A number of my customers have told me why they chose Analytics Edge over Supermetrics, especially with the every increasing pricing model, so I thought it would help others if I laid it all out in black-and-white.
Similar Functionality: To start with, Analytics Edge has connectors for the common online marketing data sources like Google Analytics, Google/Facebook/Microsoft/LinkedIn Ads, Google/Bing Search and others. The connectors have no arbitrary limits on accounts or queries — you can use as many as you want. This is because the software runs on your computer, not on a shared server where resources are limited.
Less Expensive: Then there is the big elephant in the room: Price. You will find Analytics Edge is dirt cheap in comparison. Small agencies and freelancers with lots of clients will find the no-account-limit, no-query-limit licensing of Analytics Edge makes it possible to automate reports for all of their clients. Individuals in corporations with limited budgets can still automate their reports without building a business case for the investment. That is because I don’t pay for shared servers to process your queries. I don’t pay for a fancy head office. I don’t have a marketing department or an advertising budget. And I don’t have an affiliate program that makes you pay an additional 20%.
Corporate Compliance: Analytics Edge does not have any access to your account credentials or data — your queries go direct from your computer to the API servers. There is no intermediate server storing your account information or processing your data. Some of my customers are simply not allowed to have their corporate data pass through third-party servers without a full and regular compliance audit, and Analytics Edge is the perfect solution. Your data doesn’t pass through a data center in another country. Your account credentials never leave your computer and they are not stored in the workbook, either.
Faster Refreshes: My customers also like the speed; your computer makes queries direct to Google or Microsoft or Facebook API servers, and it can’t get any faster than that. There is no intermediate server processing that slows things down. Customers have seen dramatic improvements in downloading large data sets and refreshing reports with hundreds of queries. You are limited only by the APIs and your own internet connection.
More Reliable: Some customers cite the reliability of Analytics Edge; there aren’t any outages caused by shared server overloads or updates. No dramatic slow downs at the beginning of the month due to a shared server overload. There is nothing worse than your reporting tool failing on the day your reports are due. API updates are handled through connector updates that you control; install them when you have time, and avoid reporting day surprises when you have a time-crunch.
Better Productivity: Some people love the way they can get more done in less time — Analytics Edge was purpose-built to save you time creating and updating your reports. The Analytics Edge Core Add-in lets you automate both the download and the analysis of your data so you don’t have to struggle with formulas and scripts. You have better things to do than building or refreshing reports. Build step-by-step cleanup, comparisons, lookups and transformations of your data in a simple, wizard-based interface — no coding, no syntax errors, no distractions from getting the work done.
Less Technical: That may be a bit of a surprise, but Analytics Edge queries and macros don’t use any programming languages — no scripts — not even formulas (which is programming by another name)! Everything is wizard-based, easily edited and run. The product is designed to keep you focused on your data, not trying to figure out VLOOKUP (or INDEX/MATCH, or XLOOKUP). Make multiple queries, combine the data, do some math, filter, sort, and write the results to your workbook; automatically recorded and easily edited.
More Scalable: Finally, since Analytics Edge connectors make the queries direct to the API servers, there are no product-imposed limits holding you back. All the connectors support unlimited accounts and all the queries the API servers can handle. Since there is no shared intermediate server, there is no reason to charge you more or limit your capabilities as your needs grow…or as we grow. Connectors have been priced at $50 USD per year (that’s about $4/month) since 2014, and there are no plans to change that. They all come with no account limits and no query limits.
If you haven’t tried Analytics Edge, you can start free, for 30 days, no purchase necessary. Get started now!
“I did more in a two days [with Analytics Edge] then with Supermetrics in 3 weeks”
“Urgh Supermetrics… I looked into that before I found you lol. Hate that thing.”
“We like the tool [Analytics Edge] as it offers more flexibility working with Excel”