Frequently Asked Questions

Apollo Features

Yes! There are over 1,000 built-in business requirements, which represent the business questions we have seen asked repeatedly over the past twenty years. However, you can customize and create new business requirements as you see fit to meet your unique needs. When creating new business requirements, you do have to provide associated information, including the data layer specification, analytics tag configuration, and reporting variable design. We have documentation and training on how to do this or you can work with Search Discovery or one of the Apollo partners to help you import create business requirements.

No! While Apollo is a no-brainer for new digital analytics implementations, it was built to support existing implementations. We assume that most organizations already have a digital analytics implementation with historical data that they want to preserve. 

 

We built a “Map Existing Implementation” tool that allows you to import your current implementation into Apollo and then make it better with our additional business requirements and other features. Importing your current analytics implementation can be done in a few hours, and after the import, you can instantly see a list of the business requirements/questions that your implementation can provide to stakeholders.

While many of our business requirements are industry agnostic, we have filters for the following industry verticals: Automotive, B2B, Consumer Products/Manufacturing, Education, Finance, Healthcare, Media, Non-profit/Political, Retail, Travel.

The data quality assurance capabilities in Apollo are powerful, but in many ways different from those offered by traditional data quality tools like ObservePoint or QA2L. Apollo does not currently spider your website and verify that tags haven’t been dropped or allow you to create automated journey tests (though this functionality may be added soon).  

 

Apollo’s data quality features are very focused on ensuring that the data being passed to the data layer is adhering to the data layer requirements and that the beacon being sent to the digital analytics vendor is properly formatted. This will help minimize situations in which bad data ends up in your analytics implementation.

 

Apollo is able to do this since it builds the data layer for you and has complete knowledge of what data and data constraints are required. This means that you don’t have to take additional time to “teach” Apollo about your implementation whenever you make changes. Apollo also provides real-time feedback on potential data quality issues in the browser, in a third-party logging tool (Airbrake), and via email alerts.

Soon! It is on our roadmap to have Apollo create mobile app SDKs for you based upon the same business requirements and data layer you have for your desktop website.
Yes! Because Apollo configures an event-driven data layer, single-page apps are covered.
No! Apollo only stores metadata about your implementation such as business questions, implementation attributes, etc. No digital analytics data is stored in Apollo. This often alleviates any concerns about Apollo with your information security team.

Not yet! This is a popular request! We have seen organizations with hundreds of duplicate analytics components and we think managing these and avoiding duplicates would be a great addition to an analytics management system. There are some great tools out there for this (like this one) that we may work with in the future.

Apollo Integrations

Yes! Apollo ensures your data layer is valid for your GTM implementation with no additional configuration. Apollo can create and manage all items in GTM that support analytics tracking, includingtags, triggers, variables, and templates.

Yes! Apollo works with Google Tag Manager that support Google Analytics 4 implementations.

Yes! Apollo currently supports AEP WebSDK implementations where data is flowing into Adobe Analytics. Apollo can help you translate a traditional Adobe Analytics implementation to leverage AEP or you can use Apollo to start a fresh implementation.

It is our intention to add other version control tools like Jira, Bitbucket, etc. This will be prioritized by client demand. So far, most of the organizations we have worked with leverage GitHub in some capacity, so that is why we began with GitHub integration.

While Apollo does not automate configuration of third-party tags in the tag manager, Apollo can help you add requirements to the data layer which are needed to support third-party tags. You can continue to manage third-party tags within your tag management platform manually and Apollo will not interfere.

Yes! Has built-in mechanisms for ensuring your analytics tags abide by user preferences indicated within consent management platforms. You can read more here.

Not at this time. You can continue to manage these items manually within your tag management platform and Apollo will not interfere.

Apollo Partner Program

Yes! We set out to change the way the industry manages its analytics, and we want as many people benefiting from Apollo as possible.
We offer training to agencies/consultancies on the platform and will help support you on your first Apollo implementation. The Apollo product has been built with safeguards to ensure that anything added to Apollo (such as new business requirements) is only seen by that agency and its clients and that none of your competitors (or Search Discovery) can see what you have added.

 

We have special pricing plans for agencies/consultancies, so if you are interested in learning more, please visit the partner page on the Apollo website and complete the form there.

Apollo Implementation

As you probably know, data layers are complex. There are custom/homegrown data layers, the W3C data layer, event-driven data layers, vendor-specific data layers, etc. By default, Apollo provides you with a best-practice, event-driven data layer. This is based upon where we see the industry and vendors (both Adobe and Google) going.

 

For Adobe organizations: If you are using an old, custom, or static data layer, there will be work involved leverage the best practice data layer provided by Apollo. If you are already using an event-driven data layer, providing your data layer sepcifications to Apollo is very reasonable. We understand that making changes to your data layer is difficult and time-consuming, but we believe that every organization should keep up with the industry best-practices and Apollo allows you to improve your digital analytics implementation, its management, and your data layer at the same time. Once you are managing your digital analytics implementation using Apollo, you will have a clean implementation and a data layer that will support you for years to come. So even if there is some work involved to do a one-time update, we have found that it is worthwhile and that the time you save over the long run with Apollo will pay great dividends.

 

For Google organizations: If you are migrating from Universal Analytics to Google Analytics 4, Apollo can provide you a best practice GA4 data layer, or you can ensure the Apollo implementation leverages the data layer supporting your UA data layer.

Once you are managing your analytics implementation in Apollo, you shouldn’t have to make very many updates to the administration settings of your analytics platform or your tag management system. By managing these elements directly in Apollo, you can be assured that all of the associations between the various implementation components are maintained.

 

You can continue to manually manage separate components within the tag manager and analytics platform and Apollo will not overwrite your updates with subsequent deployments. Apollo only makes changes to components it manages.

No. Unfortunately, Adobe doesn’t provide APIs for all of the administration console features, which limits our ability to automate those tasks.

Getting Started With Apollo

The Apollo product includes 4 pricing tiers: Free, Full Access, Design & Document, and Migration. Each tier includes varying levels of capabilities to help you manage your analytics environment. For more information on Apollo’s tiers and pricing, visit www.apolloplatform.com/pricing or contact us today!

No! We have built Apollo so that it builds all of your implementation components, but does not forever tie you to Apollo. You can download your latest solution design resource (SDR), your data layer and your Launch setup is independent of Apollo. Of course, if you stop using Apollo, you will have to go back to the old way of manually managing an implementation with spreadsheets, but technically, you can use Apollo for however long you wish.

Want to try it before you buy it? Apollo currently offers live product demonstrations as well as a free version of Apollo for Google! To request a demo, visit www.apolloplatform.com to sign up or contact us today. To learn more and sign up for Apollo’s free version, visit www.apolloplatform.com/pricing.

We offer several free mechanisms for learning Apollo including:


1. An extensive Youtube channel
2. Up-to-date Product Documentation for self-serving your technical questions
3. Chat Messanger feature on the app where you can reach out to our customer success team

 

We also offer live virtual trainings to new customers and agency partners. You can learn more about pricing at www.apolloplatform.com/pricing.

Apollo offers product support in 4 packages: Basic, Premium, Standard, and Custom. Each package includes varying levels of support that allow us to help you make the best use of the Apollo platform and act as a dedicated resource for all of your questions. For more information on Apollo’s product support packages, visit www.apolloplatform.com/pricing or contact us today!

Any other questions? Reach out here!