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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

    The Trade Desk

    Score9 out of 10
    N/AThe Trade Desk is the eponymous flagship product from the company headquartered in Ventura California, a demand-side / data management hybrid platform (DSP / DMP).N/A
    Pricing
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    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
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    Considered Both Products
    AppNexus
    Chose AppNexus
    AppNexus has more advanced targeting options as well as better publishers than The Trade Desk. Even if the system is harder to use and less intuitive they have a lot of CTV inventory and are at the forefront of the industry. They should expand on other markets to improve their …
    Incentivized
    Chose 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 …
    Incentivized
    Chose AppNexus
    We use AppNexus as a part of a full advertising stack which includes the other platforms listed below. AppNexus is similar in it's offering and also offers unique header bidding options which help it stand out slightly against the other options in the demand side platform …
    Incentivized
    The Trade Desk
    Chose The Trade Desk
    The Trade Desk is a much better product than AppNexus. Even though both products showed promise awhile back, AppNexus stopped innovating and The Trade Desk became specialists on data, cross site tracking and CTV inventory thus having a better and more unique product that …
    Incentivized
    Chose The Trade Desk
    The Trade Desk is not as focused on connected TV as AppNexus. Also, they are more open as AppNexus is mostly focused on building a walled garden, while The Trade Desk is focusing on making the internet more open. However, they lack the exclusive publishers that AppNexus have. …
    Incentivized
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    Ad Network Integration
    Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of AppNexus and The Trade Desk
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.5
    8 Ratings
    14% above category average
    The Trade Desk
    -
    Ratings
    Data Transfer8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    DSP integration9.08 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of AppNexus and The Trade Desk
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.0
    8 Ratings
    2% above category average
    The Trade Desk
    -
    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 The Trade Desk
    Feature
    AppNexus
    8.2
    9 Ratings
    6% above category average
    The Trade Desk
    -
    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
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    Small Businesses
    AdRoll
    Score3.7 out of 10
    Basis DSP
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    StackAdapt
    Score7.2 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    Yahoo DSP
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.0
    (16 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    4.0
    (6 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    5.0
    (2 ratings)
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Performance
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    6.0
    (1 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 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
    AppNexusThe Trade Desk
    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
    Read full review
    The Trade Desk
    After extensive research of DSP and DMP platforms in the market, our agency made the wise decision to license TTD's platform and develop a long-term partnership. TTD continues to innovate and offer cutting-edge media buying solutions, access to more audience data segments, and access to new and emerging media channels like CTV/OTT and digital-out-of-home. We couldn't be happier with TTD's technology and is one of the most advanced agency users of TTD is a key differentiator for our agency.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    The Trade Desk
    • User engagement - Cookie matching provides better engagement and effectiveness
    • Reporting of campaigns - Great reporting on display advertising & platforms
    • Dashboard reporting - Scalable to global deployment & campaigns
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    The Trade Desk
    • Reporting platform leaves a lot to be desired. Requires a lot of trial/error to pull exactly what you need to drive optimizations/learnings.
    • The "stop"/"continue bidding" feature for sitelists, devices, player sizes, etc is awful. When you set something up specifically, you should not have the AUTOMATIC option to serve beyond those parameters.
    • Trafficking video (VAST/VPAID) tags requires a manual insertion of a click URL. Completely redundant ask and is not provided by advertisers as that URL lives within the ad tag. Should not require multiple actions traffic a video tag.
    • Creative approval process (manual) doesn't seem necessary and is not a part of peers' platforms. There is no "pause/deactivate" feature for creative, you remove them or adjust the end date.
    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
    The Trade Desk
    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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    The Trade Desk
    easy to understand dashboards and the self started ability to get going on your own terms. It's great to target niche groups across the world while still being able to report at a high level to C-suite. Wish it drove more conversions, but display can be a struggle there. Overall, would use it again.
    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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    The Trade Desk
    No answers on this topic
    Performance
    AppNexus
    Yes, everything works great in that sense
    Incentivized
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    The Trade Desk
    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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    The Trade Desk
    We noted no issues with our limited interaction with support. The software operated just as expected and we found that we were able to navigate needs on our own. We understand that The Trade Desk offers excellent support, so we believe it will be a good resource to us in the future.
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    AppNexus
    Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
    Incentivized
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    The Trade Desk
    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
    Read full review
    The Trade Desk
    The Trade Desk is a much better product than AppNexus. Even though both products showed promise awhile back, AppNexus stopped innovating and The Trade Desk became specialists on data, cross site tracking and CTV inventory thus having a better and more unique product that actually adds value to your advertising efforts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Scalability
    AppNexus
    Because it's a great DSP but not the best
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    The Trade Desk
    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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    The Trade Desk
    • The good thing about having an agency account is The Trade Desk lets you add your markups to the client billing.
    • We had a very positive response from clients regarding their perceived ROI on their ad spend through The Trade Desk.
    • We did not have many national clients, mostly local dealerships, so it was difficult for them to allocate a lot of funds to display advertising, even though the ROI yield was acceptable.
    Incentivized
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    ScreenShots