AppNexus vs. The Trade Desk

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
The Trade Desk
Score 8.1 out of 10
N/A
The 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 …
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 …
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 …
The Trade Desk
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. …
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 …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AppNexusThe Trade Desk
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
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 Product A and Product B
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 Product A and Product B
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
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
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.9 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
AppNexusThe Trade Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(16 ratings)
7.1
(7 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(2 ratings)
10.0
(1 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.
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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.
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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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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
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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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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.
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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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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.
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The Trade Desk
It's very intuitive. We had some training materials, but found that users were able to navigate through the software without needing many resources. Our only suggestion would be to add hover-over capability in the browser, so users can see a pop-up message further explaining what each button does.
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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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The Trade Desk
No answers on this topic
Performance
AppNexus
Yes, everything works great in that sense
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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.
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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.
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Online Training
AppNexus
Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
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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.
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.
Read full review
Scalability
AppNexus
Because it's a great DSP but not the best
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.
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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.
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