Marin Software vs. Sizmek Ad Suite

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Marin Software
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Marin Software is a cloud-based cross-channel advertising campaign management platform which integrates many tools and functions, and it is the name of the company in San Francisco that issues the software. Marin touts cross-display (including mobile-optimized) advertisement retargeting, social marketing management, and many other tools to manage complex marketing and paid-advertising (PPC) efforts. A free trial of this extensive platform is available. Marin Software maintains a client list…N/A
Sizmek Ad Suite
Score 9.9 out of 10
N/A
Sizmek Ad Suite, now from Amazon Advertising (acquired December 2019) is a global, multichannel ad server used to create, distribute, customize, measure, and optimize campaigns across a variety of screens. It offers multiple options for creative authoring, streamlined campaign management tools, advanced dynamic creative optimization capabilities, and Media Rating Council-accredited measurement.N/A
Pricing
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details——
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
Marin Software
-
Ratings
Sizmek Ad Suite
4.4
5 Ratings
51% below category average
Data Transfer00 Ratings7.74 Ratings
DSP integration00 Ratings1.05 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Marin Software
-
Ratings
Sizmek Ad Suite
7.0
9 Ratings
11% below category average
Ad campaign creation00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Ad deployment00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Display advertising00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation00 Ratings6.54 Ratings
Sequence targeting00 Ratings5.73 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Marin Software
-
Ratings
Sizmek Ad Suite
7.8
9 Ratings
0% above category average
Ad dashboards00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
Ad performance reports00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking00 Ratings8.09 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting00 Ratings9.09 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management00 Ratings8.98 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization00 Ratings8.06 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Small Businesses
Mautic
Mautic
Score 9.0 out of 10
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 8.0 out of 10
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 8.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Iterable
Iterable
Score 8.6 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.8 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
10.0
(32 ratings)
8.0
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
7.6
(23 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Availability
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(6 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Online Training
9.0
(1 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
9.8
(5 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Marin SoftwareSizmek Ad Suite
Likelihood to Recommend
Marin Software
It's well suited when you have to integrate it with another data source, like an FTP for example. The dimensions you can assign to campaigns or ad group levels help for easier performance management and reporting. What makes it difficult is that everytime you need to update anything on the account, you can't use the publisher but have to do it through Marin. This makes the whole process very time consuming and causes more mistakes. Also if you have paused anything on the publisher and you don't remember to sync marin after, all changes on the publisher will get lost if you make new changes on marin
Read full review
Amazon AWS
I've use Sizmek as media analytics and reporting tool. Unless a site doesn't work properly with Google DoubleClick, I rarely recommend Sizmek over DoubleClick. It can do everything DoubleClick does, but with almost twice the hassle. One Area that makes it easier to track is that ads are given individual tracking ID's that creative can look up and search by when indexing and testing to make sure all ads are working and input.
Read full review
Pros
Marin Software
  • Marin is a self-serve platform. You can tailor your campaigns per your preference/convenience/needs. You can customize your view, see % changes, create custom columns depending on your Key Performance Indicators, and set any sort of dimensions and labels that will help you filter for your campaigns on a daily basis.
  • Bidding and changes to destination URLs can be done through mass edits within the UI, without having to upload bulk-sheets. You push any changes from Marin to the Engines, and can also pull in your changes from Bing/AdWords engines by syncing your campaigns as well. The system will not publish anything you do not manually post until Midnight PST. You can copy paste straight from your excel bulksheet into the uploading tool (or upload the document through unicode text).
  • The Administrative log keeps track of all changes, and keeps users (through their logins) accountable for any edits. This way, you can filter for your name, and find the edits that you made, just to double check your work, or to make sure you are publishing the correct changes. There is a keyword- group- and campaign-level history/settings log, where you can see the name of the user who created, edited, published, paused, activated, deleted, etc. any item.
