AdStage vs Google Ad Manager

AdStage

AdStage is great for bringing together all of your channels into one place for analytics. They now have easy API access into multiple channels which allows you to really deep dive and get the most out of the data that you often can't without that API access. They also have great ways to surface this data that is easy to digest for leadership.If you already have this internally or want to build it out internally, AdStage may not be a fit outside of some great automation tools, but it's not easy to have this data done and built out internally so this is a great place to start.

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Matthew Lloyd

Sr. Digital Marketing Manager

PluralsightE-Learning, 501-1000 employees

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Google Ad Manager

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

7.5

Google Ad Manager

8.5

Data Transfer

6.0

8.5

DSP integration

9.0

8.5

AdStage

7.5

Google Ad Manager

8.0

Ad campaign creation

8.0

7.6

Ad deployment

8.0

8.8

Display advertising

7.0

9.0

Ad display and retargeting segmentation

7.0

7.8

Sequence targeting

7.5

6.7

AdStage

8.5

Google Ad Manager

7.7

Ad dashboards

8.7

8.3

Ad performance reports

9.0

8.2

Ad conversion tracking

9.0

8.0

Ad attribution reporting

8.0

7.3

Cross-channel ad management

8.3

7.0

Ad forecasting and optimization

8.0

7.8

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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A robust native ad creation tool.
Ad optimization suggestions.
Granular data that integrates multiple platforms.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employees

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Cons

It's software, so glitches happen. And when those glitches happen, you need to talk to Support. While the Support team is really helpful, not reading from a script or just looking in the Help docs, there's often a severe lag time of hours or even days. That can be crushing when the glitch is affecting your ad campaigns that are spending money right now.
Setting up reports can be really frustrating if you want to customize them at all. If you want your Facebook Ads widget to only report on certain campaigns, there's no ability to filter by a naming convention or launch date, you just have to select every campaign manually. It's a bit like Magento—powerful, but working within the system can be really time-consuming.
Right now, AdStage focuses on Google & Facebook. So if you run ads on Snapchat, Pinterest, or Taboola you're kinda out of luck. They rolled out some LinkedIn stuff recently, and they say those other networks are on the way, but it's a little way that the software could get better.

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J.P. VanderLinden

Director Of Operations

EmberTribeMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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It would be great if the tool enabled advertisers the ability to review and report brand/trademark infringement.
Needs a custom ap (not the Google Ads app)

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employees

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Likelihood to Renew

AdStage8.0

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 Manager7.0

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

AdStage10.0

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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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 great when you want to review data that is tightly integrated (Google Analytics, Data Studio, and BigQuery); however, businesses typically have multiple advertising channels outside of Google's purview - these don't integrate in the same way. That said, no other solutions provides the deep level of ad insights that Google Ad Manager provides

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employees

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Return on Investment

In terms of hours saved, it's hard to pin down, but we definitely spend more time on the meaningful, strategic, or artistic tasks now than we used to.
AdStage is also a great tool to roll out during the sales process because our clients love to hear that we're making decisions automatically with data and automation rather than just hiring more junior people to push buttons.
During black Friday this year our team all setup campaigns to flight, meaning they weren't sitting around the turkey with their laptops out. That's an ROI in company culture that's hard to measure, but extremely valuable.

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J.P. VanderLinden

Director Of Operations

EmberTribeMarketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees

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We now have a more streamlined data review process.
Users are empowered to my quicker data decisions.
We are able to review multiple platforms performances integrated into one place.

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Verified User

Strategist in Marketing

Marketing and Advertising Company, 201-500 employees

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