If you’re looking to buy marketing analytics software, you might have heard about Supermetrics, a reporting automation tool for PPC, SEO, social and web analytics.
Supermetrics is a “data grabber” — a relatively simple way to grab marketing data for performance reports. There are 46 integrations listed on its website, including ones for data sources such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, Adobe Analytics, Facebook Ads, SEMrush and others.
That data can then be used with applications like Google Sheets, Google Data Studio or Excel, depending on the version of Supermetrics you buy.
But is it right for your team? Let’s take a closer look at Supermetrics’ pros and cons — where it excels, where it’s not as strong and who it’s really for.
What Does Supermetrics Do Well?
Speed
Supermetrics is built for speed. Marketing analysts can query data sources directly, pulling only the data they need in the moment. You can access any field that’s available from that data source. If all you’re trying to do is build fast, on-the-fly reports, Supermetrics is a good place to start.
Usability
Supermetrics’ interface comes with some handy features. For example, if you need to request data from Google Analytics for a specific segment ID, you don’t have to remember the exact name of that segment. Supermetrics gives you a dropdown menu where you can select the segment you need.
And while Supermetrics doesn’t have its own visualization tool, it does integrate well with Google Data Studio.
Cost
The cost of entry for Supermetrics is relatively low, though you will have to pay more for certain data sources.
Supermetrics sells different versions of its software that correspond to different tools: Supermetrics for Google Sheets, Supermetrics for Google Data Studio, Supermetrics for Excel and Supermetrics API, which allows users to push their data to a data warehouse or a BI or viz solution like Tableau, Power BI or Qlik.
What Are Supermetrics’ Weaknesses?
Lack of Storage
Supermetrics doesn’t store data. Every time it pulls information for a report, it directly queries the source, whether that’s Google Analytics, Facebook Ads, Twitter or some other platform.
That’s great if all you care about is learning about what just happened. But if you’re trying to discern long-term trends or employ a more sophisticated marketing attribution model, you won’t have the storehouse of data needed to develop more advanced marketing analytics.
As noted above, you can buy a flavor of Supermetrics that allows you to push your data to a data warehouse. But that data warehouse is not part of the product itself. You’re responsible for buying, setting up and maintaining the warehouse, which will demand more expertise and add to the cost of using Supermetrics.
Lack of Depth and Scalability
While Supermetrics can be very speedy, you might have to go slower if you try to go very granular with your analysis — for example, if you want to run an analysis on the product level or any other project that entails millions of rows of data.
In this case, a data warehouse would be a better solution. Your data is already stored and structured, so if you run a larger, more complex query, you’ll be able to execute it more quickly than you would otherwise. You won’t have to constantly rebuild datasets. Using a data warehouse requires more planning, but it’s infinitely more scalable.
Lack of Efficiency
Supermetrics doesn’t give you a way to clean up errors in your data. If you need to make corrections, you have to do that in your BI or visualization tool, and that could be very time-consuming.
You would be more efficient with a solution like ChannelMix, which sets up the rule once and applies it to your stored data, which will be “clean” going forward.
Another benefit of using a data warehouse: If you have several people on your analytics team, the warehouse serves as a “single source of truth” so everyone is working from the same set of data.
Basically, unless you’re going to provide only basic reporting, you
Supermetrics and Level 1 Marketing Analytics Software
Supermetrics is an example of what we call a Level 1 marketing analytics tool — specifically, a connector tool.
This is software that will automatically connect to a source like Bing Ads or Moz. It will grab the requested data, then push it into a spreadsheet or a BI or visualization tool.
Connector tools like Supermetrics and Funnel.io can help marketers save time, freeing them from having to manually download data and paste it into a spreadsheet. That hands-on approach is not only more time-consuming, it’s also more likely to produce errors.
Who Is Supermetrics For?
Level 1 tools are a good choice for smaller teams that are just getting started with marketing analytics. They don’t really need an enterprise solution. They need to answer basic “what happened when” questions about marketing performance.
Supermetrics won’t be a good choice for organizations that are being asked to provide more complex business insights, analysis
And even if you aren’t asking those types of questions today? It’s important to consider if they’ll be a future requirement from your stakeholders or your clients. If so, you’ll be better off investing in a more powerful alternative to Supermetrics.
Otherwise, when it’s time to evolve your marketing analytics, you’ll be forced to start over with a new platform. And you may not have the historical data you need to make that leap.
What Else Should I Consider Before Buying Supermetrics?
What are your alternatives to Supermetrics? Download the No B.S. Buyers Guide for Marketing Analytics, a free report from Alight Analytics. The guide will:
- Give you an easy-to-implement strategy for finding the right solution for your unique marketing analytics needs.
- Highlight the most common types of solutions on the market — including their pros, cons and capabilities.
- Show you the most important questions to ask when considering a new platform, so you can get the greatest value for your money.