Difference between Adobe DTM & Tealium Implementation for implementing SiteCatalyst?

[srinii86]

Can anyone help me to get the difference between Adobe Dynamic Tag Management vs Tealium for implementing the Adobe Analytics (SiteCatalyst tool) for xyz website also need pros & cons

Please share with me here any documents if any. It would be great if i get the info ASAP.

Thanks!

[brian_kranson]

I have never used Adobe Tag Manager, but I can tell you we have lots of documentation on how to implement SiteCatalyst via Tealium Tag Manager:

https://community.tealiumiq.com/t5/User-Documentation/SERIES-SiteCatalyst/ta-p/9502

One major advantage of using Tealium is the number of vendors we support in the Tealium Tag Marketplace,  Check with Adobe and see if they nativity support over 750 tags.  So while you might be sending product_sku to evar75 and sprop64, you can also pass it along to Google Adwords, Facebook Tag,  BlueKai and Maximizer (to name a few)...  We recognize the data belongs to our clients and our vendor neutral approach allows you to send it to any vendor you want.

Hope this helps.

Brian

[stuart_roskelle]

Hi @srinii86!

I've done a lot of implementations with both Tealium and Adobe DTM with Adobe Analytics. There's several pros and cons to each, so I'll try to point out each as best as I can while being unbiased.

Tealium

Pros

Much more intuitive interface.

Clear separation between tags, extensions/customizations, and data elements.

Integrated data layer.

Clear use of event tracking methods and data tied to each individual event.

Fully asynchronous by default.

Hundreds of pre-built tags available.

Excellent support team and resources.

Much more user friendly for tag implementation.

More robust versioning and permissions.

Cons

Versioning a little less intuitive.

Costs extra money.

Event tracking through the tool relies on jQuery or javascript knowledge.

DTM

Pros

Integrated with Adobe Analytics more closely. This makes variable mappings a little more logical to work with, in Adobe terms, from start to finish.

Free if you already have Adobe Analytics.

Slightly easier versioning system up front.

Event tracking is built in and much easier to use than jQuery.

Cons

Very limited integrated tags. It is literally only integrated with Google Anaytics and other Adobe products.

Implementing tags means implementing javascript.

Requires synchronous implementation in both the head and footer of each page.

No clear separation between data elements, tags, and "extensions".

No native data layer integration.

Manual javascript tag tracking events (e.g. link tracking) allowed, but data isn't tied directly to the event.

Limited support and sometimes hard-to-find resources.

Back to your original question about implementing Adobe Analytics -- every client I've seen chooses Tealium hands down unless money is a large factor. The reasons usually come to management of the tag (which Tealium excels in) and intuitiveness of accessing the data. Tealium's philosophy is built around a strong vendor-neutral data layer, so you are looking at real, readable variables (e.g. customer_id) instead of something impossible to decipher on its own (e.g. eVar45). Tealium allows these to be very user-friendly and easy to map, whereas you have to keep going back and forth for DTM unless you remember to specifically name each individual data element. Both tools will get the job done in a similar manner for basic setup as well, but Tealium's extensions are much more intuitive than implementing customizations within DTM (sometimes very confusing or difficult).

The largest question I always keep in mind is "what is my end goal for the tool?" If my sole purpose for a tag manager is to implement Adobe Analytics, then DTM is going to be better suited because it is free and already very integrated. However, if I'm going to implement any other tags aside from Adobe Analytics and possibly have multiple users using the system of different skill levels, then Tealium is hands down the preferred tool.