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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Ad Manager

    Score8.3 out of 10
    N/AGoogle Ad Manager is a platform for publishers that combines the former DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange products.N/A

    Kissmetrics

    Score9.6 out of 10
    Mid-Size Companies (51-1,000 employees)
    Kissmetrics is a customer engagement automation platform. This solution includes behavioral analytics, segmentation, and email campaign automation.

    $150

    per month

    Pricing
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    Growth
    $500
    Monthly Tracked People
    Power
    $850
    Monthly Tracked People
    Enterprise
    Custom
    Monthly Tracked People
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Free Trial
    NoYes
    Free/Freemium Version
    NoNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup fee$1,500 per installation
    Additional Details—What are Monthly Tracked People? Monthly Tracked People are unique visitors that engage in an Event on your website or with your product, that gets tracked by you in Kissmetrics. Monthly Tracked People can be anonymous or identified.
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Considered Both Products
    Google
    No answer on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    93%
    Would buy again
    14 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    100%
    Delivers good value for the price
    14 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    93%
    Happy with the feature set
    14 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    83%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    10 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    75%
    Implementation went as expected
    9 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Ad Network Integration
    Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Google Ad Manager and Kissmetrics
    Feature
    Google Ad Manager
    7.8
    28 Ratings
    6% above category average
    Kissmetrics
    -
    Ratings
    Data Transfer7.528 Ratings00 Ratings
    DSP integration8.122 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Google Ad Manager and Kissmetrics
    Feature
    Google Ad Manager
    7.4
    40 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Kissmetrics
    -
    Ratings
    Ad campaign creation7.640 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad deployment7.040 Ratings00 Ratings
    Display advertising7.639 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.238 Ratings00 Ratings
    Sequence targeting7.528 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Google Ad Manager and Kissmetrics
    Feature
    Google Ad Manager
    6.7
    39 Ratings
    15% below category average
    Kissmetrics
    -
    Ratings
    Ad dashboards6.537 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad performance reports7.439 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking6.738 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting6.834 Ratings00 Ratings
    Cross-channel ad management7.029 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization5.734 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Small Businesses
    AdRoll
    Score3.7 out of 10
    Matomo Analytics
    Score9 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    Lead Forensics
    Score9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    Chartbeat
    Score9.2 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.2
    (40 ratings)
    8.9
    (48 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    7.4
    (27 ratings)
    Usability
    6.8
    (8 ratings)
    7.1
    (6 ratings)
    Availability
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.3
    (6 ratings)
    Performance
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.5
    (6 ratings)
    Support Rating
    7.0
    (2 ratings)
    9.0
    (9 ratings)
    In-Person Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    9.1
    (1 ratings)
    Online Training
    -
    (0 ratings)
    8.6
    (3 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    -
    (0 ratings)
    7.3
    (7 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Google Ad ManagerKissmetrics
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    I like that I can see several clients in one place, which can be convenient. However, the UX could be a lot better as outlined previously. In other words, the benefits of combining clients into the Ad Manager don't seem to be much more beneficial than logging into each client's ad account separately
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    [Kissmetrics is well suited for the] abandon cart scenario to re-engage users on the purchase journey. Engaging users to personalized content using the visit metrics derived from the data captured at each digital touch points. [Implementing] website campaign and journey orchestration is easy. You get visitor profile to segment upon using different visit metrics and action.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Google
    • The obvious is the data - Google Ads Manager gives me essential and even critical data about which jobs and industries are hot right now and what is driving the most response.
    • Google Ad Manager gives us more control over the search engine results page as we get more visibility and real estate on our branded search terms and job/industry-specific search terms.
    • Google Ad Manager gives us the chance to compete with major national players in job recruitment, Monster, Indeed, LinkedIn, etc.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    • The more events you track and properties you send along, the more you can see how specific users use your product/service. The user based timeline gives you a perfect start point to get in touch with users, because you can see where they get stuck.
    • Tracking your traffic sources and how they influence conversions is awesome. You can get a perfect view of how much a traffic source contributes to revenue.
    • Funnel reports give you more insights into micro and macro conversion steps and give you actionable data to work with.
    • Customer support!
    Read full review
    Cons
    Google
    • Support. Not that they don't call or offer help, it's that our account people are bullies. I tell them I don't have time, so I am insulted and told that I need to get in front of the laptop otherwise I have "failed the company." I have never had a situation where I wasn't bullied by our Ad reps. They don't respect or value our time, which can make their calls frustrating.
    • Too quick on support. They don't take the time to understand the product. We are a preschool which shares a name with a popular motorcycle. An Ad rep insisted he knew the company so well that he could help me within five minutes. After being interrupted frequently, I just let him continue to tell me how I "could increase awareness of our aerodynamic seat design by creating ads with those keywords..."
    • Better management of trademark keywords and program awareness. We switched over to a new site, the domain changed for about ten seconds. All of our ads were unapproved and put on pause. The email stated it would be fixed very quickly, but I had to go in for the last 3 days to reactivate each one individually.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    • Installing.... yes this is also a negative. While you can install and have the program running in minutes, if you use Unbounce, the form tracking process is quite complicated!
    • Updates... I feel like the product updates have slowed a lot lately. Thankfully, the product functionality is so amazing that it hasn't impeded the use of it. However, it is still disappointing to see less frequent software updates.
    • Occasionally clunky UI... there are a few reports that are really easy to mess up and leave you scratching your head on why it isn't showing you any data.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    Price sensitivity and the different choices that now exist in the Analytics industry. I think it makes sense for us sometime this year to rethink our analytics strategy to see how we may leverage the best of GA (which has included lots of new features and updates the past years_, Kiss and other tools as need be
    Read full review
    Usability
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    Right after login, you'll get to a dashboard which shows you a quick view on how your business is doing across the events you are tracking. There is no need to dig deeper than that unless you want to, in which case it's very easy to do so just by clicking on the metric on which you want more information. The interface is very intuitive.
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    The application was very rarely down; during the period we used the application, I can think of only two or three occasions in which the site was down. Notably, at no time was the the performance of our own site compromised as a result.
    Read full review
    Performance
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    Speed improved dramatically as the service matured. Early iterations of the publicly-released application would occasionally provide slow processing of results, but those delays became much rarer occurrences during the last year that we used KISSmetrics. One of the more impressive views (which started out feeling more like a toy) is the live view of visits. Knowing that you could see, in real time, what events a user triggered, was gratifying and instructive.
    Read full review
    Support Rating
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    Our front-line product support person (Mika) is great. She is responsive and great to work with.

