| Features | |
|---|---|
| Data Source Integration | Cross-Channel Reporting in Standard Templates |
| Data Warehousing | Reporting Template Set Up & Customization Support |
| Reporting / Dashboard Platform Usage | Data Connector Maintenance |
| Number of Standard data sources | Multi-Channel Data Source Alignment & Blending |
| Number of Advanced data sources | New Reporting, Executive Reporting, and Customization Support |
- User Interface and Experience
- Data connectivity and sources
- Data visualization
- Advanced features and functionalities
- Customer support and documentation
- Pricing
- Summary
Looker Studio Alternatives: Arena Calibrate
It’s the digital age, and the data supernova that exists is making it more difficult for businesses to manage and understand data. Previously known as ‘Google Data Studio,’ Looker Studio has become one of the most popular business intelligence (BI) tools to organize, manage, and analyze data.
Yet despite its prevalence, Arena Calibrate’s capabilities have propelled it to the forefront of BI tools as one of the most powerful Looker Studio alternatives for laser-focused data management and analysis.
Unlike many Looker Studio competitors, Arena Calibrate focuses specifically and explicitly on the gathering and management of marketing and revenue operations data. Businesses can fully tap into its specialized features to gain profound insights into their marketing efforts, allowing them to pinpoint exactly what’s working and what isn’t.
But which solution is the right fit for you?
Below, we’ll compare the most important components of both platforms, including user interface, data connectivity, customer support, and more, to help identify which dashboard is most optimal for you.
1. User Interface and Experience
Design
Arena Calibrate has a modern and sophisticated design that’s just as visually appealing as it’s user-friendly. Dashboards and reports are 100% customizable with background color schemes, fonts, and widget types that allow users to quickly glean information and identify important patterns. Arena Calibrate’s white-glove reporting team helps clients achieve their ideal vision here.
Looker Studio also offers an intuitive self-service interface that uses drag-and-drop features to help users quickly acquaint themselves with this dashboard. The design has a consistent look and feel that helps users navigate through their data while maintaining a cohesive experience.
Ease of Use
Arena Calibrate distinguishes itself as a user-friendly solution by offering partnered data & reporting support services that set up clients’ backend data and dashboards. This proactive approach ensures a seamless initial setup, and ongoing use. This level of service is not commonly available from many providers.
By contrast, this isn’t a service that Looker Studios provides, forcing users to take on the responsibility of the backend setup. Any errors made at this stage could impact the dashboard’s ease of use further down the line.
Data presentation
With Arena Calibrate, you have access to a wide range of options for presenting data, such as charts, graphs, maps, and blended data dashboards. These visualizations are carefully created for clarity and ease of use.
Additionally, your Arena Calibrate support team provides full customization, including color schemes, fonts, and font sizes, according to your personal or business preferences.
Looker Studio is in the same territory in terms of its data presentation capabilities, offering comparable visualization options and customization features. However, it’s a more general-focused tool and doesn’t explicitly specialize in gathering and presenting marketing data.
Whereas with Arena Calibrate, you’re able to extract deeper insights through its capabilities that are specific to providing in-depth marketing analytics and data visualization.
2. Data connectivity and sources
From the bottom up, every aspect of Arena Calibrate is designed to help businesses maximize their marketing analytics potential. It’s one of the most powerful Looker Studio alternatives that enable businesses to keep their finger on the pulse of all marketing activity.
With Arena Calibrate, you have over 60 data connectors to choose from that encompass all of the heavyweight platforms, such as Google Analytics, Google Ads, Meta, LinkedIn, Hubspot, Salesforce, and more.
This focused approach to gathering marketing data allows you to make deeper and more sophisticated integrations with these platforms and extract comprehensive insights.
What’s more, this Google Data Studio alternative offers a special end-to-end data integration and reporting setup support that guarantees seamless implementation, preventing many businesses from having to hire technicians.
This allows you to focus more time on strategy and execution while eliminating the chances of a technical error appearing further down the road due to poor data integration.
Looker Studio has taken a more general approach, allowing you to cast your net wide and integrate with over 860 data connectors. These connectors are available via 3rd party data connector partners and does require signing up to one of their respective payment plans to enable the connectors. This makes the BI tool a viable option for any business looking to maintain a broader perspective on its data sources and analysis.
However, despite the convenience of being able to connect to a vast array of data sources, there are some weaknesses regarding its data connectivity and sources:
Limitations of Looker Studio
- Limited real-time data support: lacks comprehensive support for real-time data across all data connectors. As a result, your reports and dashboards may not reflect up-to-the-minute information.
- Difficulty connecting to complex data sources: can be difficult to connect to complex data sources, such as enterprise data warehouses. This may require the help of a data engineer or other technical expert.
- Limited data blending capabilities: has limited data blending capabilities. This means that it can be difficult to combine data from multiple sources into a single report or dashboard.
Users have picked up on these limitations, and some have even publicly voiced their disapproval of Looker Studio’s limited capabilities, as seen below.
3. Data visualization
Arena Calibrate and Looker Studio provide an array of data visualization tools for crafting engaging and informative reports. However, there are some notable differences between the two platforms regarding visualization quality, chart types, customization possibilities, and interactive capabilities.
Charts
Users of both platforms have a variety of charts to use to enhance their data visualization, including:
- Bar charts
- Line charts
- Pie charts
- Scatter plot
- Heatmaps
Customization options
Both Arena Calibrate and Looker Studio share a variety of customization options to personalize their dashboard to suit their preferences. These include:
- Themes: Tailor the aesthetics of your reports and dashboards using pre-designed themes or craft your custom themes.
