Google Ads vs. MatchCraft AdVantage

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Google Ads
Score 8.2 out of 10
N/A
Google 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.N/A
MatchCraft
Score 10.0 out of 10
N/A
MatchCraft Advantage is a search engine marketing (SEM) platform for managing many paid advertising campaigns at once, ideally for agencies managing campaigns for a number of small to midsize businesses with their local marketing efforts. To that end it automates many elements of running Google Adwords and Bing Ads campaigns and offers bidding suggestions via Matchcraft's proprietary algorithms. AdVantage Display is a built in set of tools for targeted display ads, and AdVantage Remarketing…N/A
Pricing
Google AdsMatchCraft AdVantage
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsMatchCraft
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
Best Alternatives
Google AdsMatchCraft AdVantage
Small Businesses
Serpstat
Serpstat
Score 9.3 out of 10
Serpstat
Serpstat
Score 9.3 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsMatchCraft AdVantage
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(115 ratings)
8.0
(1 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(21 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(8 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsMatchCraft AdVantage
Likelihood to Recommend
Google
Clients who are selling products such as dresses, clothes, jewelry, beauty products, etc., generally work well. Also, in some cases, it doesn't fetch a good ROAS for very small business owners. If a client is already doing well in SEO, the probability for it to perform well over Google Ads is always enhanced, and if it doesn't have a good organic reach, Google Ads also suffers.
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Matchcraft
If you have multiple campaigns running at the same time, you need your campaign setups to be quick and easy, or you have multiple users managing campaigns, then MatchCraft Advantage is right for you. It also performs well with both small and large budgets. If you want to do re-targeting but don't want/know how to implement the tag, MatchCraft has built-in features for that. However if you want to run video campaigns and campaigns in specific mobile apps, then for now MatchCraft will not work for you
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Pros
Google
  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
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Matchcraft
  • Automated bid adjustments for PPC campaigns. Manual bid strategies can be tedious to manage. MatchCraft's bidding system helps improve click throughs while keeping the click costs pretty low.
  • The report generation features of the platform MatchCraft platform are easy to use and provide actionable data from campaigns. PDF reports require only a few clicks and there is also an interactive dashboard that gives all the key metrics in a graphical format. Both features are customizable.
  • User management is a breeze in the MatchCraft platform. You can add, edit, activate, deactivate, and change the permissions as needed.
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Cons
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.
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Matchcraft
  • Not all Google/Bing features are available through the MatchCraft platform. Since they are limited to what is available in the API some features like video campaign management and specific app targeting are missing.
  • Customized report scheduling is not yet available for each campaign and the automated reports can only be sent to one email address. Additional recipients have to be sent their's manually.
  • Reports can take a little time to be generated. Not more than 1 minute but it can slow you down if you have multiple reports to send.
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Likelihood to Renew
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.
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Matchcraft
No answers on this topic
Usability
Google
I suspect that Google Ads is not for the novice user. I told my 'Ad Specialist' that I was not the best on computers and apprehensive about my ability to maneuver the website. He told me on more than one occasion that "I work for you...I'm your sherpa...call me any time or send me an email"!
The sales and service representatives for Google Ads are very well trained, though not much integrity. Despite that I told my Google Ad Specialist that my website was incomplete the ad was published live anyway! Beware that the 'talk' is good, but it ain't cheap!
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Matchcraft
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
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
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Matchcraft
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Matchcraft
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
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.
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Matchcraft
The interface on MatchCraft is much easier to get started with than the native PPC provider interfaces. MatchCraft finds ways of maximizing ROI within current spend target rather than recommending 'increased budget' as the fix for all issues. the reporting dashboard is also easier to use and report generation takes only a few clicks. The main downside is that MatchCraft is limited to what the PPC providers allow through the APIs
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Return on Investment
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.
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Matchcraft
  • It has allowed the company to handle a higher volume of campaigns at the same time.
  • Click costs have been reduced across almost all campaigns while click rates have increased.
  • Budget management (under/overspending) has been improved.
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