    However, the data accuracy issue described earlier is the reason for the low score here. This issue was escalated from front-line to support to level 2 technical support and then it disappeared into a black hole. Escalations, in general, do not go well. We get no response for days, or I have to chase things down. This is not acceptable. Marketing metrics are critically important to me and I need answers quickly. I cannot afford to wait around for days / weeks for a response.

    Just to be clear, these comments only apply to escalated support issues.
    Read full review
    In-Person Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    Again, we were fortunate to work with KISSmetrics as they built their application, but Hiten, their CEO and founder, was incredibly helpful to me personally, and to our metrics-driven business as a whole, as we adopted their tool.
    Read full review
    Online Training
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    I loved this aspect of the product. It wasn't just that the documentation and online tutorials are great - which they are - the on-boarding process though was really stellar. Once you have set everything up, you get a welcome message followed by a step-by-step guide to get you started that is built right into the product interface. For example, the UI asks you to first do X, and then copy this code snippet and send it to your developer who will know what to do with it. When you come back after the first interaction with the product, it continues the process by explaining right in the UI how to track events etc. This kind of step-by-step approach is incredibly efficient. Although there are various forms of supporting documentation (PDFs videos etc) to support every step, you don't really need them. This approach means that you are up and running very quickly with virtually no training time or documentation consultation. Highly efficient process.
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Google
    No answers on this topic
    Kissmetrics
    In order to build trackability down to revenue, there was quite a lot of work to integrate Kissmetrics with our software and internal process. We had to build the hooks so that Kissmetrics could call back into our software and billing system, etc.. However, we didn't need additional expertise to do this. Once you understand the API, and you own systems, making it work is not too difficult. We did not require an outside consultant or anything like that
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Google
    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
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    Kissmetrics is a next-level step up for people who are used to getting their tracking and reporting from Google Analytics or Shopify's CMS. While HubSpot arguably has a better user interface, Kissmetrics certainly has the power and usability necessary to track important conversion data and help you make better marketing decisions.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Google
    • 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
    Read full review
    Kissmetrics
    • Unfortunately for this client (small business) the cost of Kissmetrics was just too prohibitive. But it's obvious that for a larger company that can afford it, the data would be invaluable to gain more insight in how to gain more active users and orders for a funnel.
    • The data provided really increases an understanding of how best to provide the right experience for the users...happy users equals increase in ROI.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots

    Kissmetrics Screenshots

    Screenshot of Kissmetrics Activity Report is a part of our report suite called AnalyzeScreenshot of Kissmetrics Populations allow your to track your most important segment over timeScreenshot of Kissmetrics Campaigns allow you to engage your user with automated behavior-based emails when it is most effective