- Data visualizations: Personalize the look of individual visualizations with a range of options for colors, fonts, and shapes.
- Filters: Refine your data display by applying custom or pre-existing filters to focus on specific information.
- Bookmarks: Save particular reports or dashboard views for later reference or share insights with team members.
- Colors and fonts: Personalize the colors and fonts in your dashboard to make it easier for other members to read your data.
- Smart insights: Utilize machine learning for the automatic detection of patterns and trends within your data, facilitating the rapid identification of areas for enhancement and informed decision-making.
Interactive Features
Users of Arena Calibrate and Looker Studios spoil users with a comprehensive range of interactive features to make their respective dashboards easier to use. These include:
- Filters: Enable users to swiftly focus on data specific to particular user subsets, time frames, or other criteria.
- Drill down: Empowers users to delve deeper into data by interacting with individual elements in charts or tables.
- Highlight: Facilitates the easy identification of specific data points in charts and tables by emphasizing them.
- Tooltips: Provide additional context about data points when users hover over them.
- Custom interactions: Allow users to create personalized interactions, including the creation of maps or timelines tailored to their unique requirements.
Summary
It’s nip and tuck between Arena Calibrate and Looker Studio when it comes to the data visualization features available. Users have the freedom to tinker, tweak, and tailor your dashboard to exactly how they want it to look.
However, if your goal is to extract and comprehend the most out of your marketing campaigns, then Arena Calibrate is a clear choice. Its data visualization features are designed to uncover even the most hidden information in your marketing campaigns, allowing you to maximize your marketing potential and make informed decisions at speed.
Looker Studio is different – everything is more general and less tailored to anything specific. You’ll be able to touch upon many different data sources but may be unable to gain a strong grip on any particular area.
4. Advanced features and functionalities
Arena Calibrate
- Enhanced data modeling: Empowers users with advanced data modeling tools to create custom dimensions, measurements, and intricate relationships between various data tables. This is invaluable for businesses requiring in-depth data analysis.
- Machine learning capabilities: Provides a range of machine learning features, enabling users to build predictive models and forecast future trends. This is a valuable asset for data-driven decision-making within businesses.
- Effortless collaboration: Facilitates seamless teamwork by enabling real-time report sharing and collaboration among users. This feature is ideal for businesses aiming to enhance the sharing of insights and information.
- Integration flexibility: Seamlessly integrates with popular business applications such as Salesforce, Marketo, and HubSpot, making it a valuable asset for businesses looking to connect their BI platform to existing systems.
Looker Studio
- Calculated fields and metrics: employ calculated fields and metrics to creatively transform their data. For instance, you can create calculated fields to determine the average order value or customer lifetime value.
- Scheduled reports and deliveries: enable users to schedule the automated distribution of reports and dashboards, streamlining the sharing process.
- Permissions and collaboration: set permissions to manage access to their data. Furthermore, Looker Studio fosters collaboration among users working on reports and dashboards.
- Looker Studio Pro: offers additional features, including the capacity to create custom data sources and integration with the Google Cloud Platform.
5. Customer support and documentation
Arena Calibrate and Looker Studio have some similarities when it comes to customer support and documentation. Since Looker Data Studio is a self-service platform, they have an online knowledge base, a community forum, and training modules to help businesses quickly familiarize themselves with the software.
However, Arena Calibrate is a packaged service designed to help clients achieve their ideal data and reporting vision as efficient and seamless as possible. This removes the heavy burden from businesses having to overcome the technical complexities in the setup process, saving time and effort while minimizing the likelihood of future errors.
What’s more is that users can say specifically to Arena Calibrate how they want their dashboard to be personalized, which enables them to fully maximize the potential of their analytics.
6. Pricing
Arena Calibrate
Being a managed-service solution, Arena Calibrate does not offer a one-size-fits-all pricing structure to users. This is because every business is unique, varying in size, needs, and objectives, which in turn requires a distinct level of time and effort invested in their backend operations.
Therefore, the pricing is bespoke to each client and is determined by the following factors (see right table). Click here if you want more information about Arena Calibrate’s pricing structure.
Looker Studio
Looker Studio has a free plan that allows users to generate and distribute reports and dashboards in collaboration with up to five team members. It grants access to Looker Studio's fundamental features, enabling users to link to data sources, generate charts and tables, and incorporate filters and drill-down capabilities.
However, at an enterprise level, you will have to upgrade your membership to a paid one, which can cost anywhere up to $3,000 depending on your needs. The general consensus is that Looker Studio is an expensive solution that can be substituted with more cost-effective and efficient BI tools.
Summary
Arena Calibrate and Looker Studio are sophisticated BI tools that can help businesses achieve their goals faster through smarter and more comprehensive data insights.
But choosing between these two dashboards depends entirely on your situation and goals. Arena Calibrate gives you a granular focus on marketing data, allowing you to extract, organize, and understand every facet of your marketing campaigns.
What’s more is that users don’t have to be bogged down by the technical setup process, which can be time-consuming and expose you to errors further down the road if not done properly.
Looker Studio’s more general approach encompasses a wide range of business data to fulfill your data analytics needs. Although it can cast the net wider, you won’t be able to extract comprehensive insights in areas such as marketing.
Therefore, if your goal is to level up your marketing campaigns to accelerate growth, then Arena Calibrate is not only the most powerful Looker Studio alternative but the most compelling solution available.
Want to stay on top of your marketing campaigns?
See if Arena Calibrate is right for your organization