It's great for the accumulation and assimilation of various data formats to be channeled into a single end-point, whether that be a table or a report. It reminds me so much of SPLUNK in that regard. The application is also very easy to use and has been configured in such a way that it is appealing and productive for both novice and expert users. I was able to pick up the basis after a solitary day's training. We've mainly used it to create bespoke dashboards and visuals, thereby allowing for effective report writing. This was a major consideration from Senior Management before the application was purchased. There haven't been any real drawbacks with the software thus far.
Visualizing cross-channel campaign performance can blend data from a few different sources to compare performance metrics like spend, clicks, and conversions side-by-side in a single view, which helps in quick budget reallocation decisions. When dealing with massive volumes of data (millions of rows) or highly complex queries, Looker Studio dashboards can become slow, laggy, or even crash. Performance issues are a frequent complaint when working with large datasets, making it unsuitable for enterprise-level companies
Breath of data - the number of ways to interrogate the data is endless, and the options to view metrics alongside each other make for comprehensive datasets.
Data visualisation and customisation - the options for presenting data and separating out across pages allow for clean visuals and segmented information.
Easy shareability/usability - a quick and simple tool to introduce colleagues to, and easy to grant access for them to be able to view the data, without having to understand the setup itself.
It needs better handling of complex logic. We often need workarounds to perform complex custom calculations, and it can be really unpleasant at times.
Felt it got slow with a larger data set, and in one minor report, we had to set up time filters so that calculations during spikes could be traced more quickly.
Compare to competition they need to improve with notification things.
It is the simplest and least expensive way for us to automate our reporting at this time. I like the ability to customize literally everything about each report, and the ability to send out reports automatically in emails. The only issue we have been having recently is a technical glitch in the automatic email report. Sadly, there is almost no support for this tool from Google, but is also free, so that is important to take into consideration
Looker Studio is easy to use, and it offers a sufficient variety of predefined visualizations to choose from. It's easy for us, and anyone can set up basic reporting without extensive data visualization skills. The interface layout is easy to understand, and it doesn't take long to get used to.
I give it a lower support rating because it seems like our Dev team hasn't gotten the support they need to set up our database to connect. Seems like we hit a roadblock and the project got put on pause for dev. That sucks for me because it is harder to get the dev team to focus on it if they don't get the help they need to set it up.
InetSoft is a more cost-effective option that offers the same functionality, features, and usability. It is a great option, especially for SMEs. It also has top-notch customer service/support which is a key factor in selecting any agency or tool. I recommend using InetSoft especially for small businesses
Looker Studio is far easier to implement, stand up, and learn. The interface is simpler and user-friendly for various levels of data visualization/analysis knowledge and experience. The biggest benefit of Looker Studio, however, is its ease of connection to GA data and speed. Furthermore, since it is an online program/tool, it requires less CPU/battery/storage on the user's device.
