Adobe Advertising Cloud vs. AppNexus vs. CIENCE GO Digital

I think it is good to keep in mind the type of business application you have in mind when selecting Media Optimizer for your company. For us, as an agency, it makes sense for us to utilize the reporting and paid search optimizing portions for our clients as we manage over 300+ clients PPC campaigns. With this tool it is possible to set up campaigns easily and as long as the parameters are set correctly within the portfolio, there is a great opportunity for the tool to do its job and use the simulation/modeling process to run and grow a paid search campaign with ease of human interaction.

Appnexus is specifically well suited for CTV campaigns. They have the full technology stack to help you scale campaigns in any format, whether you need a lot of volume in traditional formats like banners and interstitials or if you need high-impact formats like video and other alternatives. Appnexus has a very strong set of unique publishers which makes it a great DSP for branding campaigns.

Incentivized

CIENCE GO Digital is a fine tool for companies that are just getting started with programmatic advertising (like us). Filters are simple to put on and off and we were able to display our ads in all the ways we needed. Targeting showed good results as ads were pushed in the exact directions we wanted them to go. A great experience overall.

• An all in one solution for so many things that range from advertising campaigns to pushing out content to PPC.
• Integration for many channels without much setup, this includes lesser known search engines and various social media partners.
• Automation for delegating many tasks that can be a hassle to accomplish.

Incentivized

• As per my experience they have strong support personnel. Solving the issues as and when required.
• We can solve certain issues like campaign performance, inventory optimization and more with the help of AppNexus wiki. We get all the required information in the Wiki itself.
• They have given the right platform to both buyers and sellers to workout and meet their digital marketing needs and goals.

• Intuitive UI/UX that makes the whole process of creating a new campaign easier.
• It has a precise targeting system.
• It's intuitive and support all Ads formats.

• As with most Adobe products, it can be a little tedious to use and requires a bit of extra training and "googling" around to make sure you are getting things right. It has improved over time within the entire Adobe suite, and I anticipate that this will be true of this as well.
• Adobe training and learning platforms can include a lot of technical terminology and jargon that makes it difficult for a novice to understand without feeling like they need a whole new education.

Incentivized

• The platform is incredibly complex and requires a great deal of understanding of how the platform works that caught us by surprise.
• The wiki is not enough and when we resorted to reaching out to AppNexus it was a nuisance of having several emails going back and forth.
• No phone support is offered which would have made several things easier than exchanging confusing emails.
• Video inventory is still not implemented.

Incentivized

• The price is a bit expansive.

As of this writing, we have just discontinued our use of Adobe Media Optimizer. Other vendors gave us a better rate, a better contract option, and the product is just better than what we had with Adobe at the time. We may revisit Adobe again at the future, but it seems like they have a lot of work to do to catch up with the leader in the space

Incentivized

I love almost everything about AppNexus because I feel like the user data is easy to track because of the identifiers, you can see which adverts got clicked and which were ignored. We can track the location of the ad on the page fold and this makes it so much easier for future campaigns. The only thing I don't like is that the data is only kept for a year, and I'd like it for a longer period of time

It definitely takes some instruction to get to be able to use the system. One would struggle trying to get it to work without any previous experience with it. If you are famailiar with the interface it is actually quite fast and easy to maneuver around.

Because I think the interface is kind of confusing at the beginning and it confuses you a lot.

Incentivized

I've never had any problems with appnexus - the software is always available

Incentivized

Yes, everything works great in that sense

Incentivized

They are super knowledgable and help in almost all situations, however sometimes I feel they put you on hold to find the answers themselves as they literally have said. "Can you hold a few minutes while I research that answer for you?" Most of the time they come back with a solution, other times they manually escalate it to someone else.

Incentivized

Because the support team does give you support, they take 24hrs to get back to you but once they open a ticket they focus on resolving the issue for you. My only problem is that you don't have a specific account representative assigned to you.

Incentivized

Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand

Incentivized

It was difficult initially, but the implementation of the Dynamic Tag Manager was a big help and timesaver.

It was a step up from Marin in terms of UI. Very similar functionality to Marin. Compared to Kenshoo Search and Google Marketing Platform it was probably not as advanced but offered the benefit of integrating with other products in the Adobe stack like Adobe Analytics, Adobe Target, and Adobe Campaign.

Incentivized

The TTD platform seems to have better CTV/OLV inventory, so that is typically preferred over AppNexus (APN). Usually, if clients have an internal desk, they will use TTD, which can often lead to us bidding against them, which is also another benefit of running campaigns within AppNexus (APN). Google DSP is typically used to increase the scale for display and build larger re-messaging pools.

Incentivized

CIENCE GO Digital is definitely easier to use and with less bugs and blockers.

Because it's a great DSP but not the best

Incentivized

• This has increased the number of clients.
• This has increased the amount of productivity and time we can spend on clients.
• This has increased the overall revenue because we can handle more than we used to be able to handle without this tool.

Incentivized

• The 1 USD audit fee makes it very hard to A/B test creatives and improve performance, hurting ROI.
• We have been able to reach some users that we weren't able to get before, increasing spending, which is good for ROI.
• We can run campaigns on TV, which is a big boost for the business, and very ROI positive.

Incentivized

• It helped us to create more effective campaigns with better results.