AppNexus vs. Google Ad Manager

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AppNexus
Score 8.9 out of 10
N/A
AppNexus AppNexus offers online auction infrastructure and technology for data management, optimization, financial clearing and support for directly negotiated advertising campaigns. It integrates with advertising sources including Google's DoubleClick, Microsoft's AdECN, and aggregators.[3]N/A
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.6 out of 10
N/A
Google Ad Manager is a platform for publishers that combines the former DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange products.N/A
Pricing
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
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
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Considered Both Products
AppNexus

No answer on this topic

Google Ad Manager
Chose Google Ad Manager
The UI is better against all other options in the market. Even the opportunity that you have to integrate new inventory from your own is easier when doing it by yourself; we always had to go back to the support teams on all other products in order to do so. Also, the robust …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.5
8 Ratings
14% above category average
Google Ad Manager
7.6
24 Ratings
3% above category average
Data Transfer8.06 Ratings7.524 Ratings
DSP integration9.08 Ratings7.719 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.0
8 Ratings
2% above category average
Google Ad Manager
8.7
33 Ratings
11% above category average
Ad campaign creation8.08 Ratings8.733 Ratings
Ad deployment9.07 Ratings8.433 Ratings
Display advertising7.07 Ratings8.632 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation8.07 Ratings8.731 Ratings
Sequence targeting8.07 Ratings8.924 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.2
9 Ratings
6% above category average
Google Ad Manager
8.3
33 Ratings
7% above category average
Ad dashboards9.09 Ratings8.931 Ratings
Ad performance reports7.09 Ratings8.433 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking8.08 Ratings8.932 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting8.08 Ratings7.829 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management9.08 Ratings8.226 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization8.08 Ratings7.729 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Small Businesses
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.6 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 8.1 out of 10
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 8.1 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.9 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(16 ratings)
8.9
(33 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.0
(6 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(2 ratings)
9.0
(2 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(1 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Online Training
2.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
4.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AppNexusGoogle Ad Manager
Likelihood to Recommend
AppNexus
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.
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Google
Google Ads Manager is great if you need major visibility on a large ad network rather than targeting one specific website, app or platform. Let's be real here if you have any business that is done online (sell products, generate leads, etc) you pretty much have to be on Google. I've tried other advertising solutions including competitor search engines, sponsored content solutions, social media advertising, and none really compare to the traffic you can get that is keyword-driven, meaning a user is actually demonstrating interest in whatever you sell or offer.
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Pros
AppNexus
  • 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.
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Google
  • Interface. You can understand how to build the ads very easily. When you first begin, and throughout the process, there are little help icons which explain what you need to understand.
  • Pricing. By this, I mean the ability to change it at any time. You can select a variable rate, or you can preset it. Either way, you can change how much you spend every second if you'd like. This makes it easier to control your budget if you need to make emergency purchases and don't have much space in your budget.
  • Always growing. They are always announcing something new. Always growing and always trying to update.
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Cons
AppNexus
  • 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.
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Google
  • Bumper Machine - While this is still in beta, there is a lot of room for improvement for the machine to pick proper clips. I'm sure that will come in time though.
  • Inclusion of a Home Page Button - This is a simple request, truly, but one that bothers me everyday. I have a campaign home button, but it's not accessible unless you go back to the beginning of the platform. If the 'home' button was static, I'd be able to go to my preferred view with one click instead of having to loop around, as there isn't a trustworthy 'back button' option either.
  • Display - This is a big one. I have a love/hate relationship with display campaigns and algorithms. I have seen where they can perform [strongly] but also be massive budget bleeds with little ROI. It's not very industry specific either so I'm hoping to gain more consistency and trust with the future of the display algorithm.
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Likelihood to Renew
AppNexus
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
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Google
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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Usability
AppNexus
Because I think the interface is kind of confusing at the beginning and it confuses you a lot.
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Google
Love the product and how the GUI is as it is user friendly. When working with the product it is better to have some knowledge of what ad's you want to deploy where so that it is easier to use and move forward.
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Reliability and Availability
AppNexus
I've never had any problems with appnexus - the software is always available
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Google
No answers on this topic
Performance
AppNexus
Yes, everything works great in that sense
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Google
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
AppNexus
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.
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Google
I could say a lot about this topic. As an agency, we get a new [representative] to talk to almost every quarter to go over select accounts and the campaigns within. Most of the time, these [educated representatives], don't provide any new feedback, or I just simply [disagree] with their approach. This is not all the time however. I have learned a lot from a rare few, [individuals] that have given me new strategies and access to betas early on. The other side of support, is the [overseas support platform]. [It] is usually not very helpful, but you can [emphasize] issues and they can research [them]. The Google Tag Implementation team is pristine though. When you need them, you need to set an appointment, which is usually 2 weeks out; they are so over-my-head intelligent, I've never had a bad experience with them and whenever I needed them for a fix, they solved it [within] the first call.
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Online Training
AppNexus
Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
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Google
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
AppNexus
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.
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Google
The main advantage of Google Ad Manager over The Trade Desk is based on the fact that Google Ad Manager has better data to identify a user on any device as it has more data and the user is signed in over Google Ad Manager´s set of properties. That is why results on Google Ad Manager´s platform are better as The Trade Desk needs to develop a unified id solution that is more complex and less performing that Google Ad Manager's data.
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Scalability
AppNexus
Because it's a great DSP but not the best
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Google
No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
AppNexus
  • 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.
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Google
  • It had a massively positive impact for us, allowing us to generate revenue from ad space on our website.
  • Being able to custom quote ad space on our site, instead of relying on AdSense allowed us to increase our monthly ad revenue as well.
  • Providing reliable data to advertisers regarding impressions and CTRs helped create repeat-customers.
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ScreenShots