  • You can set up alerts that will help you manage accounts: anything from active campaigns with 0 ad copy, to finding keywords in low ad positions.
  • If you push duplicate keywords, the system will reject them, keeping our accounts from getting clouded due to human error. There is no need to download existing keywords or groups and use their keyword or group IDs to make any edits--instead, editing is a breeze because the system detects the new changes automatically. The only need for IDs is when making edits to creative.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • Easy Dashboard Navigation - Search bar allows user to quickly locate details about any campaign
  • Insightful Analytics Tools - Platform provides users customizable graphs to leverage for reporting presentations
  • Extensive Reporting Metrics - Ability to pull ad performance reports on all aspects of campaign
  • Simple Creative Hosting - Easy upload and path location details for creative files
Read full review
Cons
Marin Software
  • Support. They are addressing this currently, and things seem to have improved lately, but we were experiencing long delays in getting support tickets addressed.
  • New Google Shopping campaigns will not even show in the tool. Old PLA campaigns are fine however.
  • Random missing data. Typically this happens after an update, but we've seen data missing in various clients. Usually logging a support ticket and having Marin Support rerun a backend process resolves the issue.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • Sizmek's trading desk was a total miss when I tested it a few years ago.
  • I briefly used Abakus and did not find it intuitive, accurate or helpful. It has a long way to go before it can compete with the likes of VisualIQ.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Marin Software
I've used Marin Software now at three separate companies where I evaluated the platform along with several other internal partners. In each case, we did make the decision to renew based on our positive experience with the app and the customer support we received at the Enterprise level. Especially when we had complex integration questions or faced the change to Google's enhanced campaigns - Marin worked closely with us to make the transition seamless.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Usability
Marin Software
Marin Software's usability is bar none in the paid search world. All that said, I think Marin Software only appears superior because all the tools in the space provide extremely subpar support. Kenshoo is so complex that I don’t know think half the people that work there know how to use it.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Marin Software
The times that I have had to contact Marin support, they have been very helpful. When I spoke with them on the phone, they walked me through the process to be able to resolve the issue that I had, The gentleman walked me through all the steps and easily helped me resolve the issue that I had.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Online Training
Marin Software
Interactive helpful videos, summaries, and quizzes help a user learn the platform in demo-mode. The only challenge was that once you clicked certain buttons per instructions, you couldn't necessarily go back to retake notes without redoing the entire module.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Implementation Rating
Marin Software
As I said previously I would just highly recommend everyone being hands on during implementation to make sure everyone knows how to use the product. Marin Software does an excellent job with training and answering questions so this is not a significant insight however it makes the process easier in the long run
Read full review
Amazon AWS
No answers on this topic
Alternatives Considered
Marin Software
Marin is a must have for any enterprise-level PPC account. The time savings from task automation and the very sophisticated bidding platform can help any advertiser or agency effectively scale any account. In both AdWords and Bing, the bulk editing and automated bidding features are less reliable and prone to error. The interfaces are also unnecessarily complicated and outdated. While Google Analytics is a great tool, there are no features that tie true revenue data into these interfaces, limiting the amount you can really optimize around ROI.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
For me the main point here is the support, all the adservers offer more or less the same functionality and capabilities. The real advantage you will gain using Sizmek will be their customer support team and their open approach with other vendors.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Marin Software
  • It has definitely increased employee efficiency because we run on Yahoo Gemini, Bing, and Google. If we had to optimize/report per engine, it would take hours and hours each week.
  • I think it's made optimizations less of a daunting task in my daily routine. I've been able to pinpoint where our ROI suffers and work from there in a matter of minutes.
  • The customer service has gotten better and could still be improved. Our Marin rep used to be horrible at returning messages but once he got support, we were able to implement a ton more pixels and betas.
Read full review
Amazon AWS
  • Sizmek has had a positive impact on ROI because it delivers the reports our clients want and need
  • Sizmek has had a postive impact on employee morale due to ease of use
Read full review
ScreenShots