AdobeAdvertising Cloud (formerly Adobe Media Optimizer) is an ad management product and is part of the Adobe Marketing Cloud. It delivers a rules-based bidding solution that improves the performance of search engine marketing campaigns and is integrated with Adobe Analytics.
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Google Campaign Manager 360
Score6.7 out of 10
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Replacing DoubleClick, Google Campaign Manager 360 is a web-based ad management system for advertisers and agencies, used to manage digital campaigns across websites and mobile. This includes features for ad serving, targeting, verification, and reporting.
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Marin Software (discontinued)
Score9.1 out of 10
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Marin Software was a cloud-based cross-channel advertising campaign management platform which integrated many tools and functions, and the name of the company in San Francisco that issued the software. Marin declared bankruptcy in 2025, and the service is not currently active.
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Pricing
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Google Campaign Manager 360
Marin Software (discontinued)
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Google Campaign Manager 360
Marin Software (discontinued)
Free Trial
No
No
Yes
Free/Freemium Version
No
No
No
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
No
No
No
Entry-level Setup Fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
No setup fee
Additional Details
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More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Google Campaign Manager 360
Marin Software (discontinued)
Considered Multiple Products
Adobe
Verified User
Chose Adobe Advertising Cloud
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 …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Adobe Advertising Cloud
An issue I touched on is how out of control budgeting is with Adobe Media Optimizer, recommending a budget of 30% just in one keyword is when I realized that something was amiss with how Adobe Media Optimizer tracks budgets and keywords. This issue not the case with Google …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Director Search and Digital Advertising in Professional Services at Big Fish Results (Internet, 10,001+ employees)
Chose Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Media Optimizer is the best solution if you are already an Omniture customer because of the deep integration and the ability to pull reports from either interface.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Search Marketing Strategist in Marketing at Gcommerce Solutions (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)
Chose Adobe Advertising Cloud
We have only gone with the Adobe Media Optimizer, as it seemed the most appropriate tool for what we wanted to use it for and offered an optimization tool as well as a reporting platform that others didn't. We took into account the abilities of Marin software and Navis, but …
Google
Verified User
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
DoubleClick is slightly better to manage, especially in the sense of its user interface, which isn't super easy to navigate, but compared to Marin, is a lot easier. It also has a much easier process in terms of uploading ads to engines such as AdWords and Bing. I also find it …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
Marin takes a lot more time for everything, mainly for the campaigns setup. This also leads to many mistakes, which impact the performance. I've used Marin on a couple of previous clients and we've had many problems with it, mainly with correct conversion tracking and account …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Online Marketing Manager in Marketing at BuyerZone (Internet, 11-50 employees)
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
In the past we have tested Marin and Adobe AdLens for automated keyword bidding. Both have not worked well for our business as lead generation comes with a lot of challenges (i.e. verification process, daily and monthly lead caps etc.). AdLens recommends to add as many keywords …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
DoubleClick was inferior to both Marin and Kenshoo.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
DoubleClick is the best tool to use for data management since it is fast, easy to use and provides everything needed for optimizing towards better performance.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Account Manager in Marketing at Mindshare (Marketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
DoubleClick is definitely more efficient than Kenshoo, particularly when it comes to reporting. It's great to be able to pull YoY data quickly, whereas Kenshoo only allows three month increments on most levels and monthly increments at the keyword level.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Google Campaign Manager 360
I wasn't involved in the selection process however, but I was happy with the functionality because I had to update promotional ad copy on a daily basis.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Discontinued Products
Verified User
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
Kenshoo Search is definitely the most customizable auto bid tech for lease and sale, however Marin Software blows them out of the park when it comes to ease of use, customer support, and reports. If you have a fair number of cookie-cutter accounts with limited special issues, …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Verified User
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
Double click is easier to use as it offers a couple of clicks syncing with Adwords, while the process with Marin is longer. Besides, you can do any changes in both DoubleClick and Adwords, it doesn't really matter, while it maters with Marin. Speed of Marin is also an issue …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Media Manager in Marketing at Performics (Marketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees)
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
We did platform reviews and decided we would stick with Marin after the recent updates. DoubleClick doesn't have the ability to use web queries as well as Marin and they also have trouble with customer service. Marin has shown plenty of improvement and we are excited to …
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Digital Marketing Strategist in Marketing at TBC (E-Learning, 5001-10,000 employees)
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
I've used Doubleclick Search for bid management and account aggregation, but I prefer Marin as its bid management tool is way better and provides a better ROI. Marin also offers a back-end integration option as well as much better customer service. I felt that our account …
Technical Account Manager in Marketing at BrightTag (Marketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees)
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
The agency I was working at primarily used Kenshoo, DoubleClick and Marin but would sometimes also work direct to engine. Having played multiple roles as an account manager and also the technical lead on the product/vendor team, Marin definitely stood out as my favorite.
