Brand Networks Platform vs. Skai

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

Kenshoo would be a good tool if your client has extremely high budgets with low CPCs. For small, geo-specific accounts the capabilities have not be built out. Therefore, the tool could not budget pace our 250+ accounts. The main reason we had chosen Kenshoo was because of its budget pacing capabilities. Unfortunately, it did not save us time and created additional budget pacing issues with over pacing our accounts.

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

• Kenshoo Search bid policies make bid optimization easy and automated. Optimizations are based off of sophisticated algorithms rather than simple bid rules (although Kenshoo Search also offers these). There are many different policies to choose from. Simply choose your type of goal (example: awareness vs. ROI), choose your metric, and assign to your campaign(s) and/or account.
• Kenshoo Search reporting offers a large selection of reporting templates that are easily exported to Microsoft Excel. In addition, they also offer dashboard reporting with a variety of different widgets that are easily customizable. This feature makes it extremely easy to view metrics that may normally require manual excel work.
• Kenshoo Search has a Desktop Editor tool similar to Google Adwords Editor that makes bulk optimizations easy and time efficient. This is a huge resource win for me and my team!

• 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

• When working with large accounts, such as mine, the tool can be slow. There are a lot of times where the editor tool will freeze, and I'm not sure if I need to reboot or exit the tool. I wish it was a smooth process, much like the AdWords editor tool.
• Kenshoo support can be slow to respond at times. In the ticketing industry, things are very much based on time of day or time of the week. If the product is down or not functioning during an on-sale or a major event, it can be difficult to get tech support on the phone.
• Their reporting really doesn't set them a part from the competition. I've used social tools such as Marin and a few others, and they're all pretty similar as far as reporting. If possible, I think you're better off using Google Analytics for reporting, just so you have a common denominator.

Incentivized

We received great customer service from the Kenshoo Social team, they listen to feedback, and truly work to get things fixed. The tool works well and they are always working on ways to improve it to help improve performance for our clients

Incentivized

Set-up like other marketing platforms. If you know Google Ads, you know Kenshoo

Incentivized

Very responsive and bring fast answers for problems

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

I think Skai beats the competitors with its advanced bidding management system, this is a unique feature of them that if you implement properly, your accounts will surely benefit from this, especially if you have tons of data that the algo can learn from and optimize accordingly. In terms of reporting, they are the best we've got so far, scheduling options are great.

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

• ROI is harder to track due to reporting/column & time frame default tech in my humble opinion but generally better results when compared to other products
• Since the interface is difficult to navigate and paid search is a reactive medium, can produce barriers to change.

Incentivized