Google Ads vs. Salesforce Marketing Cloud

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
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Marketing Cloud is an AI-powered, cloud-based digital marketing platform within the Salesforce Customer 360 ecosystem. Marketers can segment their audience, deliver personalized messages, track campaign performance, engage leads and accounts, and optimize strategies based on real-time insights.
$1,250
per month per installation
Pricing
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Account Engagement
$1,250
per month
Engagement
$1,250
per month
Intelligence
$3,000
per month
Loyalty Management
$20,000
per month
Personalization
$100,000
per year
Data Cloud for Marketing
$108,000
per year
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Free Trial
NoYes
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoYes
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Considered Both Products
Google Ads

No answer on this topic

Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
HubSpot: Pardot wins (by a huger margin) on both product and customer service.

Eloqua/Marketo/Silverpop - have used all three of these. They are solid solutions but integration with Salesforce is not as tight or reliable. In addition I found clients have a longer time to …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
I used ExactTarget in a company that had a large B2C focus, as well as a B2B. If sending large volumes of emails to consumers, ET is the solution of choice. Pardot is a better fit if you're looking at smaller volumes and if you need interaction with the sales team based on …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
At the time, Pardot was the only other marketing automation system that supported SugarCRM.
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
We used HubSpot before and it performed well. However, as we were planning to adopt NetSuite as our ERP, we needed a marketing solution that integrated well with it. That's where HubSpot fell short. Pardot had a built in integration with NetSuite via a Pardot connector. Also, …
Chose Salesforce Marketing Cloud
Eloqua, Marketo, Genius.