Verified User
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
I evaluated Kenshoo, Acquisio, and Efficient Frontier at the same time as Marin Software. While all platforms had unique capabilities and areas where their functionality purportedly outperformed the others - Marin seemed to achieve the right balance for all of our needs (i.e. …
Manager of Paid Media in Professional Services at ethology (Marketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees)
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
Marin is very comparable to Kenshoo, and (for us anyway) quite a bit less expensive. Sure, Kenshoo has some additional features not offered by Marin that would be cool to have, but those features come at a hefty premium. Marin does everything we need it to do, at an acceptable …
Verified User
Chose Marin Software (discontinued)
DoubleClick has gotten better, but Marin is easier to use and the service is better. This includes the help section and our Marin reps.
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.
I feel pretty neutral about Google Marketing Platform. For the longest time, my company wasn't using it because each of the features (Data Studio, Analytics, etc.) could be accessed separately. In fact, most of the time, I don't even go into Google Marketing Platform because it's easier to directly navigate to the individual platforms. There are very few features about GMP that can only be accessed from the GMP UI. The Integrations Center is probably the main feature I utilize from the GMP UI, which allows me to see a summary of the integrations I have in place across all my client properties and accounts.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It's well suited when you have to integrate it with another data source, like an FTP for example. The dimensions you can assign to campaigns or ad group levels help for easier performance management and reporting. What makes it difficult is that everytime you need to update anything on the account, you can't use the publisher but have to do it through Marin. This makes the whole process very time consuming and causes more mistakes. Also if you have paused anything on the publisher and you don't remember to sync marin after, all changes on the publisher will get lost if you make new changes on marin
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Bringing together data from multiple channels and engines and allows you to visualize the data in an easy to use platform. This saves time from using multiple logins for the different platforms.
Auto bidding tools save time from manual bidding, as it allows you to set the specific terms around what levels you want to cap your CPCs at. You then let DoubleClick adjust your bids to gain the most conversions from the cheapest CPCs. This frees up time to do other in-depth analysis and strategy.
DoubleClick also has the ability to track conversions and clicks on any page using their floodlight tags. This is good for tracking certain actions on yours or a client's site and is especially good if they do not use any other tools, such as Google Analytics or Adobe, to track conversions and user actions on site. You can also use these in conjunction with the auto bidding tools.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marin is a self-serve platform. You can tailor your campaigns per your preference/convenience/needs. You can customize your view, see % changes, create custom columns depending on your Key Performance Indicators, and set any sort of dimensions and labels that will help you filter for your campaigns on a daily basis.
Bidding and changes to destination URLs can be done through mass edits within the UI, without having to upload bulk-sheets. You push any changes from Marin to the Engines, and can also pull in your changes from Bing/AdWords engines by syncing your campaigns as well. The system will not publish anything you do not manually post until Midnight PST. You can copy paste straight from your excel bulksheet into the uploading tool (or upload the document through unicode text).
The Administrative log keeps track of all changes, and keeps users (through their logins) accountable for any edits. This way, you can filter for your name, and find the edits that you made, just to double check your work, or to make sure you are publishing the correct changes. There is a keyword- group- and campaign-level history/settings log, where you can see the name of the user who created, edited, published, paused, activated, deleted, etc. any item.
You can set up alerts that will help you manage accounts: anything from active campaigns with 0 ad copy, to finding keywords in low ad positions.
If you push duplicate keywords, the system will reject them, keeping our accounts from getting clouded due to human error. There is no need to download existing keywords or groups and use their keyword or group IDs to make any edits--instead, editing is a breeze because the system detects the new changes automatically. The only need for IDs is when making edits to creative.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The process for on-boarding new users can be difficult if they do not already have a Gmail or Gmail-linked account.
