Google Analytics vs Sprout Social

• Google Analytics does the obvious thing really well: tracks user behavior around our website. But more specifically, it allows us to do some very complicated attribution to behavior, traffic sources and even specific campaigns or devices. Depending on the volume of traffic we are trying to analyze and the purpose, we can narrow things down EXTREMELY well and get a great story to use for data mining.
• The eCommerce tracking with GA (Google Analytics) is hands down the best. Specifically, its attribution to traffic sources and matching with user behavior that is the best. I have yet to find another tool that can let me track traffic sources, split campaigns down to devices and track which inventory was purchased specifically from that campaign--especially if I am looking back at inventory purchased from a campaign (or in our case, people who signed up for Classes) I can tell all of that from GA.
• You can use GA to track specific user accounts within a product, and differentiate user behavior within the product based on account roles. A lot of people don't know about this, but with the help of a developer you can leverage a TON of data including creating lookalike audiences that you can sync into AdWords and make your display campaigns highly targeted. Most people think this kind of feature is only available on Facebook ads--nope! :)

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• Analytics Reporting - Sprout Social does a nice job at providing robust analytics across all social media platforms. We use this to monitor our social media performance over a specified time period, including number of posts, increase in followers, and changes in engagements and link clinks.
• Social Media Scheduling - Sprout Social is good for scheduling social media posts in advance. With the version we use, it also shows us what time we should schedule our posts based on the past performance of our previous posts.
• Social Media Monitoring - Sprout Social does a good job at monitoring social media mentions and searching for posts containing certain specified keywords.

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• I was bummed that they moved some of the functions (keyword data, etc.) over to Google Webmaster tools. (On the bright side, this has prompted me to become more familiar with Google Search Console.)
• A lot of functions are right there. But it's hard to tell which functions are most important or what they offer.
• Perhaps this is related to number 2, but the UX is fairly intimidating. All of these tools and subsets of tools are right in front of you, and it's difficult to understand what ones are the most important. A simpler, streamlined format might be a better approach.

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• This is not a great platform for teams. Their basic $99 plan includes a single user, and charges quite a bit to add more.
• This is not a great platform for agencies that have more than 5 accounts or less than 100 without paying a hefty price tag. Their deluxe plan is $149 for only 10 accounts. My team has access to more than 30 pages, and we'd have to disconnect a profile, then connect a new one, wait for it to load, and then produce a new report for our clients. It was too cumbersome to be effective.
• Value overall. Other competitors are offering more users and the same amount of pages for less money.
• Technical support. Our team spent about $2,500 with this company across 2 years - we published our final reports, made a single request for support with 3 different team members, and it was denied four times.

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• While very little in this world is truly free, the only real cost to using Google Analytics is time, from your PM's, your web admins, your engineers, your email admins, and QA analysts--but it is without a doubt time well spent.
• Because you run the risk of paralysis by analysis, one must pick their battles with Google Analytics. If you go in with a clear, concise set of objectives, and a competent technical supporting cast, you will succeed.
• On the reverse side of the same coin, if you come in without a purpose, you run the risk of getting bogged down in all of the information without immediate relevance, and you may just leave behind this treasure trove of invaluable analytics in search of said relevance.

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• Sprout Social has positively impacted our interactions with guests and potential travelers looking for information because we can answer their questions in a timely manner.
• Sprout Social has positively impacted the way we are able to schedule campaigns and track their process.
• There is no direct data to indicate an ROI. We can measure link clicks but we cannot translate that into bookings as of yet.

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