Google Analytics vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
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
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Pricing
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
Google Analytics 360
150,000
per year
Google Analytics
Free
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Considered Both Products
Google Analytics
Chose Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the only tool of its kind (that I'm aware of). Other tools, like website builders, may have built-in analytics, but they're nothing compared to what Google Analytics offers.
Chose Google Analytics
I have used Moz and Google Analytics. They provide overlapping information, but they also provide unique information. I like that Moz shares broken images and links and points out problems on the site that are slowing down the site and effecting the site's performance and …
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.).
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Pardot out-ranks the competition in regards to the integration with Salesforce. It is hard to beat the ability to use your already-made customer profiles and contact information in your marketing campaigns. Where it is lacking is the usability. MailChimp is a much more user …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
We have only ever used Pardot. I was not in charge of purchasing Pardot but I believe our company also looked into Marketo.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
The only other product we evaluated was HubSpot. We felt that for the cost, Pardot was a better option for us.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
I have used Bitly to track the performance of social media links. I found Pardot to be superior because of its capability to identify and track individuals. I prefer using Pardot to Adobe because it provides details about individual customers. I also prefer Pardot over Google …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
We used HubSpot before and it performed well. However, as we were planning to adopt NetSuite as our ERP, we needed a marketing solution that integrated well with it. That's where HubSpot fell short. Pardot had a built in integration with NetSuite via a Pardot connector. Also, …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Eloqua, Marketo, Genius.

Eloqua was too expensive. Marketo, is a very slick product, and the pricing they offered us for the lowest-level version (Small and Medium Business) was competitive, but still about $3,000 per year more than Pardot. One big issue with Marketo though was …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
158 Ratings
2% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1110 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings8.2140 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.6108 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.4139 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.598 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings8.3119 Ratings
List management00 Ratings7.5116 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.184 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
2% below category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings7.3100 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings7.6104 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings7.692 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
103 Ratings
4% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings7.993 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.987 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6.8
80 Ratings
10% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings7.276 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings6.432 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.6107 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings7.8111 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.488 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Google Analytics
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
0% above category average
API00 Ratings7.681 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings8.278 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings7.399 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.7101 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings7.88 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings6.77 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.314 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Small Businesses
StatCounter
StatCounter
Score 9.0 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Siteimprove
Siteimprove
Score 8.7 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Contentsquare
Contentsquare
Score 8.6 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(183 ratings)
8.0
(316 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.0
(51 ratings)
9.6
(112 ratings)
Usability
9.9
(8 ratings)
6.1
(35 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(4 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(2 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(42 ratings)
4.0
(35 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
10.0
(2 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.0
(7 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Configurability
6.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
10.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
10.0
(2 ratings)
7.9
(24 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
9.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AnalyticsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
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
Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud does an excellent job at collecting and storing leads. Once the leads are qualified by workflows and automations established against your qualifiers, you can begin to segment, target, send communication, and track the efficacy of your campaigns. Being that Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an extension of Salesforce CRM, there is little work that needs to be done to ensure that your SQL are migrated to your CRM once they are ready to do so. The seamlessness between the two systems is paramount to the success of our organization.
Read full review
Pros
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
Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
Read full review
Cons
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
Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
Read full review
Usability
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
Read full review
Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
Read full review
Reliability and Availability
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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Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
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Performance
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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Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
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Support Rating
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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Salesforce
They're fast and knowledgeable. You will always know what's the status of your request and they usually follow up with phone calls to ask you questions or provide updates. Sometimes it takes them a couple of days to investigate, especially if you have custom "situations" like my company usually does but at least they are very good at managing time expectations.
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In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
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Online Training
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
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Implementation Rating
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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Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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Alternatives Considered
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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Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud stands out for its comprehensive features, scalability, and seamless integration capabilities. Compared to other platforms, its unified suite of tools for email, social media, mobile, and advertising enables streamlined cross-channel campaign management and personalized marketing at scale. We chose Marketing Cloud for its industry leadership, robust ecosystem, and tight integration with Salesforce CRM, allowing us to deliver exceptional marketing solutions and drive measurable results for our clients efficiently.
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Scalability
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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Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps create profiles for each subscriber. The Contact Builder feature stores information about every subscriber, including whether they're an active customer, their purchase history from the last year, and their email engagement metrics. It also identifies the likelihood of a subscriber churning, aiding in creating personalized campaigns to boost company revenue.
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Return on Investment
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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Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.