AdStage vs Google Ad Manager

Likelihood to Recommend

AdStage is great if you're an agency or an in-house marketer managing a lot of ad budget, a lot of campaigns, or a large number of clients and you want to get the day-to-day tasks cleared to focus on higher-brain-stem tasks. Bid and budget management are replaced by rules. Holiday sales are replaced with flighting. All of your team members can log in, access their accounts, set up their reports and have them send to clients without having to lift a finger.

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J.P. VanderLinden

Director Of Operations

EmberTribeMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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It is only suited for marketing. Make sure you have analytics on your site to track the people coming, final sales, and conversions because it is at it's best when you can use it to really read and understand the data at hand. Google Ads does everything it needs to in ads, and you don't need to be an expert to begin with it. However, I would not just tell someone to "go create an account" if they know very little about digital ads. Consult with someone first. It can be a little daunting if you were to do that!

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Patrick Stephens

Director Of Communications

The Suzuki SchoolEducation Management, 51-200 employees

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Feature Rating Comparison

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Data Transfer

DSP integration

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Ad campaign creation

Ad deployment

Display advertising

Ad display and retargeting segmentation

Sequence targeting

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Ad dashboards

Ad performance reports

Ad conversion tracking

Ad attribution reporting

Cross-channel ad management

Ad forecasting and optimization

Pros

Easily pulling together API access for multiple channels into one area for in-depth reporting
Automation. They helped a bunch with features that LinkedIn didn't have.
The team. They were always super responsive and on the ball with any questions or concerns we had. The customer service was great.
General reporting and tieing data together.

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Matthew Lloyd

Sr. Digital Marketing Manager

PluralsightE-Learning, 501-1000 employees

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The Doubleclick manager is very intuitive and allows anyone without extensive experience to jump in and start managing ads.
My favorite feature is it allows you to manage all of your ads in one place.
The training and user forum knowledge is top-notch. I can always find the answer to any questions I have.

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Verified User

Manager in Marketing

Computer Software Company, 201-500 employees

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Cons

I have very little negative feedback regarding this platform. At one point in time, you could create and publish ads to the various platforms via Adstage, but they have started to move away from that functionality. You now have to create campaigns on the platform (for example, LinkedIn) and then automate functions of those campaigns on AdStage. I'd love it to be a one-stop shop where I didn't have to deal with the ad platform at all.

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Emily Muhoberac

Chief Operations Officer

Sapper Consulting, LLCMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Sometimes it can bog down and crash. This is rare, but it is processing a lot of steps/changes all at once and it's not expected to be perfect.
Being able to quickly filter by campaign types would be nice (PPC/Display/Video Pre-roll). Our fix is to run these campaigns in totally separate accounts, so there is no overlapping in reporting/etc. This helps with seeing stats clearly without having to filter constantly.
It could be visually prettier.

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Nathan Phillips

National Account Executive

Strong Automotive MerchandisingMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

AdStage 8.0

Based on 1 answer

AdStage has been great and the only reason we wouldn't renew is if we decided to build this all out internally for API access. But, customer services is great, the product is great and I'd definitely recommend it.

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Matthew Lloyd

Sr. Digital Marketing Manager

PluralsightE-Learning, 501-1000 employees

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Google Ad Manager 7.0

Based on 1 answer

I think it's useful for our team and we rely on it to improve our business. It is within our budget also. Although we still will need an approval from the upper-level management team, I don't see any problem with that

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Verified User

Employee in Marketing

Telecommunications Company, 11-50 employees

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Support

AdStage 10.0

Based on 1 answer

AdStage had great support. They got back to me quickly every time, they always had or found an answer for what I was looking for, they took my feedback well, and they were knowledgeable with the platform and any issues I had. I have worked with a lot of other companies that are slow and AdStage definitely isn't one of them.

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Matthew Lloyd

Sr. Digital Marketing Manager

PluralsightE-Learning, 501-1000 employees

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Google Ad Manager 8.0

Based on 1 answer

They always respond in 24 hours and can get the answers most of the time. For questions which cannot be answered initially, I don't need to escalate. The rep will ask their 'colleague' if needed..

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Kevin Yip

Online Business & Data Analyst

San Francisco ChronicleNewspapers, 201-500 employees

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Alternatives Considered

We've used tools like Companion Labs and AdEspresso before for Facebook Ads, or Optmyzer or WordStream for Google Ads, and AdStage has so many features that these systems don't. True, it's drastically more expensive than most, but the feature set is leaps and bounds above. From automation to reporting to even campaign monitoring being in a single platform with this level of customization, it's playing at a different level than anything else we've used off-the-shelf.

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J.P. VanderLinden

Director Of Operations

EmberTribeMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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Google Ad Manager is one of the only free to use ad management services out there. While there are several alternatives such as OpenX and Adzerk, Google Ad Manager provides the best bang for your buck (considering you don't spend any money on the actual product itself). Although there are several other ad networks out there that allow you to do exactly what Google Ad Manager does, having a free product with a giant network of available advertisers makes ad manager near-perfect.

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Verified User

Program Manager in Product Management

Human Resources Company, 11-50 employees

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Return on Investment

We haven't been using it long enough to have a positive ROI, but I'm confident we will as we optimize our campaigns based on the data we receive from AdStage.
AdStage saves myself and my team hours of time each week that we would normally spend preparing reporting or doing ad analysis in excel. This was the reason we purchased AdStage, and it's really living up to its promise.

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Emily Muhoberac

Chief Operations Officer

Sapper Consulting, LLCMarketing and Advertising, 51-200 employees

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It has helped us scale up performance marketing
It helped us save on the outsourcing cost as we were able to move marketing inhouse
It helped save on marketing dollars as it was better than most of the other channels in terms of targeting optimization

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Verified User

Vice-President in Marketing

Internet Company, 51-200 employees

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Likelihood to Recommend

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Feature Rating Comparison

Data Transfer

DSP integration

Ad campaign creation

Ad deployment

Display advertising

Ad display and retargeting segmentation

Sequence targeting

Ad dashboards

Ad performance reports

Ad conversion tracking

Ad attribution reporting

Cross-channel ad management

Ad forecasting and optimization

Pros

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Cons

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Likelihood to Renew

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Support

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Alternatives Considered

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Return on Investment

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Screenshots

AdStage

Google Ad Manager

Pricing Details

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

General

Free Trial

Free/Freemium Version

Premium Consulting/Integration Services

Entry-level set up fee?

Rating Summary

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