Difficult to troubleshoot technical issues (with the platform, with tags, etc.) because of the lack of customer support. Unclear if the agency has a dedicated team or individual to assist, and often have to deal with out-sourced support teams.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Support. They are addressing this currently, and things seem to have improved lately, but we were experiencing long delays in getting support tickets addressed.
New Google Shopping campaigns will not even show in the tool. Old PLA campaigns are fine however.
Random missing data. Typically this happens after an update, but we've seen data missing in various clients. Usually logging a support ticket and having Marin Support rerun a backend process resolves the issue.
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
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Due to its adapting behavior with industry ad formats and seamless integration with publishers and DSP's, I don't see myself moving away from DCM. As we see the display advertising is getting more programatic and automated due to the rise of DSP and concept of RTB, Double Click has evolved with new advanced best practices
I've used Marin Software now at three separate companies where I evaluated the platform along with several other internal partners. In each case, we did make the decision to renew based on our positive experience with the app and the customer support we received at the Enterprise level. Especially when we had complex integration questions or faced the change to Google's enhanced campaigns - Marin worked closely with us to make the transition seamless.
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.
The Doubleclick interface is easy and simple to get a hang of. The options are slightly limited compared to other DSPs. But, for a simple campaign, this is a great DSP to move forward with. They have a ton of data and can plug into a lot of different partners
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marin Software's usability is bar none in the paid search world. All that said, I think Marin Software only appears superior because all the tools in the space provide extremely subpar support. Kenshoo is so complex that I don’t know think half the people that work there know how to use it.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
They do not have strong support team. It is tough to get answer when I need it. They always refer you to an online guide and not an actual person. If so, the person is based out of an offshore team in India and does not know the specific client goals .
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
The times that I have had to contact Marin support, they have been very helpful. When I spoke with them on the phone, they walked me through the process to be able to resolve the issue that I had, The gentleman walked me through all the steps and easily helped me resolve the issue that I had.
Interactive helpful videos, summaries, and quizzes help a user learn the platform in demo-mode. The only challenge was that once you clicked certain buttons per instructions, you couldn't necessarily go back to retake notes without redoing the entire module.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
As I said previously I would just highly recommend everyone being hands on during implementation to make sure everyone knows how to use the product. Marin Software does an excellent job with training and answering questions so this is not a significant insight however it makes the process easier in the long run
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.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marin takes a lot more time for everything, mainly for the campaigns setup. This also leads to many mistakes, which impact the performance. I've used Marin on a couple of previous clients and we've had many problems with it, mainly with correct conversion tracking and account optimizations. Besides, Marin is behind all the new features available on AdWords, which makes the tracking also not very flexible.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
Marin is a must have for any enterprise-level PPC account. The time savings from task automation and the very sophisticated bidding platform can help any advertiser or agency effectively scale any account. In both AdWords and Bing, the bulk editing and automated bidding features are less reliable and prone to error. The interfaces are also unnecessarily complicated and outdated. While Google Analytics is a great tool, there are no features that tie true revenue data into these interfaces, limiting the amount you can really optimize around ROI.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
DS3 has improved ROI considerably due to its ability to make the work of a team of digital marketers to go further and improving internal efficiency.
There is a notable improvement in account performance for those integrated with DoubleClick as opposed to not, with better tracking, new bid strategy options, and a more responsive interface.
The additional fee on top of media spend is a considerable expense for a large advertiser, but the necessity of a product/solution such as this means that there is always likely to be some comparative cost.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
It has definitely increased employee efficiency because we run on Yahoo Gemini, Bing, and Google. If we had to optimize/report per engine, it would take hours and hours each week.
I think it's made optimizations less of a daunting task in my daily routine. I've been able to pinpoint where our ROI suffers and work from there in a matter of minutes.
The customer service has gotten better and could still be improved. Our Marin rep used to be horrible at returning messages but once he got support, we were able to implement a ton more pixels and betas.
A de minimis incentive was given to thank the reviewer for their time. The incentive was not used to bias or drive a particular response, nor was the incentive contingent on a positive endorsement. More Info
