Comparison of OWOX BI and Google Analytics 360

We’re often asked how OWOX BI differs from Google Analytics 360. Potential clients want to know what solutions we offer that aren’t available in Google Analytics 360 and what OWOX BI can do for their business. In this article, we answer these questions.

Google Analytics 360
The BigQuery Export feature in Google Analytics 360 allows you to transfer unsampled data about user behavior on a site to Google BigQuery.

Data for the current day is uploaded to an intermediate table and updated every eight hours. The final table with sessions is formed the next day, and the intermediate table is deleted.

For an additional fee ($0.05 per gigabyte), you can activate streaming export to update data in a separate table every 15 minutes.

OWOX BI
OWOX BI also collects data on user behavior in Google BigQuery, but it does this directly from your site, in parallel with Google Analytics tracking. Due to this, data is updated faster than when exporting from Google Analytics 360, and you can use it for things such as trigger mailings and frequently updated dashboards.

OWOX BI sends real-time hit data from your website to a Google BigQuery table.The next day, a finalized table (with session data and cost attributions for session sources) is formed on the basis of the previous day's hit data.

Google Analytics 360
The Google Analytics Terms of Use prohibit the collection of personally identifiable data.

OWOX BI
With OWOX BI, you can collect personally identifiable information from website visitors (such as email addresses and phone numbers) in Google BigQuery to use for marketing purposes.

Google Analytics 360

Google Analytics 360 limits the amount of data collected from a site:

• 200,000 hits per user per day
• 10 million hits per month
• 500 hits per session
• 200 user parameters and 200 indicators (custom dimensions and metrics)
• Maximum hit size is 8 KB

Data above these limits isn’t processed and doesn’t get into Google Analytics.

OWOX BI

OWOX BI does not place limitations on the number of hits transmitted or on user metrics, and the allowable hit size is twice as large at 16 KB. This means you get a complete picture of the actions users take on your site.

Google Analytics 360
Information about user behavior is collected in Google Analytics using queries that are sent to the google-analytics.com domain. If users interact with your company through an intranet or restricted network, this information does not go into Google Analytics.

OWOX BI
In order not to lose data on user actions and to preserve security requirements, you can send data on user behavior through the OWOX BI custom domain. As a result, all actions of your users will be recorded not only in Google Analytics but also in Google BigQuery.

Google Analytics 360
To compare costs and revenue for each ad campaign, you can manually import expense data into Google Analytics 360 from all advertising sources. However, you won’t know how much you’ve spent on attracting a particular client or user segment because the information on expenses in Google Analytics is aggregated and tied to advertising campaigns. BigQuery Export won’t help with this question either, as there’s no cost information in the data transfer scheme.

OWOX BI
OWOX BI automatically imports expense information from various advertising sources into Google Analytics, then sends it to Google BigQuery, distributing it into sessions according to UTM tags. Thanks to this, you can find out how much you’ve spent on each session and, using a simple SQL query, can group expenses and revenue by users, cohorts, and landing pages.

In addition, OWOX BI is able to collect raw data from Google Ads campaigns with auto-markup in Google BigQuery, retrieving it from the gclid parameter.

Google Analytics 360
In Google Analytics, the source of traffic is determined by the Last Non-Direct Click model (the last indirect interaction). If the direct transition is the last in the chain of user actions, then it’s ignored, and the channel from the last indirect interaction is recorded as the source.

If you want to find out the actual session source for a direct transition, then the trafficSource.isTrueDirect field in Google BigQuery will help you. This field is true when a session begins with a direct visit to the site. However, if a user goes to the site two times in a row via a link from the same advertising campaign (with the same UTM tag), then the field is also true. That is, Google Analytics will define the second session as direct traffic, although in fact it was initiated by advertising.

OWOX BI
Like Google Analytics, OWOX BI allows you to track the true source of direct transitions thanks to the trafficSource.isTrueDirect field in the table with session data in Google BigQuery. But OWOX BI differs from Google Analytics in that OWOX doesn’t define a transition twice in a row from the same ad as direct.

Google Analytics 360
In Google Analytics, it’s possible to track the intersection of audiences only on subdomains of a single site. You can track a user’s path across your sites only if they move between them using links. If a user visits different sites at different times and doesn’t cross-link, you won’t be able to fully track their path.

OWOX BI
With the additional OWOX User ID, you can track the intersection of audiences on any of your sites that are configured to collect data in Google BigQuery, even if those sites are in different domains. This information can be used when setting up audiences so as not to show ads to the same people twice.

Google Analytics 360
If you transmit hit data through the Measurement Protocol, then some events from the site may not be included in Google Analytics. For example, for online payments, you need to receive a confirmation from the bank. Only after that will the transaction be taken into account. If the confirmation takes more than four hours (the maximum value of the & qt parameter in Google Analytics), then the event won’t fall into any session. If the & qt parameter is sent without a value, a separate session will be automatically created for the event. In any case, it will damage the accuracy of your data.

OWOX BI
In OWOX BI, the maximum value for the & qt parameter is 30 days. This means that your events will be attributed to the correct session.

Google Analytics 360
The standard data export schema from Google Analytics 360 to Google BigQuery contains more than 40 fields with information from AdSense, Google Ads, DoubleClick, etc. If you don’t use one of these services, then the field will be empty but you’ll still have to pay for its processing.

OWOX BI
OWOX BI collects data from your site in two tables: one with data about hits, the other with data about sessions. The cost data sheet from Google Analytics is compiled separately. All tables contain only the required fields, which significantly reduces the amount of data to process in BigQuery.

