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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

    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/ALinkedIn Marketing Solutions is a recently (2015) expanded marketing platform for reaching audiences through the popular Linkedin work-oriented social network that includes modules like the Lead Accelerator (supporting segmentation features to improve conversion), Sponsored Updates, LinkedIn Onsite Display, LinkedIn Network Display, and Sponsored InMail. While still at its core a social marketing engine, Linkedin Marketing Solutions now presents a more comprehensive B2B advertising platform. The…N/A
    Pricing
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    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
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Considered Both Products
    AppNexus
    No answer on this topic
    LinkedIn
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    92%
    Would buy again
    12 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    11 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Happy with the feature set
    13 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    100%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    Features
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Ad Network Integration
    Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of AppNexus and LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.5
    8 Ratings
    14% above category average
    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    -
    Ratings
    Data Transfer8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    DSP integration9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of AppNexus and LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.0
    8 Ratings
    2% above category average
    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    -
    Ratings
    Ad campaign creation8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad deployment9.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Display advertising7.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Sequence targeting8.07 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of AppNexus and LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.2
    9 Ratings
    6% above category average
    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    -
    Ratings
    Ad dashboards9.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad performance reports7.09 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Cross-channel ad management9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization8.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
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    AdRoll
    Score3.7 out of 10
    X Ads
    Score4.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    X Ads
    Score4.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    X Ads
    Score4.9 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (16 ratings)
    9.9
    (48 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    4.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    5.0
    (2 ratings)
    10.0
    (9 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    8.6
    (6 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
    AppNexusLinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    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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    LinkedIn
    Although it offered great features, we didn't really see a lot of traffic or results from the ads we placed. Working in hospitality, we had to strategically time and place our ads around holiday seasons and it can be difficult to predict a marketing campaign. Depending on your market, LinkedIn may not be the best avenue to advertise with.
    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.
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    LinkedIn
    • Targeting - they have done a great job of allowing you speak to ideal audiences
    • Support - dedicated customer service and account advising is always accessible and very responsive
    • Curation of professional audiences - one of the biggest advantages to the platform is that its users are for the most part are professional
    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
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    LinkedIn
    • The Campaign Manager is not good. It seems like the Campaign Manager (where you create and manage your self-serve ad campaigns) is buggy and doesn't have a good flow. Contrast with FB Ad Manager of the Google Adwords/Ads interface, which has a much more simple process to create and edits campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords, audiences, budgets, etc. LinkedIn Campaign Manager seems to actively work against you trying to make changes to your campaigns.
    • LinkedIn Campaign Manager offers three options: sponsored content, InMail, and text ads. LinkedIn used to offer other ad services that you couldn't access unless you had a "managed ad account" run by LinkedIn Staff with a dedicated monthly ad spend. It seems most of those "hidden" features have disappeared, though you still have to contract with LinkedIn to offer dynamic ads. It would be better if LinkedIn empowered marketers to create the ads they want. (Perhaps with a dedicated acct. manager like how Google Ads works.)
    • This is silly, but it isn't easy to navigate to Campaign Manager. I have a bookmark for Campaign Manager because if you want to click there through LinkedIn, it takes 2 or 3 different screens to get to Campaign Manager. In my opinion, when you click the "Work" dropdown from the LinkedIn header (by your profile picture) you should have a link to Campaign Manager.
    • LinkedIn, in recent months, has made substantial changes to the Ads platform and Campaign Manager. Though these changes work to address some of the above issues, LinkedIn still has quite a ways to go before their platform is on par with their competition.
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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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    LinkedIn
    No answers on this topic
    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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    LinkedIn
    in terms of promoted content reporting and usability, the platform is not as flexible or easy to use compared to more established social platforms like Facebook. However, it does offer plug-ins to Google Data Studio which makes pulling and manipulating data easier. My main usability gripe comes when looking at organic performance of a company page. There isn't an easy way to export organic performance data.
    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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    LinkedIn
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    AppNexus
    Yes, everything works great in that sense
    Incentivized
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    LinkedIn
    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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    LinkedIn
    So, everything what I just said previously adds up to the value of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Definitely recommending it to a friend. It has its things to improve but its nothing major or nothing to worry about. So I give a 9 because it still has that, some user interface glitches that can be improved but do not damage the experience that you have with it.
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    Online Training
    AppNexus
    Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
    Incentivized
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    LinkedIn
    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.
    Incentivized
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    LinkedIn
    If you want more precision in B2B targeting, then LinkedIn is without question the better alternative. However, as I established before, I've rarely seen LinkedIn campaigns be successful for anything other than brand awareness/thought leadership. And that's almost 100% what Twitter is for. Twitter campaigns almost always have a cheaper CPC AND CPM than LinkedIn and accomplish the same thing, so I would say go with Twitter. At times LinkedIn campaigns are just so you can tell someone at a higher level that you did precise targeting to the exact audience they wanted and check that box, because it's easier for them to understand how you'd do well on LinkedIn, and more difficult to tell that story on Twitter. But I honestly prefer Twitter and its platform for B2B awareness campaigns. Heretic, I know, but it's how I feel after several years of experience with both. Facebook is bottom of the barrel for B2B in my mind, so I'm not really going to discuss it. I would take LinkedIn over Facebook for many reasons, but Facebook is an option too, but more for SMB and just covering all bases, not as a primary choice for B2B marketing.
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    Scalability
    AppNexus
    Because it's a great DSP but not the best
    Incentivized
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    LinkedIn
    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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    LinkedIn
    • We have seen a marked increase in inbound agent calls since we began LinkedIn marketing.
    • LinkedIn marketing is an excellent way to put your content in front of people that are actually going to read it, this has led to a major increase in our content being consumed and acted on.
    Incentivized
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