Eloqua was too expensive. Marketo, is a very slick product, and the pricing they offered us for the lowest-level version (Small and Medium Business) was competitive, but still about $3,000 per year more than Pardot. One big issue with Marketo though was …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Email & Online Marketing
Comparison of Email & Online Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
158 Ratings
2% above category average
WYSIWYG email editor00 Ratings8.1110 Ratings
Dynamic content00 Ratings8.1140 Ratings
Ability to test dynamic content00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Landing pages00 Ratings7.5108 Ratings
A/B testing00 Ratings8.4139 Ratings
Mobile optimization00 Ratings7.598 Ratings
Email deliverability reporting00 Ratings8.3119 Ratings
List management00 Ratings7.5116 Ratings
Triggered drip sequences00 Ratings8.184 Ratings
Lead Management
Comparison of Lead Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% below category average
Lead nurturing automation00 Ratings7.7100 Ratings
Lead scoring and grading00 Ratings7.3100 Ratings
Data quality management00 Ratings7.6104 Ratings
Automated sales alerts and tasks00 Ratings7.792 Ratings
Campaign Management
Comparison of Campaign Management features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.9
103 Ratings
4% above category average
Calendaring00 Ratings7.993 Ratings
Event/webinar marketing00 Ratings7.987 Ratings
Social Media Marketing
Comparison of Social Media Marketing features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
6.8
80 Ratings
10% below category average
Social sharing and campaigns00 Ratings7.276 Ratings
Social profile integration00 Ratings6.432 Ratings
Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
1% above category average
Dashboards00 Ratings7.6107 Ratings
Standard reports00 Ratings7.8111 Ratings
Custom reports00 Ratings7.488 Ratings
Platform & Infrastructure
Comparison of Platform & Infrastructure features of Product A and Product B
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Salesforce Marketing Cloud
7.6
112 Ratings
0% above category average
API00 Ratings7.681 Ratings
Role-based workflow & approvals00 Ratings8.278 Ratings
Customizability00 Ratings7.399 Ratings
Integration with Salesforce.com00 Ratings8.7101 Ratings
Integration with Microsoft Dynamics CRM00 Ratings7.88 Ratings
Integration with SugarCRM00 Ratings6.77 Ratings
Third-party software integrations00 Ratings7.314 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Small Businesses
Serpstat
Serpstat
Score 9.3 out of 10
Vbout
Vbout
Score 9.4 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream Advisor
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
PFL Direct Mail Platform
PFL Direct Mail Platform
Score 9.3 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(115 ratings)
8.0
(316 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(21 ratings)
9.6
(112 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(7 ratings)
6.2
(35 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(11 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
9.6
(9 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(8 ratings)
4.0
(35 ratings)
In-Person Training
-
(0 ratings)
5.0
(4 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.1
(7 ratings)
Implementation Rating
-
(0 ratings)
3.0
(17 ratings)
Ease of integration
-
(0 ratings)
7.0
(2 ratings)
Product Scalability
-
(0 ratings)
7.9
(24 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
1.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(2 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
10.0
(1 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
User Testimonials
Google AdsSalesforce Marketing Cloud
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.
Read full review
Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud does an excellent job at collecting and storing leads. Once the leads are qualified by workflows and automations established against your qualifiers, you can begin to segment, target, send communication, and track the efficacy of your campaigns. Being that Salesforce Marketing Cloud is an extension of Salesforce CRM, there is little work that needs to be done to ensure that your SQL are migrated to your CRM once they are ready to do so. The seamlessness between the two systems is paramount to the success of our organization.
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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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Salesforce
  • Filter relevant content so you can priorize those that are more relevant and resolve it first
  • Measure the traffic in the different social networks, as well as the response rate, average response time and other relevant metrics
  • Configure automation rules to order the work of those who must interact with the customer
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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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Salesforce
  • The email builder does not offer any way to catch/check bugs across different email service providers
  • Creating SQL is not as easy as drag-and-drop; a lot of technical knowledge is required
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud is sold as a marketing tool, but to be honest, you need a LOT of technical IT support to run the tool
  • Einstein metrics are across the board; if you have multiple audiences in one instance of Salesforce Marketing Cloud you can't segment the data.
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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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Salesforce
As of right now we have not seen any other program that integrates as seamlessly into our Salesforce platform. We have barely scratched the surface of all the features and use cases. It would be irresponsible to make a move to another platform in the near future. We have not come up against any limitations that would prompt a need to switch
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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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Salesforce
You won't find another solution that has as many features as Salesforce Marketing Cloud Interaction Studio. We all know Salesforce, we all know how big they are and it's not for nothing... Their tools do most of the things you want, need and even imagine. Using it is complicated, but the usability is infinite.
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Reliability and Availability
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Upgrades and timing of the upgrades were communicated well and planned during off hours for our work. If we did have a campaign scheduled during that time, it would kick-off after the system was back active. There were a few unplanned system down times, but it was a rare occurrence and those times were also short in duration.
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Performance
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Though the make up of MA apps is not built this way today, it would be nice to see them become more real-time. The integration between Salesforce and Pardot is not a true real-time integration. If I modify something in Salesforce, those changes are not automatically reflected in Pardot immediately. There is a delay of about 15 minutes before the systems sync. This delay, although not long, is less than ideal We would love the systems to be integrated real time such that changes are propagated from one system to the other immediately.
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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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Salesforce
They're fast and knowledgeable. You will always know what's the status of your request and they usually follow up with phone calls to ask you questions or provide updates. Sometimes it takes them a couple of days to investigate, especially if you have custom "situations" like my company usually does but at least they are very good at managing time expectations.
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In-Person Training
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
The trainers at the Pardot user conference (Elevate and Connections) were very knowledgeable and presented the material well. Again, the content was targeted to more of a new user audience, and was not really relevant for folks who had been using the product for 2+ years.
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Online Training
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Salesforce
Pardot's online training touches on all topics briefly and vaguely without much indepth exploration into how a final outcome could look, such as Nurturing Campaigns, Email templates, landing page templates, etc... The only true way to uncover Pardot's full capabilities is to have Front End design and coding experience. Without this key skill set, I would not recommend Pardot to another business.
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Implementation Rating
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
From an IT perspective, once you set up the Javascript beacon and start collecting data there is a waiting game. During this time you can start labeling your site actions which can be labor intensive for a single person, but you don't really have the final end-users on the platform yet. We did a lot of training so users were experienced, but it wasn't until they had their first tasks to accomplish that they started using the system and had questions. I'd recommend setting up some immediate goals for an end-user to start segmenting for the purpose of displaying message campaigns so you can jump start end-user action.
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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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Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud stands out for its comprehensive features, scalability, and seamless integration capabilities. Compared to other platforms, its unified suite of tools for email, social media, mobile, and advertising enables streamlined cross-channel campaign management and personalized marketing at scale. We chose Marketing Cloud for its industry leadership, robust ecosystem, and tight integration with Salesforce CRM, allowing us to deliver exceptional marketing solutions and drive measurable results for our clients efficiently.
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Scalability
Google
No answers on this topic
Salesforce
Salesforce Marketing Cloud helps create profiles for each subscriber. The Contact Builder feature stores information about every subscriber, including whether they're an active customer, their purchase history from the last year, and their email engagement metrics. It also identifies the likelihood of a subscriber churning, aiding in creating personalized campaigns to boost company revenue.
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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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Salesforce
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to more efficiently reach out to a higher number of prospects.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to nimbly communicate important messages in a timely fashion to facilitate conversion.
  • Salesforce Marketing Cloud allows us to track who is opening our messages so that we can stop sending to those not interested and focus on the most engaged audiences.
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ScreenShots

Salesforce Marketing Cloud Screenshots

Screenshot of Pardot Analytics - Pardot's reporting and analytics can be used to perform true revenue impact analysis and closed-loop reporting.Screenshot of Pardot Email Analytics - The reach and impact of  email marketing efforts are displayed in real-time with advanced reporting and analytics by device, and email client.Screenshot of Pardot Forms and Landing Pages - Pardot's form and landing page builders are used to turn online traffic to leads with targeted offers and content marketing.Screenshot of Pardot Email Marketing - Lead nurturing flows are defined via an interface that enables definition of the simplest or most complex segmented and targeted campaigns.