To keep up with the complexity of today’s digital landscape, businesses are leaning on tools that enable meaningful cross-channel customer journey insights.

Adobe offers two powerful solutions to enrich customer data analysis: Adobe Analytics (AA) and Adobe Customer Journey Analytics (CJA). But which one is right for your business purposes?  

While these two Adobe solutions seem similar at first glance, they have distinct focuses and data foundations.

Let’s take a deeper look into Adobe Analytics vs. Customer Journey Analytics, so you can identify the ideal solution for your organization.  

About Adobe Analytics vs. Customer Journey Analytics

Adobe Analytics is a traditional web and app analytics tool that makes it easy to track user behavior across digital channels (e.g. websites and apps). Key metrics include performance, audience engagement, and conversion.

Customer Journey Analytics is a more robust analytics product that’s built on top of the Adobe Experience Platform (AEP). With it, you can get a 360-degree, omnichannel view into your customer journeys across web, mobile, CRM, call center, offline data and more.  

Key Features Comparison: Adobe Analytics vs. Customer Journey Analytics  

Adobe Analytics

• Data source: Web and mobile data (collected via JavaScript SDK).
• Storage model: Proprietary system based on report suites.
• Real-time access: Near real-time.

Customer Journey Analytics

• Data source: Any data source that feeds into AEP (web, mobile, CRM, POS, etc.)
• Storage model: Data lake built on the Experience Data Model (XDM).
• Real-time access: Near real-time (with more scalability and flexibility).

Let’s now explore some of these tools’ key features, so you get a sense of their practical business applications.  

1. Identity & Stitching

Adobe Analytics tracks users via cookies and device IDs, which means it utilizes Customer IDs as a basis for visitor stitching. That said, it has limited capacities when it comes to unifying cross-device or offline-online interactions.

In contrast, Customer Journey Analytics draws from the Identity Graph within the Adobe Experience Platform. As a result, it can stitch together touchpoints across multiple devices and channels, forming a more comprehensive view of customer journeys.  

2. Analysis Capabilities

Both tools use Analysis Workspace, but Customer Journey Analytics boasts significant enhancements. For example, you can take advantage of the following extras when leveraging CJA:  

Adobe Analytics

• Segmentation: Rule-based, limited to tracked data.
• Joins: Not supported.
• Custom dimensions: Predefined at implementation.
• Time granularity: Hour, day, week & month.

Customer Journey Analytics

• Segmentation: Cross-channel, omnichannel segments.
• Joins: Joins across available datasets.
• Custom dimensions: Dynamically defined at query-time.  
• Time granularity: Fully customizable (e.g., fiscal calendar, rolling periods, etc.)

3. Implementation & Scalability

As Adobe flagship products, both tools are fairly implementation friendly. Overall, implementing Adobe Analytics is typically faster but more rigid. Metrics tracking is set up during implementation through tagging, which means retroactive changes are difficult.  

On the other hand, implementing Customer Journey Analytics takes longer as you have to hook up all data streams within Adobe Experience Platform. After set-up, however, CJA is far more flexible, future-proof and scalable.

Best Use Cases for Adobe Analytics vs. Customer Journey Analysis

Still not sure which Adobe solution you should utilize? Here’s a quick run-down of the best use cases to help you make an informed decision.  

Best Use Cases for Adobe Analytics

• Website & app performance analysis.
• Conversion funnel tracking.
• Digital marketing reporting.

Best Use Cases for Customer Journey Analytics

• Cross-channel journey analysis (web, call center, CRM, etc.)
• Customer lifetime value tracking.
• Advanced segmentation across touchpoints.
• Dashboards with full data context.

Final Thoughts on Adobe Analytics vs. Customer Journey Analysis

Identifying key differences between Adobe Analytics and Customer Journey Analytics can be difficult at first. Yet, with our comparison analysis above, we hope you’re better equipped to choose the right solution.  

Ultimately, if you’re keen to get web analytics with basic segmentation, Adobe Analytics may be sufficient for your needs. However, if you require unified CX data across channels, devices and time, Customer Journey Analytics is the best strategic choice.  

Want to talk about your options with an Adobe specialist? Reach out to schedule a consultation with us.