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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Cloudinary

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ACloudinary is an image and video management tool enabling users to manage, optimize, and deliver images, videos and other media across every device and channel.

    $49

    per month

    Google Ads

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.

    $500

    in Ads credit in the first 60 days

    Pricing
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Editions & Modules
    Media Optimizer - Scale
    $49
    per month
    Programmable Media - Plus
    $99
    per month
    Programmable Media - Advanced
    $249
    per month
    Programmable Media - Enterprise
    Custom Pricing
    Digital Asset Management
    Custom Pricing
    Offer A
    $500
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    Offer B
    $1500
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    Offer C
    $3000
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Free Trial
    NoNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
    Additional Details——
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Considered Both Products
    Cloudinary
    No answer on this topic
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    No answers on this topic
    81%
    Would buy again
    42 Answers
    Delivers good value for the price
    No answers on this topic
    76%
    Delivers good value for the price
    37 Answers
    Happy with the feature set
    No answers on this topic
    79%
    Happy with the feature set
    41 Answers
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    No answers on this topic
    69%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    34 Answers
    Implementation went as expected
    No answers on this topic
    70%
    Implementation went as expected
    35 Answers
    Features
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Cloudinary and Google Ads
    Feature
    Cloudinary
    9.0
    1 Ratings
    24% above category average
    Google Ads
    -
    Ratings
    Dashboards9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Standard reports9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Data exportability9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content analytics9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    DAM Features
    Comparison of DAM Features features of Cloudinary and Google Ads
    Feature
    Cloudinary
    9.6
    1 Ratings
    16% above category average
    Google Ads
    -
    Ratings
    Uploading assets10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Downloading assets10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Categories9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset storage10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset sharing10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Asset search10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Tagging system9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Content editing9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Metadata9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    User access9.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    DAM Integrations10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    DAM API10.01 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Cloudinary and Google Ads
    Feature
    Cloudinary
    -
    Ratings
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    12% above category average
    Ad campaign creation00 Ratings7.911 Ratings
    Ad deployment00 Ratings7.510 Ratings
    Display advertising00 Ratings7.410 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation00 Ratings7.511 Ratings
    Sequence targeting00 Ratings6.910 Ratings
    Contextual advertising00 Ratings7.210 Ratings
    Social advertising00 Ratings6.35 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Cloudinary and Google Ads
    Feature
    Cloudinary
    -
    Ratings
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Ad dashboards00 Ratings7.511 Ratings
    Ad performance reports00 Ratings7.911 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking00 Ratings7.311 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting00 Ratings7.211 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization00 Ratings6.911 Ratings
    Ad Auctions
    Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Cloudinary and Google Ads
    Feature
    Cloudinary
    -
    Ratings
    Google Ads
    7.9
    10 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Ad bidding00 Ratings7.910 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Small Businesses
    Adobe Bridge
    Score8.5 out of 10
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    MediaValet
    Score8.8 out of 10
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Acquia DAM (Widen)
    Score8 out of 10
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Likelihood to Recommend
    10.0
    (7 ratings)
    8.7
    (126 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.6
    (21 ratings)
    Usability
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    7.7
    (17 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (3 ratings)
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor post-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    1.0
    (1 ratings)
    Vendor pre-sale
    -
    (0 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    CloudinaryGoogle Ads
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Cloudinary
    Cloudinary handles pretty much anything you have related to images. From serving them up efficiently to adding transformations on the fly, there's really little this service doesn't do. Their pricing plans allow you to grow into the right levels and their website dashboards are very helpful. I would easily recommend this for all but the simplest of use cases.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    Google Ads is a useful advertising tool to build brand exposure and generate lead volumes for your chosen product. Whilst it can be costly at times due to competitor bidding strategies and requires constant monitoring to ensure campaigns perform as expected, it typically provides the desired quality and quantity of leads for custom budgets.
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Cloudinary
    • Cloudinary is the best in the market for photo and video transformations.
    • Cloudinary takes customer's requests for special features and implements them very quickly.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Google
    • Automated targeting via Smart Shopping campaign. It's one of the best campaign types in Google Ads. In the beginning, you may see lower revenue and ROAS, but once you give some meaningful time to your campaign, it is most likely to perform well.
    • Smart bidding strategies: Google Ads has developed some really great bidding strategies such as maximizing conversion and maximizing conversion with ROAS settings. Based on one's requirement and their goal with revenue and target ROAS, they can choose the appropriate bidding strategy.
    • Reporting: A business owner and advertising must know about their audiences, how their campaigns have been performing, what's working and what's not, and for that reason, powerful, effective reporting is needed, and Google Ads provides rich details reporting that covers almost every aspect of a business.
    Incentivized
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    Cons
    Cloudinary
    • Their API does require URLs that can get quite lengthy and not always easy to parse on sight.
    • Documentation on how transformations work and what they actually do to your image could be clearer (what does force_strip actually mean?).
    • Although a free tier exists and is quite generous, should you need to acquire a premium plan for your needs the pricing at scale can climb quickly.
    Incentivized
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    Google
    • If you don't know what you're doing, it will be a costly mistake. You need to target ads, and it is difficult the first time to do that.
    • There isn't a feature to run an add for a couple set date spans, just hours you want to run them or a single date span.
    Incentivized
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    Likelihood to Renew
    Cloudinary
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    I think Google Ads is good for getting your company out there and becoming more visible to potential customers in general. However, for specific product launches, social media advertising might be a better fit. Also, our user base is younger so social media is a better channel for our target audience.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Cloudinary
    Cloudinary is very easy to use and offers fast way to upload your images, files and videos to their servers. Then they give you quick ways t implement those files or images onto your website using their API or just a normal URL. They also give you very fast ways to make edits to those files and include them in the url.
    Incentivized
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    Google
    This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
    Incentivized
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    Support Rating
    Cloudinary
    We rarely use their support. But when we need it they are always there. They provide great consultation and suggestions to help us manage our costs and resources better. In the last 8 years perhaps we have contacted them 3 or 4 times - which is really really great
    Incentivized
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    Google
    We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Cloudinary
    No answers on this topic
    Google
    Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Cloudinary
    Cloudinary seemed to be the most sophisticated with the most documentation and platform support. Other solutions seemed to be a lot harder to implement, however, due to the good documentation and API samples on their GitHub we were able to implement it nicely. Additionally, they have a lot of really well-known brands using them like Wired, Sky News, and eBay which gave us a lot of confidence that this was a good robust solution to use and to help others with
    Incentivized
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    Google
    Our agency invests heavily in Google Ads (particularly paid search advertising) on behalf of our clients relative to competitors like Microsoft and Yahoo because Google is the top search engine in the world. Google collects the most search data which enables the company to improve its AI to drive better performance for agencies and brands. As such, our paid search and app install campaigns always start with Google. If a client has a large budget, we will allocate media dollars to other search engines, but in some cases, the entire search budget goes to Google because we see the best returns.
    Incentivized
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    Return on Investment
    Cloudinary
    • Images are essential to our product and using Cloudinary has allowed us to serve them up in a cost-effective and efficient way. Not having to worry about your images frees you up to tackle the real challenges for your product.
    Incentivized
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    Google
    • Google Ads is often one of our highest ROI channels, especially when you factor in branded ads.
    • Depending on the stage your business is in, search ads can be really powerful from an ROI perspective, providing an investment with a very high spend cap.
    • If you do not manage the campaigns well though, you can quickly spend a lot of money on nothing. So make sure someone is keeping an eye on your account.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots