Brand Networks Platform vs. Kevel

If you have a multiple social channel strategy, the Brand Networks Platform does a good job of comparing and summarizing the cross-platform performance of all the social campaigns. They also have really good optimization technology, so if you have a beginner media buyer who doesn't have a lot of time to devote to (or knowledge about) optimizing campaigns, the BN tool would be helpful.

Incentivized

For ad serving, implementing client-side header bidding with prebid was actually easier with Kevel than it is with Google Ad Manager in most cases, particularly for display advertising. I found though that with more complex integrations (like video), there were more solutions and code snippets available with other larger ad servers (Google).

Incentivized

• Sleek design -- very attractive UI
• Constantly innovating and updating the platform
• Their support desk is very good. Very responsive and can usually update my issue within 1-2 business days.

Incentivized

• More personable team that can address customizations needed to the product.
• Easy to use interface.
• Frequent product updates with notifications via email.
• Well documented API.

Incentivized

• API data issues. There are somewhat frequent breakdowns in continuous data being pulled from the social platforms
• The campaign creation flow is a little clunky and has a couple bugs. Users often forgo using the platform to set up new campaigns, and use the native platforms instead
• Because it's in continual development, there are lots of little bugs that slip through the cracks

Incentivized

• User interface could be faster to load.

Incentivized

Facebook for Business has far fewer bugs and errors. Brand Networks has made some major changes over the 3 years that I have been using the platform, but because they are constantly changing and overhauling their platform, there are naturally more bugs in the system -- and this can interfere with the user experience.

Incentivized

Kevel was an easier initial implementation for header bidding with prebid. The team worked alongside us to make sure everything was operating as intended. We ultimately switched to Ads Manager to access AdX demand and other features that were not possible with Kevel (for instance, EBDA). There are benefits to both but I appreciated the attention we got from Kevel support when we were first working through the implementation. We are still using Kevel for many things, just not as our primary display advertising ad server.

Incentivized

• If you can create the report you need through automation, you can have those automatically sent to your email or a client's email. That saves time.
• If optimization works correctly, you get even more efficient costs against you given campaign objective.
• However, when features are broken, or there is a bug and I can't pull the performance data I need immediately, it detracts from my productivity

Incentivized

• Kevel enabled us to get up and running with client side header bidding when our team was still small and the technology was still new. This improved our ability to monetize our inventory.

Incentivized