Google Ads vs. WordStream Advisor

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
WordStream Advisor
Score 7.0 out of 10
N/A
Wordstream, the eponymous offering from the company in Boston, MA, provides a free tool for analyzing performance "grading" an Adwords campaign, beyond which, Wordstream Advisor provides (for a fee, though a free trial is available) recommendations to optimize a paid advertising campaign on Google, Bing, and Yahoo! search engines, and place ads. Beyond the platform, Wordstream also offers full account management services, for outsourcing one's campaign, and white labeling for…N/A
Pricing
Google AdsWordStream Advisor
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Google AdsWordStream Advisor
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 AdsWordStream Advisor
Considered Both Products
Google Ads

No answer on this topic

WordStream Advisor
Chose WordStream Advisor
WordStream is a great supplement to Google Ads. You're basically paying for the user interface and WordStream's AI that helps you uncover efficiencies and opportunities the more you use the product and its 20 Minute Work Week. We used WordStream because we didn't have a Google …
Chose WordStream Advisor
WordStream provides descriptions and offers help when you're uncertain about how to fix issues within an account. Its streamlined approach allows you to get twice the work done in the same amount of time. Google Ads is a beast in itself to tackle with having to click in …
Chose WordStream Advisor
I've never used a system to help with my Google AdWords. This was the first system I had used. WordStream definitely takes the cake though, I have a hard time believing there could be a better system out there. I wouldn't even consider going to look for a new system. I am …
Chose WordStream Advisor
WordStream is a little different from the competition. There are much more expensive solutions that manage the account for you with more features (Kenshoo, Marin, etc) and there are cheaper solutions out there that offer some of the features that WordStream provides; however, …
Chose WordStream Advisor
For our needs, WordStream was the most cost-effective AdWords management solution (as compared to Marin). Our real alternative was to continue using AdWords only; we felt that the added benefit of time-saving tools and personal consulting made the added management cost …
Chose WordStream Advisor
There is no magic solution; you either want to save the management fees which means you need to learn and spend many hours of managing your AdWords or just hire the right people to do it for you. If we had spent a few dollars more to hire a professional I think we would have …
Chose WordStream Advisor
I haven't used any other products like Wordstream in the past.
Chose WordStream Advisor
Both HubSpot and Salesforce are not exactly related to what WordSteam does - but very useful for our business.
Chose WordStream Advisor
Unfortunately the agency I am with used other products like this for social media management. I have little perspective or insights to provide in regards to this.
Chose WordStream Advisor
Affordable, Great Information Resource, Excellent Customer Service, easy, good design, nice reports, multi-dimensional/multi-platform
Chose WordStream Advisor
None - WordStream is pretty much an uncontested leader in the AdWords tool department, since we didn't want to go full digital agency.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Best Alternatives
Google AdsWordStream Advisor
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
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 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 AdsWordStream Advisor
Likelihood to Recommend
7.1
(115 ratings)
9.1
(23 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
9.5
(21 ratings)
9.0
(3 ratings)
Usability
7.2
(7 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.9
(8 ratings)
9.6
(5 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 AdsWordStream Advisor
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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WordStream
Do you currently use Google AdWords to drive new business for your website? Then you need WordStream. The best scenario where it has helped me is time. I used to spend easily 20 hours a week analyzing data, making minor changes, adjusting budgets, trying to just master Google AdWords! But now I'm able to spend maybe 2-3 hours a week on Google AdWords and put the rest of my attention on other responsibilities. WordStream has mastered making my time more efficient.
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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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WordStream
  • Definitely go with a consultant. It amazed me how quickly our consultant was able to understand our business and what we sell. He was the best resource for our newly-digitized marketing team.
  • The negative keywords section was a hugely helpful tool. It saved us from so much unnecessary spend while making it easy to add negatives.
  • How quickly changes implemented were updated on AdWords was amazing. It's live, so no lag and unnecessary spend.
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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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WordStream
  • While the basic tools are pretty simple to use, the platform is actually pretty expansive and I don't feel like I've taken advantage of it (yet) as much as I could. It does require some training to get up to speed.
  • Support for Display ad campaigns is limited - this is mainly used as a way to optimize Search campaigns.
  • Reporting. I find the reporting setup to be a bit confusing and still rely on other sources for building out reports on our Adwords performance (Adwords itself and Google Analytics).
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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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WordStream
Affordable, useful, informative, easy to use, continually updating and staying current
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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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WordStream
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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WordStream
I have not had any experience with the customer support team for platform issues, but the account representative checks in with us often and is always available to answer questions. We will usually get on quarterly review calls so that she can share any new updates to the platform and answer questions.
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Online Training
Google
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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WordStream
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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WordStream
WordStream is a little different from the competition. There are much more expensive solutions that manage the account for you with more features (Kenshoo, Marin, etc) and there are cheaper solutions out there that offer some of the features that WordStream provides; however, if a marketer wants to personally manage an account with some aided help than WordStream provides a great, cost-effective solution
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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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WordStream
  • I've already noted the time savings that WordStream has provided - at leats 5 hours a week (and I like to think that my time is pretty expensive/worth it).
  • Wordstream has paid for itself already, simply in removing junk from our AdWords account - junk keywords, junk AdWords groups, junk matching.
  • I think we'll find, over more time, that Wordstream will continue to provide outstanding value in dropping our CPA - once Google register sthe lack of junk, our CPC will continue to go down.
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