Google Marketing Platform vs. Microsoft Advertising

I feel pretty neutral about Google Marketing Platform. For the longest time, my company wasn't using it because each of the features (Data Studio, Analytics, etc.) could be accessed separately. In fact, most of the time, I don't even go into Google Marketing Platform because it's easier to directly navigate to the individual platforms. There are very few features about GMP that can only be accessed from the GMP UI. The Integrations Center is probably the main feature I utilize from the GMP UI, which allows me to see a summary of the integrations I have in place across all my client properties and accounts.

Incentivized

Despite using our account for advertising with every other social media company, Microsoft flagged ours as fraudulent. After dealing with them for weeks, we finally got to a manager, who said that they didn’t know anything, couldn’t provide any information, and was unable to do anything about it. It seems odd, but it would flagger account every time we try to upload the campaigns from Google directly into their ad manager. I would suggest if you try and use their platform, don’t tell them you’re using Google cause they seem to have a thing against it. Once your account is flagged, they have no reasonable way of resolving it, nor they are able to offer any support. You’re better off to just try a different way. Ultimately, just don’t use Microsoft advertising if you can possibly avoid it. Hopefully soon DuckDuckGo will have their own advertising platform and we can eliminate Microsoft given the terrible time we have working with this one of many, social media platforms.

• Bringing together data from multiple channels and engines and allows you to visualize the data in an easy to use platform. This saves time from using multiple logins for the different platforms.
• Auto bidding tools save time from manual bidding, as it allows you to set the specific terms around what levels you want to cap your CPCs at. You then let DoubleClick adjust your bids to gain the most conversions from the cheapest CPCs. This frees up time to do other in-depth analysis and strategy.
• DoubleClick also has the ability to track conversions and clicks on any page using their floodlight tags. This is good for tracking certain actions on yours or a client's site and is especially good if they do not use any other tools, such as Google Analytics or Adobe, to track conversions and user actions on site. You can also use these in conjunction with the auto bidding tools.

Incentivized

• Familiar interface, offers editor for bulk changes, adding negative keywords is much easier than in Google Ads
• Nice reporting tools within the interface, detailed reports can be made fairly easily
• Had very nice tools to help import/export ads directly from Google Ads, which saves a ton of time

Incentivized

• The process for on-boarding new users can be difficult if they do not already have a Gmail or Gmail-linked account.
• Difficult to troubleshoot technical issues (with the platform, with tags, etc.) because of the lack of customer support. Unclear if the agency has a dedicated team or individual to assist, and often have to deal with out-sourced support teams.

Incentivized

• Bing's ad platform could definitely use some improvements - it hasn't been updated in a long time, and it feels very outdated.
• We feel that the optimization algorithms don't always perform as well for Bing Ads as they do in Google Ads (optimize for conversions, etc.).
• It would be great to have even more integrations with LinkedIn audience targeting offered - right now, you can just make some bid optimizations in a couple of areas; we'd really like to get more robust options there, and maybe even things like cross-platform tracking.

Incentivized

Due to its adapting behavior with industry ad formats and seamless integration with publishers and DSP's, I don't see myself moving away from DCM. As we see the display advertising is getting more programatic and automated due to the rise of DSP and concept of RTB, Double Click has evolved with new advanced best practices

We have had good success with it over all of our clients. We continually recommend bing to reach "the rest of the searchers".

Incentivized

The Doubleclick interface is easy and simple to get a hang of. The options are slightly limited compared to other DSPs. But, for a simple campaign, this is a great DSP to move forward with. They have a ton of data and can plug into a lot of different partners

Incentivized

Usability itself is all right, I just wish it looked better.

Incentivized

They do not have strong support team. It is tough to get answer when I need it. They always refer you to an online guide and not an actual person. If so, the person is based out of an offshore team in India and does not know the specific client goals .

Incentivized

Our Bing Ads reps are very good and attentive. They've offered good recommendations and are quick to resolve unexpected issues and problems. Occasionally they have roped in technical support folks that have been friendly and helpful too. The general helpline for Bing Ads is also very good, especially when compared to Google's customer support.

Incentivized

I would highly recommend asking clients to provide 3PAS tags or use an internal 3PAS

Incentivized

Marin takes a lot more time for everything, mainly for the campaigns setup. This also leads to many mistakes, which impact the performance. I've used Marin on a couple of previous clients and we've had many problems with it, mainly with correct conversion tracking and account optimizations. Besides, Marin is behind all the new features available on AdWords, which makes the tracking also not very flexible.

Incentivized

Obviously Google is a huge competitor. Typically Google is top of the game for many advertising solutions including search. Microsoft ads has a lower scale and reach compared to Google. However, Microsoft ads audience does not overlap much with Googles, providing incremental reach. Although Microsoft ads lags a bit behind in adapting the new updates that Google comes out with, their customer service is very good and they are likely to go out of their way to adapt their platform to your needs whereas their competitor does not

Incentivized

• DS3 has improved ROI considerably due to its ability to make the work of a team of digital marketers to go further and improving internal efficiency.
• There is a notable improvement in account performance for those integrated with DoubleClick as opposed to not, with better tracking, new bid strategy options, and a more responsive interface.
• The additional fee on top of media spend is a considerable expense for a large advertiser, but the necessity of a product/solution such as this means that there is always likely to be some comparative cost.

Incentivized

• We've had a very hard time spending our budgets on Bing which has caused us a lot of extra work on our end. We've essentially had to move that money back to Google or other platforms.
• It does have an easy import from Google so you're not doubling efforts.
• The CPCs tend to be less expensive than Google - which is always good for business owners.

Incentivized