a 50,000 ft view of all of my clients at a glance. If you need to know what's happening in real-time (and often you do) GA is okay, but I find other tools …
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics allows you to measure the online traffic to your website and helps in making further improvements in your advertising campaign. Google Analytics can be the best choice for marketers, as it is completely free and works well for small companies with small …
Chose Google Analytics
We have used Omniture and WebTrends. WebTrends is an outdated analytics tool. Omniture, while robust is just not as customizable. Basically, if you have no intention or no need to do customization and you just want out-of-the-box reporting and not willing to spend the time in …
Chose Google Analytics
I find Google Analytics to be very comparable from a reporting/data analysis standpoint. I find the Adobe Analytics and complimentary packages to provide a much more robust set of tools that meets additional business needs.
Chose Google Analytics
The cost-free aspect of GA is undeniably a key feature for organisations which don't require the level of customisation offered by the paid-for solutions.
An organisation which opts for GA won't need any paid solutions to fill in gaps.
Chose Google Analytics
The inbuilt analytical tool is not as impressive and loaded with features as compared to Google Analytics. google analytics spoils us for choices.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Google AdsGoogle Analytics
Small Businesses
Serpstat
Serpstat
Score 9.3 out of 10
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.7 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
Contentsquare
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Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(115 ratings)
9.0
(183 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(21 ratings)
9.0
(51 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(7 ratings)
9.9
(8 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(4 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(8 ratings)
7.0
(42 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 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
1.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsGoogle Analytics
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Clients who are selling products such as dresses, clothes, jewelry, beauty products, etc., generally work well. Also, in some cases, it doesn't fetch a good ROAS for very small business owners. If a client is already doing well in SEO, the probability for it to perform well over Google Ads is always enhanced, and if it doesn't have a good organic reach, Google Ads also suffers.
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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.
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Pros
Google
  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
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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
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Cons
Google
  • If you don't know what you're doing, it will be a costly mistake. You need to target ads, and it is difficult the first time to do that.
  • There isn't a feature to run an add for a couple set date spans, just hours you want to run them or a single date span.
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.
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Likelihood to Renew
Google
I think Google Ads is good for getting your company out there and becoming more visible to potential customers in general. However, for specific product launches, social media advertising might be a better fit. Also, our user base is younger so social media is a better channel for our target audience.
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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
Google
I suspect that Google Ads is not for the novice user. I told my 'Ad Specialist' that I was not the best on computers and apprehensive about my ability to maneuver the website. He told me on more than one occasion that "I work for you...I'm your sherpa...call me any time or send me an email"!
The sales and service representatives for Google Ads are very well trained, though not much integrity. Despite that I told my Google Ad Specialist that my website was incomplete the ad was published live anyway! Beware that the 'talk' is good, but it ain't cheap!
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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
Google
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.
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Performance
Google
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
Google
We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
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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
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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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
Google
No answers on this topic
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
Google
Our agency invests heavily in Google Ads (particularly paid search advertising) on behalf of our clients relative to competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo because Google is the top search engine in the world. Google collects the most search data which enables the company to improve its AI to drive better performance for agencies and brands. As such, our paid search and app install campaigns always start with Google. If a client has a large budget, we will allocate media dollars to other search engines, but in some cases, the entire search budget goes to Google because we see the best returns.
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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
Google
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
Google
  • Google Ads is often one of our highest ROI channels, especially when you factor in branded ads.
  • Depending on the stage your business is in, search ads can be really powerful from an ROI perspective, providing an investment with a very high spend cap.
  • If you do not manage the campaigns well though, you can quickly spend a lot of money on nothing. So make sure someone is keeping an eye on your account.
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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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