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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    AppNexus

    Score4.9 out of 10
    N/AAppNexus 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 Ads

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AGoogle 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
    AppNexusGoogle 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
    AppNexusGoogle 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
    AppNexusGoogle Ads
    Considered Both Products
    AppNexus
    Chose AppNexus
    AppNexus stacks up very well and works to mend across similar products, and to our proprietary technologies. They've created a platform that's close to a one-stop shop that spawns across a number of technologies and services, which is great from an advertising or publishing …
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    81%
    Would buy again
    42 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    76%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    79%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    69%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    34 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    70%
    Implementation went as expected
    35 Answers
    Features
    AppNexusGoogle Ads
    Ad Network Integration
    Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of AppNexus and Google Ads
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.5
    8 Ratings
    14% above category average
    Google Ads
    -
    Ratings
    Data Transfer8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    DSP integration9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of AppNexus and Google Ads
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.0
    8 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Ad campaign creation8.08 Ratings7.911 Ratings
    Ad deployment9.07 Ratings7.510 Ratings
    Display advertising7.07 Ratings7.410 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation8.07 Ratings7.511 Ratings
    Sequence targeting8.07 Ratings6.910 Ratings
    Contextual advertising00 Ratings7.210 Ratings
    Social advertising00 Ratings6.35 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of AppNexus and Google Ads
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.2
    9 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Ad dashboards9.09 Ratings7.511 Ratings
    Ad performance reports7.09 Ratings7.911 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking8.08 Ratings7.311 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting8.08 Ratings7.211 Ratings
    Cross-channel ad management9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization8.08 Ratings6.911 Ratings
    Ad Auctions
    Comparison of Ad Auctions features of AppNexus and Google Ads
    Feature
    AppNexus
    -
    Ratings
    Google Ads
    7.9
    10 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Ad bidding00 Ratings7.910 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AppNexusGoogle Ads
    Small Businesses
    AdRoll
    Score3.7 out of 10
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AppNexusGoogle Ads
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (16 ratings)
    8.7
    (126 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    4.0
    (6 ratings)
    9.6
    (21 ratings)
    Usability
    5.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.7
    (17 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Online Training
    2.0
    (1 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 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)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    4.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    AppNexusGoogle Ads
    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.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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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
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Usability
    AppNexus
    Because I think the interface is kind of confusing at the beginning and it confuses you a lot.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    Reliability and Availability
    AppNexus
    I've never had any problems with appnexus - the software is always available
    Incentivized
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    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    AppNexus
    Yes, everything works great in that sense
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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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
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    AppNexus
    Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
    Incentivized
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    Google
    Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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.
    Incentivized
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    Scalability
    AppNexus
    Because it's a great DSP but not the best
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots