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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Google Ads

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/AGoogle 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.

    $500

    in Ads credit in the first 60 days

    SOCi

    Score8.4 out of 10
    N/ASOCi, including the former Brandify (acquired July 2021) presents a range of local marketing solutions, such as store locators, local SEO driven landing pages, local advertising, and brand reputation management.N/A
    Pricing
    Google AdsSOCi
    Editions & Modules
    Offer A
    $500
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    Offer B
    $1500
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    Offer C
    $3000
    in Ads credit in the first 60 days
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Google AdsSOCi
    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
    Features
    Google AdsSOCi
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Google Ads and SOCi
    Feature
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    12% above category average
    SOCi
    -
    Ratings
    Ad campaign creation7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad deployment7.510 Ratings00 Ratings
    Display advertising7.410 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.511 Ratings00 Ratings
    Sequence targeting6.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    Contextual advertising7.210 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social advertising6.35 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Google Ads and SOCi
    Feature
    Google Ads
    7.3
    11 Ratings
    6% above category average
    SOCi
    -
    Ratings
    Ad dashboards7.511 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad performance reports7.911 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking7.311 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting7.211 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization6.911 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Auctions
    Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Google Ads and SOCi
    Feature
    Google Ads
    7.9
    10 Ratings
    6% below category average
    SOCi
    -
    Ratings
    Ad bidding7.910 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Google AdsSOCi
    Small Businesses
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Google Business Profile
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    Google Business Profile
    Score8.4 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Google AdsSOCi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (126 ratings)
    8.4
    (8 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    9.6
    (21 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    7.7
    (17 ratings)
    8.2
    (5 ratings)
    Performance
    9.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (8 ratings)
    10.0
    (4 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 AdsSOCi
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Google
    Google Ads is a useful advertising tool to build brand exposure and generate lead volumes for your chosen product. Whilst it can be costly at times due to competitor bidding strategies and requires constant monitoring to ensure campaigns perform as expected, it typically provides the desired quality and quantity of leads for custom budgets.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    SOCi is a fantastic tool for a franchise business because it provides the ability to post in bulk while also posting localized content. So, you can share the same basic content across all of your locations, but SOCi's tagging system inserts a location's phone number or website for each individual location. This helps create a localized feel and personalized touch -- but you only schedule one post, making it easy and efficient to localize content in mass posting. This principle applies to paid ads as well. Because of these features, SOCi may not be the best platform for companies with just one location
    Incentivized
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    Pros
    Google
    • Automated targeting via Smart Shopping campaign. It's one of the best campaign types in Google Ads. In the beginning, you may see lower revenue and ROAS, but once you give some meaningful time to your campaign, it is most likely to perform well.
    • Smart bidding strategies: Google Ads has developed some really great bidding strategies such as maximizing conversion and maximizing conversion with ROAS settings. Based on one's requirement and their goal with revenue and target ROAS, they can choose the appropriate bidding strategy.
    • Reporting: A business owner and advertising must know about their audiences, how their campaigns have been performing, what's working and what's not, and for that reason, powerful, effective reporting is needed, and Google Ads provides rich details reporting that covers almost every aspect of a business.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    • Firstly, as a user of Brandify, I am really fond of their after-sales support services because as a user these services matter a lot.
    • Brandify has made the work so much easier as it avoids spending time looking for better options.
    • It is very helpful platform for the growth of a company.
    • Its analysis helps us in foreseeing situations that can be either good or bad and ensure that we think of a possible solution.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    • Their analytics are sub-par to other tools that I use.
    • Their website can be a little clunky until you learn to navigate it.
    • It takes a long time to be fully on-boarded and running on the platform with all information syncing together.
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Google
    This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    There are some aspects of the scheduling of posts that could be more user friendly for the less tech-savvy users.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    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
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    We have not had to contact support so there is nothing to say in response to this question. We are sure that if we needed to contact them we would be able to get any issues resolved quickly
    Incentivized
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    Online Training
    Google
    Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
    Read full review
    SOCi, Inc
    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.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    Soci is a lot better. It’s more user friendly and it makes better for one platform to have all my accounts on
    Incentivized
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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.
    Incentivized
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    SOCi, Inc
    • Brandify allows us to analyze the reputation of the business and how happy our customers are with us.
    • It is a affordable local marketing software.
    • It has reliable and efficient support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots