AppLovin MAX vs. Google Ads

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AppLovin MAX
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
MoPub was a mobile ad server owned by Twitter since the September 2013 acquisition, acquired by AppLovin, and now part of the MAX mediation platform. MAX gives users a diverse set of auctions for supply.N/A
Google Ads
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Pricing
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Offer A
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer B
$1500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer C
$3000
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Features
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
AppLovin MAX
-
Ratings
Google Ads
6.9
11 Ratings
8% above category average
Ad campaign creation00 Ratings7.711 Ratings
Ad deployment00 Ratings7.310 Ratings
Display advertising00 Ratings7.410 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation00 Ratings7.411 Ratings
Sequence targeting00 Ratings6.410 Ratings
Contextual advertising00 Ratings6.810 Ratings
Social advertising00 Ratings5.15 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AppLovin MAX
-
Ratings
Google Ads
7.2
11 Ratings
5% above category average
Ad dashboards00 Ratings7.111 Ratings
Ad performance reports00 Ratings7.911 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking00 Ratings7.311 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting00 Ratings7.211 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization00 Ratings6.511 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
AppLovin MAX
-
Ratings
Google Ads
8.0
10 Ratings
5% below category average
Ad bidding00 Ratings8.010 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Small Businesses
Google AdMob
Google AdMob
Score 5.9 out of 10
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Yahoo Ads
Yahoo Ads
Score 6.0 out of 10
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Marin Software (discontinued)
Marin Software (discontinued)
Score 9.1 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
5.0
(3 ratings)
8.5
(126 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(21 ratings)
Usability
8.0
(1 ratings)
7.4
(17 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(8 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(1 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
AppLovin MAXGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
AppLovin
They have the lowest eCPM of any network. We're using them based on their team's advice, thus their eCPM isn't quite as high as their benchmarks. Since MoPub was retired, we have not seen the same eCPMs as previously, particularly in the US, which was their primary market.
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Google
Google Ads is a useful advertising tool to build brand exposure and generate lead volumes for your chosen product. Whilst it can be costly at times due to competitor bidding strategies and requires constant monitoring to ensure campaigns perform as expected, it typically provides the desired quality and quantity of leads for custom budgets.
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Pros
AppLovin
  • Easy to use platfrom. You can set up QPS management system on your own.
  • They have MoPub Analytics to get inventory stats.
  • Their AM team is very supportive.
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Google
  • Automated targeting via Smart Shopping campaign. It's one of the best campaign types in Google Ads. In the beginning, you may see lower revenue and ROAS, but once you give some meaningful time to your campaign, it is most likely to perform well.
  • Smart bidding strategies: Google Ads has developed some really great bidding strategies such as maximizing conversion and maximizing conversion with ROAS settings. Based on one's requirement and their goal with revenue and target ROAS, they can choose the appropriate bidding strategy.
  • Reporting: A business owner and advertising must know about their audiences, how their campaigns have been performing, what's working and what's not, and for that reason, powerful, effective reporting is needed, and Google Ads provides rich details reporting that covers almost every aspect of a business.
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Cons
AppLovin
  • Not a lot of inventory in the EMEA region.
  • Not a lot of high impact formats. Mainly banners and not a lot of interstitials and videos.
  • Reporting tools not very advanced. You can't get a lot of granular details from the tool.
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Google
  • If you don't know what you're doing, it will be a costly mistake. You need to target ads, and it is difficult the first time to do that.
  • There isn't a feature to run an add for a couple set date spans, just hours you want to run them or a single date span.
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Likelihood to Renew
AppLovin
No answers on this topic
Google
I think Google Ads is good for getting your company out there and becoming more visible to potential customers in general. However, for specific product launches, social media advertising might be a better fit. Also, our user base is younger so social media is a better channel for our target audience.
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Usability
AppLovin
MoPub is a great SSP. It is a trusted partner that can help you scale campaigns as well as educate the client about the benefits of programmatic advertising. They have a lot of inventory and a great support team. I wouldn't say they are perfect because reporting is not very good and some billing issues are not as transparent as they should be.
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Google
This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
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Support Rating
AppLovin
MoPub's support is really good. Their team is knowledgeable on their product and the programmatic ecosystem in general and they are very helpful. The only 2 things that I would point out would be that their response times are not very fast and that there is a lot of rotation on the account management team.
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Google
We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
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Online Training
AppLovin
No answers on this topic
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Alternatives Considered
AppLovin
We've been attempting to make AppLovin Max perform the same way as MoPub had for us. The value we get from AppLovin Max differs from the ROI we get from other mediation platforms. We keep convincing ourselves that AppLovin Max will eventually function similarly to MoPub.
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Google
Our agency invests heavily in Google Ads (particularly paid search advertising) on behalf of our clients relative to competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo because Google is the top search engine in the world. Google collects the most search data which enables the company to improve its AI to drive better performance for agencies and brands. As such, our paid search and app install campaigns always start with Google. If a client has a large budget, we will allocate media dollars to other search engines, but in some cases, the entire search budget goes to Google because we see the best returns.
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Return on Investment
AppLovin
  • CPMs are very low compared to other mediation partners which has caused a negative impact on our revenue
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Google
  • Google Ads is often one of our highest ROI channels, especially when you factor in branded ads.
  • Depending on the stage your business is in, search ads can be really powerful from an ROI perspective, providing an investment with a very high spend cap.
  • If you do not manage the campaigns well though, you can quickly spend a lot of money on nothing. So make sure someone is keeping an eye on your account.
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ScreenShots

AppLovin MAX Screenshots

Screenshot of the Main ScreenScreenshot of Waterfall PreviewScreenshot of the MAX A/B Test feature, used to test real-time data to test and measure the impact of any change to the waterfall configuration.Screenshot of the Ad ReviewScreenshot of the Network Comparison report.Screenshot of the MAX Cohort Report.