Google Analytics 360
To evaluate the effectiveness of all advertising campaigns and calculate and compare their ROI, ROAS, and CPA, you need to import cost data into Google Analytics.

Google Analytics can show information about the costs of Google Ads campaigns if you link your Google Ads account in the settings. Data on expenses from other advertising services such as Bing or Facebook must be loaded into Google Analytics manually in order to receive reports in the context of UTM tags.

OWOX BI
OWOX BI allows you to combine cost data for all your ad campaigns in one Google Analytics account and easily compare the performance of sources. You can set up automatic data imports to Google Analytics from a variety of advertising services: Facebook, Instagram, Criteo, AdRoll, Trafmag, Bing Ads, Twitter Ads, Sklik, Outbrain, Yahoo Gemini, etc. The currency charged by the advertising service is automatically converted into the default currency of your Google Analytics account.

Cost information can be used both in Google Analytics reports and for attribution of advertising campaigns by uploading data to Google BigQuery using OWOX BI.

Google Analytics 360
In order to evaluate the contribution of each session in the user action chain before purchasing, popular attribution models (Last Click and Last Non-Direct Click) are not appropriate.

Google Analytics 360 offers a more reliable data-driven attribution model. Its calculations use information collected in Google Analytics, and the value of the conversion is distributed by the source according to the Shapley vector.

Unlike standard attribution models such as First Click and Last Non-Direct Click, this model takes into account the impact of all online sessions on conversions and allows you to more efficiently allocate resources to advertising campaigns. However, it doesn’t take into account user steps that aren’t found in Google Analytics (calls, letters, offline purchases), and has limitations on the amount of data used for calculations.

OWOX BI
You can connect transaction data from your CRM and from any online and offline events to the Machine Learning Funnel Based Attribution by OWOX – for example, data on calls, personal meetings, and emails downloaded in Google BigQuery. You can also supplement the funnel with data on views of DoubleClick display ads. As a result, you’ll get a complete picture of user interactions with your business and be able to take into account the effect of all advertising channels on conversions.

Google Analytics 360
To calculate the attribution model based on data in Google Analytics 360, your Google Ads account must have at least 15,000 ad clicks and at least 600 conversions within 30 days for one conversion activity. Also, over the past 28 days, you need to have at least 400 conversions of each type with a path length of at least two interactions and 10,000 interaction paths (i.e. about the same number of users) in your Google Analytics view.

OWOX BI
In Machine Learning Funnel Based Attribution by OWOX, there are no restrictions on the minimum amount of data for calculating the attribution model. Regardless of the size of your business, just connect the data for which you need to calculate the model.

Google Analytics 360
In the Google Analytics 360 attribution model, calculation results aren’t segmented into sections for new and returning users and the details of a single transaction can’t be verified.

OWOX BI

Machine Learning Funnel Based Attribution by OWOX allows you to identify new and returning users.

Also, unlike Google Analytics 360, OWOX BI can account for margin and order fulfillment. In addition, the results of calculating your attribution model in OWOX BI can be used to manage bids in the Google Ads. Thanks to these integrations, you can optimize your advertising campaigns across all channels at once.

Google Analytics 360
Google Analytics allows you to quickly get detailed reports on user behavior on your site. Data from other sources, including data about offline transactions from your CRM system, must be uploaded manually.

OWOX BI

OWOX BI builds reports based on data uploaded to Google BigQuery, which may include:

• Raw data on user behavior on the site, supplemented by data from mobile applications, call tracking, and email newsletters
• Data on advertising costs from various sources
• Data about offline transactions from your CRM system
• The results of the attribution calculations in OWOX BI

With this data you can:

• Learn the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns and track users’ paths to conversion
• Evaluate the impact of the ROPO effect on your online trading
• Discover fraud in your CPA campaigns
• Compare the effectiveness of advertising on different attribution models

Google Analytics 360
When the amount of data for the selected period exceeds 100 million sessions, Google Analytics 360 applies sampling. This means that only part of the data is processed, which means that the reliability of reports is reduced. In addition, not all parameters and indicators can be combined in one report. The maximum number of rows in one report is 3 million.

OWOX BI
In reports built using OWOX BI, data isn’t sampled and there’s no limit to the number of rows. In addition, you can use any combination of parameters of different levels in a single report: user, session, hit, and product.

Google Analytics 360
Google Analytics reports can’t be directly exported to Google Data Studio. The data must first be downloaded in CSV table format. You then need to either connect the exported data to Google BigQuery or view Google Analytics as a data source and build reports based on it in Data Studio.

OWOX BI
OWOX BI reports are based on data from Google BigQuery, so data can be exported to Google Data Studio with one click and then used to visualize and generate reports in Data Studio.

Google Analytics 360
The cost of Google Analytics 360 depends on the size of your business but starts at $120,000 per year.

OWOX BI
The minimum paid plan with OWOX BI costs $55 per month and can be flexibly adjusted according to the size of your business. The cost of data collection depends on the number of unique users per month. You can calculate it on our rates page.

The costs of collecting and storing data in Google BigQuery must be paid separately when using either OWOX BI or Google Analytics 360. It will cost approximately the same amount with either service, since the volume of data exported will be the same. However, Google Analytics 360 users receive a $500 coupon each month for storing and working with data in BigQuery.

When building reports, OWOX BI uses raw data from your project in Google BigQuery. The cost of processing 1 terabyte of data in a BigQuery request is only $5.