Google Ad Manager vs. Microsoft Advertising

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Ad Manager is a platform for publishers that combines the former DoubleClick for Publishers and DoubleClick Ad Exchange products.N/A
Microsoft Advertising
Score 7.4 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) contains Microsoft's advertising solutions. Advertising formats include search (Microsoft Search ads), Display and Native ads, Retail Media, and Video and Connected TV (CTV) ads. Services include Performance Max, the company's conversion optimization AI assistant and guide.N/A
Pricing
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Considered Both Products
Google Ad Manager
Chose Google Ad Manager
Among all the ad management platforms I use on a regular basis, Google Ad Manager is the most straightforward to use. However, I probably have a paid search bias, as I spend more time there than with the paid social or programmatic platforms. Even still, Google Ad Manager is …
Chose Google Ad Manager
Google ads manager is the forefront in search marketing. Other platforms mirror features and trends set by Google while Google continues to innovate and evolve in a class of its own.
Chose Google Ad Manager
Google Ads is [completely different from] Bing. I mostly advertise on Google and prefer it over Bing tenfold.
Chose Google Ad Manager
These are great programs, but when you stack up against Google, they cover a marginal amount of space. You want to use a program that covers a wide area, and currently, the ones listed don't quite have the same reach as the others. I would recommend them to people with high …
Chose Google Ad Manager
We tried Bing, and although the tool itself wasn't as sophisticated as Google, it just doesn't have the market share that Google has so our return on investment was much lower. Google is the 800 pound gorilla and its hard to compete against them in this space. They also do a …
Microsoft Advertising
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Because of duckduckgo we have to use Microsoft advertising and it turns out as the worst user experience given the company of this magnitude. Worst.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
This is a platform that had potential if only it was run by ethically minded people. It's not.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Google and Facebook both performed superiorly to Bing, which actually only took the money and didn't give even one single impression back. In short, it's a useless system with no regard for the paying customer.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Bing Ads is great in the sense that they know they are not as good as Google Ads. So what they do is allow you to easily import your Google Ads Campaigns into your Bing Ads account. They are the same exact product (or solution) just on different search engines but due to an …
Features
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
Google Ad Manager
7.5
26 Ratings
2% above category average
Microsoft Advertising
-
Ratings
Data Transfer7.526 Ratings00 Ratings
DSP integration7.521 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Google Ad Manager
7.5
37 Ratings
5% below category average
Microsoft Advertising
6.4
6 Ratings
0% above category average
Ad campaign creation8.437 Ratings7.96 Ratings
Ad deployment8.037 Ratings8.36 Ratings
Display advertising7.136 Ratings6.26 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.135 Ratings6.36 Ratings
Sequence targeting6.826 Ratings5.95 Ratings
Contextual advertising00 Ratings5.56 Ratings
Social advertising00 Ratings4.95 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Ad Manager
7.1
36 Ratings
9% below category average
Microsoft Advertising
6.5
8 Ratings
5% below category average
Ad dashboards7.334 Ratings6.08 Ratings
Ad performance reports7.436 Ratings6.67 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking7.035 Ratings7.26 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting6.632 Ratings6.86 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management7.027 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization7.031 Ratings5.95 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Google Ad Manager
-
Ratings
Microsoft Advertising
7.2
7 Ratings
15% below category average
Ad bidding00 Ratings7.27 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Small Businesses
Criteo Commerce Growth
Criteo Commerce Growth
Score 8.0 out of 10
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Enterprises
Criteo Commerce Growth
Criteo Commerce Growth
Score 8.0 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Likelihood to Recommend
8.5
(36 ratings)
7.2
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(4 ratings)
8.0
(4 ratings)
Support Rating
7.0
(2 ratings)
9.1
(11 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google Ad ManagerMicrosoft Advertising
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
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.
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Microsoft
Despite using our account for advertising with every other social media company, Microsoft flagged ours as fraudulent. After dealing with them for weeks, we finally got to a manager, who said that they didn’t know anything, couldn’t provide any information, and was unable to do anything about it. It seems odd, but it would flagger account every time we try to upload the campaigns from Google directly into their ad manager. I would suggest if you try and use their platform, don’t tell them you’re using Google cause they seem to have a thing against it. Once your account is flagged, they have no reasonable way of resolving it, nor they are able to offer any support. You’re better off to just try a different way. Ultimately, just don’t use Microsoft advertising if you can possibly avoid it. Hopefully soon DuckDuckGo will have their own advertising platform and we can eliminate Microsoft given the terrible time we have working with this one of many, social media platforms.
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Pros
Google
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Familiar interface, offers editor for bulk changes, adding negative keywords is much easier than in Google Ads
  • Nice reporting tools within the interface, detailed reports can be made fairly easily
  • Had very nice tools to help import/export ads directly from Google Ads, which saves a ton of time
Read full review
Cons
Google
  • 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.
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Microsoft
  • Bing's ad platform could definitely use some improvements - it hasn't been updated in a long time, and it feels very outdated.
  • We feel that the optimization algorithms don't always perform as well for Bing Ads as they do in Google Ads (optimize for conversions, etc.).
  • It would be great to have even more integrations with LinkedIn audience targeting offered - right now, you can just make some bid optimizations in a couple of areas; we'd really like to get more robust options there, and maybe even things like cross-platform tracking.
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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
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Microsoft
We have had good success with it over all of our clients. We continually recommend bing to reach "the rest of the searchers".
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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.
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Microsoft
It's very easy to use overall. It has an import from Google Ads to make things simpler. Overall, I would say you can get up and running very quickly. It's similar to other platforms, so if you have used them, it's intuitive.
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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.
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Microsoft
Our Bing Ads reps are very good and attentive. They've offered good recommendations and are quick to resolve unexpected issues and problems. Occasionally they have roped in technical support folks that have been friendly and helpful too. The general helpline for Bing Ads is also very good, especially when compared to Google's customer support.
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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.
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Microsoft
Obviously Google is a huge competitor. Typically Google is top of the game for many advertising solutions including search. Microsoft ads has a lower scale and reach compared to Google. However, Microsoft ads audience does not overlap much with Googles, providing incremental reach. Although Microsoft ads lags a bit behind in adapting the new updates that Google comes out with, their customer service is very good and they are likely to go out of their way to adapt their platform to your needs whereas their competitor does not
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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.
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Microsoft
  • We've had a very hard time spending our budgets on Bing which has caused us a lot of extra work on our end. We've essentially had to move that money back to Google or other platforms.
  • It does have an easy import from Google so you're not doubling efforts.
  • The CPCs tend to be less expensive than Google - which is always good for business owners.
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ScreenShots