Battle of the Giants: Google Analytics vs. Omniture

Do a quick job search and listings will pop up with a variety of requirements. Adobe Creative Suite, Radian6, Social listening tools, and Google Analytics. As with most Google-related things, the analytics service is at the top of the pack. But in a select few of those postings, you’ll also come across services like Clicky, Kissmetrics or Adobe’s Analytics (formerly Omniture). They’re not as popular in the job listings – but they’re definitely out there. According to Burning Glass’ Labor Insight, Google Analytics is least likely to be required for entry-level marketing positions, but saw a growth of 88% for directors in marketing positions from 2012 to 2013 (Braaten, 2014).

Below are two of the first jobs that came up when I searched for “Google Analytics” in Ashburn, Va. Notice how there is more than one analytics software listed.

Carnival Cruise Lines names a few options like Google Analytics and Omniture.

The Washington NFL team is looking for Google Analytics and Omniture.

The role of a marketer, as with most other professions, has grown to encompass so many different skills and knowing multiple analytics software systems is no different. It’s time to put on those multiple hats, buckle down and look at Omniture.

What exactly is Omniture?

Technically, Omniture is no longer a product despite being listed as a popular job requirement. In 2009, Omniture was acquired by Adobe and was folded in to the Adobe Marketing Cloud (Adobe, 2009). According to Adobe, the Analytics service “helps you uncover business opportunities and successes by turning customer interaction into actionable insights. With the market-leading solution, you can better understand the entire journey” (Adobe, 2013).  

Features include:

Predictive marketing based on customer behavior

Real-time web analytics

Market attribution

Advanced segmentation with unique attributes, behavior, and preferences

Mobile app analytics

Advanced visualization (Adobe, n.d).

Who uses Adobe Analytics?

If you’ve ever taken a design class, you know that the word “Adobe” is synonymous with costly.  Superior, yet costly. Which explains why the main customers for the program are enterprises, organizations with large amounts of data to sift through, digital marketing groups, and marketers looking to combine online and offline data (Adobe, 2014).

Current customers include Conde Nast, Comcast, and NBC Universal (Adobe Customer Showcase, n.d.). Mashable transitioned over to Adobe Marketing Cloud in 2012 to better analyze how users we accessing their site (Mashable Video, 2012). Mashable cited the ability to hone in on mobile and tablet users, which is Adobe’s specialty (Hong, 2014).

But what’s the big difference?

One of the most glaring differences between Google Analytics and Adobe Analytics is cost. Google is free for websites with up to 5 million visitors per month and Adobe’s software will run a business at over $100,000 per year (Chianis, 2013). It makes much more sense for large enterprises to invest in the Adobe software than a small business looking to get started with analytics.

Since Adobe Analytics is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud, users are given the ability to use other features like social listening, publishing, advertising, moderation, social apps, and governance (Yeung, 2013). The high barrier price does allow for additional features, which provide extra value and services not offered by Google Analytics.

Real-time data also varies between the two services, with Google showing how many users are on a site, where they were referred from, and where they are geographically (Chianis, 2013). Adobe Analytics, instead, offers reports that evaluate current data as well as conversion data, which is important for marketing funnel mix (Chianis, 2013).

There are other smaller differences such as Google Analytics only holding on to data for up to 25 months, versus Adobe’s life of the product guarantee. Many users have criticized Adobe Analytics for being too difficult to set up, requiring a lot of work upfront versus Google Analytics which is very easy to set up and use (McClendon, 2013). For a first time data user, Google Analytics may be the better bet considering how simple it is to establish (Rose, 2012).

Since Adobe works more with reports, information like Key Business Requirements, Key Performance Indicators will need to be identified to create a Solution Design Document, which allows users to put the code on their website (Rose, 2012). Additionally, using Adobe’s product requires planning versus Google Analytics, which requires a few short lines of HTML that are provided by Google.  

Boiling it down

It’s clear that both companies offer superior products, but with such a high price tag attached to Adobe Marketing Suite it’s unlikely that it will catch on with as much fervor as Google Analytics. Small companies cannot afford such a high price tag and I would venture to say that unless you are working for a very profitable company, Adobe Analytics is not going to show up on your desktop. Adobe offers a solid product, but unless you’re very familiar with analytics, it’s a huge time commitment (Rose, 2012). Still, it’s important to know that if you’re going to shoot for the companies with the big budgets, you may have to have an understanding of Adobe Analytics.

References:

Adobe. (2009, Ocotber 23). Adobe.com. “Adobe acquires Omniture Software.” Retrieved from, http://www.adobe.com/investor-relations/omniture-acquisition.html.

Adobe. (2014, October). Adobe.com. “Adobe Analytics Premium.” Retrieved from, http://wwwimages.adobe.com/content/dam/Adobe/en/solutions/digital-marketing/digital-analytics/pdfs/solution-overview-analytics-premium-ue.pdf.

Adobe Customer Showcase. (n.d.). Adobe.com. “”Adobe Customer Showcase.” Retrieved from, http://www.adobe.com/solutions/digital-marketing/customer-showcase._sl_id-contentfilter_sl_featuredisplaytypes_sl_all.html.

Braaten, J. (2014, January 14). Searchenginewatch.com “Will 2014 Finally Be the Year of the Web Analyst?” Retrieved from, http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2322655/Will-2014-Finally-Be-the-Year-of-the-Web-Analyst.

Chianis, A. (2013, Ocotber 11). BusinessBee.com. “Google Analytics vs. Adobe SiteCatalyst – Which Data Analytics Platform is Better for Business?” Retrieved from, http://www.businessbee.com/resources/news/operations-buzz/google-analytics-vs-adobe-sitecatalyst-data-analysis-platform-better-business/.

Hong, K. (2014, March 25). Thenextweb.com. “Adobe boosts its mobile marketing services with iBeacon support and easier management of apps.” Retrieved from, http://thenextweb.com/insider/2014/03/25/adobe-boosts-its-mobile-marketing-services-with-ibeacon-support-and-easier-management-of-apps/.

Mashable Video. (2012, December 6). Mashable.com. “New Mashable Site Analytics Powered by Adobe.” Retrieved from, http://mashable.com/2012/12/06/mashable-analytics-adobe/.

McClendon, E. (2013, February 13). Nebo.com. “Google Analytics vs. Adobt Site Catalyst Round 2.” Retrieved from, http://www.neboagency.com/blog/google-analytics-vs-site-catalyst-2/.

Rose, S. (2012, August 29). Cardinalpath.com. “Getting Started with Adobe Omniture SiteCatalyst and Google Analytics.” Retrieved from, http://www.cardinalpath.com/getting-started-with-adobe-omniture-sitecatalyst-and-google-analytics/.

Yeung, K. (2013, July 18). Thenextweb.com. “Adobe Social update brings predictive publishing and integration with Foursquare, Instagram and LinkedIn.” Retrieved from, http://thenextweb.com/insider/2013/07/18/adobe-social-update-brings-predictive-publishing-and-integration-with-foursquare-instagram-and-linkedin/.