Criteo Commerce Max (Retail Media) vs. Google Ad Manager vs. Perfect Audience (discontinued)

Well suited--customizable enough to go to market efficiently and quickly. Not well suited--Plug-in multiple demand sources, improved targeting integrations with first-party data.

Google Ads Manager is great if you need major visibility on a large ad network rather than targeting one specific website, app or platform. Let's be real here if you have any business that is done online (sell products, generate leads, etc) you pretty much have to be on Google. I've tried other advertising solutions including competitor search engines, sponsored content solutions, social media advertising, and none really compare to the traffic you can get that is keyword-driven, meaning a user is actually demonstrating interest in whatever you sell or offer.

Incentivized

I would recommend Perfect Audience to anyone who wants to use a 3rd party to scale up. I find the audience builder pretty terrible in Google AdWords so I was looking for something a bit easier to use and this fit the bill easily.

Incentivized

• Intuitive dashboards and reporting
• Custom templates for display media
• Flexibility in terms of setting guardrails for targeting

• Interface. You can understand how to build the ads very easily. When you first begin, and throughout the process, there are little help icons which explain what you need to understand.
• Pricing. By this, I mean the ability to change it at any time. You can select a variable rate, or you can preset it. Either way, you can change how much you spend every second if you'd like. This makes it easier to control your budget if you need to make emergency purchases and don't have much space in your budget.
• Always growing. They are always announcing something new. Always growing and always trying to update.

Incentivized

• Great to up your inbound marketing game
• The bulk uploading feature is great and makes it easy to upload numerous ad campaigns
• Can customize each ad easily

Incentivized

• Exportable insights at a brand, page, and placement level
• Segmentation API service to better manage first-party data
• Opportunity for non-custom implementation to allow for scalable solutions, such as programmatic backfill

• Bumper Machine - While this is still in beta, there is a lot of room for improvement for the machine to pick proper clips. I'm sure that will come in time though.
• Inclusion of a Home Page Button - This is a simple request, truly, but one that bothers me everyday. I have a campaign home button, but it's not accessible unless you go back to the beginning of the platform. If the 'home' button was static, I'd be able to go to my preferred view with one click instead of having to loop around, as there isn't a trustworthy 'back button' option either.
• Display - This is a big one. I have a love/hate relationship with display campaigns and algorithms. I have seen where they can perform [strongly] but also be massive budget bleeds with little ROI. It's not very industry specific either so I'm hoping to gain more consistency and trust with the future of the display algorithm.

Incentivized

• Constantly left Googling how to do things because the system is sometimes confusing
• Weak native reporting
• Landing page editor needs work

Incentivized

I think it's useful for our team and we rely on it to improve our business. It is within our budget also. Although we still will need an approval from the upper-level management team, I don't see any problem with that

Incentivized

Intuitive and easy to use.

While most of Google Ad Manager is user-friendly, certain parts of the ad creation process could use some improvements. Specifically, the way you insert keywords can be clunky and time-consuming, and I would like to see better and more keyword suggestions when designing a campaign.

Incentivized

The bulk uploading feature is certainly my preferred feature of Perfect Audience. This tool has made creating new ad campaigns quick and easy. I used to have to upload facebook then Instagram then another social media page and instead I upload everything all at once and it certainly makes it easier for all of us.

Incentivized

Retail Media by Criteo's support at the start (with ERMS and Hooklogic) was pretty poor, with support SLAs exceeding 72 hours. This has changed over time to having a dedicated team--therefore the 7 rating and not 8.

I could say a lot about this topic. As an agency, we get a new [representative] to talk to almost every quarter to go over select accounts and the campaigns within. Most of the time, these [educated representatives], don't provide any new feedback, or I just simply [disagree] with their approach. This is not all the time however. I have learned a lot from a rare few, [individuals] that have given me new strategies and access to betas early on. The other side of support, is the [overseas support platform]. [It] is usually not very helpful, but you can [emphasize] issues and they can research [them]. The Google Tag Implementation team is pristine though. When you need them, you need to set an appointment, which is usually 2 weeks out; they are so over-my-head intelligent, I've never had a bad experience with them and whenever I needed them for a fix, they solved it [within] the first call.

Incentivized

The support team could be a little more useful. After our implementation calls and getting everything setup, we did feel that they were not as responsive and I did find myself googling solutions to things that the support team could have helped us with.

Incentivized

Cost of integration is low with Retail Media by Criteo, and Criteo's network of sponsored products is strong.

As I've said in prior comments, I like how the Google Ad Manager makes better use of the Google data and results compared to the others. Yes, I've tried them - I used to evaluate software for a former company. They will all do the job I didn't like their usage as much as I preferred the Google information - and I said even that had flaws - so you have to realize that nothing is completely perfect so far.

Incentivized

I have used Google Ads which has a difficult interface to use as well as Ad Roll. Perfect Audience beats them both in functionality and usability.

Incentivized

• Increased net revenue
• Increased profit
• CTR is unchanged (but this can be improved with better opportunities for targeting)

• I was able to work well with my budgets - mainly because of the reports.
• I saw a great spike in the way my ad traffic increased.
• It was a very easy way to work with Google Ad Manager than connecting other platforms with less compatibility - Less investment.

Incentivized

• The convenience of Perfect Audience has made things smoother for us. This convenience means less time spent managing ads and more time focusing on running our business.
• Re-marketing features have been superior to AdWords.

Incentivized