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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Advertising

    Score7.7 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) contains Microsoft's advertising solutions. Advertising formats include search (Microsoft Search ads), Display and Native ads, Retail Media, and Video and Connected TV (CTV) ads. Services include Performance Max, the company's conversion optimization AI assistant and guide.N/A

    Smartly.io

    Score10 out of 10
    N/ASmartly.io supports Facebook and Instagram advertising campaigns with campaign optimization, multi-product ads, automatic budget allocation and optimization, and custom analytics.N/A
    Pricing
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Editions & Modules
    No answers on this topic
    No answers on this topic
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    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
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Smartly.io
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    68%
    Would buy again
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    70%
    Delivers good value for the price
    21 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    65%
    Happy with the feature set
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    59%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    17 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    67%
    Implementation went as expected
    20 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Microsoft Advertising and Smartly.io
    Feature
    Microsoft Advertising
    6.5
    6 Ratings
    0% above category average
    Smartly.io
    -
    Ratings
    Ad campaign creation8.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad deployment8.36 Ratings00 Ratings
    Display advertising6.46 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation6.46 Ratings00 Ratings
    Sequence targeting5.95 Ratings00 Ratings
    Contextual advertising5.56 Ratings00 Ratings
    Social advertising4.95 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Microsoft Advertising and Smartly.io
    Feature
    Microsoft Advertising
    6.6
    8 Ratings
    4% below category average
    Smartly.io
    -
    Ratings
    Ad dashboards6.28 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad performance reports6.87 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking7.36 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting7.06 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization5.85 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Auctions
    Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Microsoft Advertising and Smartly.io
    Feature
    Microsoft Advertising
    7.3
    7 Ratings
    14% below category average
    Smartly.io
    -
    Ratings
    Ad bidding7.37 Ratings00 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Small Businesses
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Score8.5 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    WordStream
    Score6.9 out of 10
    X Ads
    Score4.9 out of 10
    Enterprises
    No answers on this topic
    LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
    Score8.5 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    7.4
    (70 ratings)
    9.0
    (2 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Usability
    7.9
    (4 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.1
    (11 ratings)
    10.0
    (1 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    7.0
    (1 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AdvertisingSmartly.io
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Despite using our account for advertising with every other social media company, Microsoft flagged ours as fraudulent. After dealing with them for weeks, we finally got to a manager, who said that they didn’t know anything, couldn’t provide any information, and was unable to do anything about it. It seems odd, but it would flagger account every time we try to upload the campaigns from Google directly into their ad manager. I would suggest if you try and use their platform, don’t tell them you’re using Google cause they seem to have a thing against it. Once your account is flagged, they have no reasonable way of resolving it, nor they are able to offer any support. You’re better off to just try a different way. Ultimately, just don’t use Microsoft advertising if you can possibly avoid it. Hopefully soon DuckDuckGo will have their own advertising platform and we can eliminate Microsoft given the terrible time we have working with this one of many, social media platforms.
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    It is the best for visually appealing brands, basically, any hedonic goods to advertise. Best if you have a lot of visuals to represent your business and want to leverage your presence on given platforms. You can easily turn images into videos or have dynamic attributes for your remarketing campaign. As the pricing is not attractive for smaller clients, it is the best to be either a big brand to use the platform on your own or a big agency to use smartly.io features as your competitive advantage.
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Familiar interface, offers editor for bulk changes, adding negative keywords is much easier than in Google Ads
    • Nice reporting tools within the interface, detailed reports can be made fairly easily
    • Had very nice tools to help import/export ads directly from Google Ads, which saves a ton of time
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • A/B testing
    • Automated boosting
    • Content optimization
    • Customer care
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • Bing's ad platform could definitely use some improvements - it hasn't been updated in a long time, and it feels very outdated.
    • We feel that the optimization algorithms don't always perform as well for Bing Ads as they do in Google Ads (optimize for conversions, etc.).
    • It would be great to have even more integrations with LinkedIn audience targeting offered - right now, you can just make some bid optimizations in a couple of areas; we'd really like to get more robust options there, and maybe even things like cross-platform tracking.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • Pricing is not attractive to smaller agencies. The base minimum was 1k per month, then 2.5k per month and it grew up to 5k per month. It means that agencies will have to choose service of competitors as Smartly.io is not affordable for everyone. It becomes a premium business.
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    We have had good success with it over all of our clients. We continually recommend bing to reach "the rest of the searchers".
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Usability
    Microsoft
    It's very easy to use overall. It has an import from Google Ads to make things simpler. Overall, I would say you can get up and running very quickly. It's similar to other platforms, so if you have used them, it's intuitive.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    Our Bing Ads reps are very good and attentive. They've offered good recommendations and are quick to resolve unexpected issues and problems. Occasionally they have roped in technical support folks that have been friendly and helpful too. The general helpline for Bing Ads is also very good, especially when compared to Google's customer support.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • If the problem involves some product bugs, customer support does not leave it be. They forward the problem to engineers so it would be solved. Once we caught a problem, they fixed it through the weekend. They always keep you in the loop with the current status of the issue. Once a new person jumps in to follow up, the reaction is
    • They are all the time super polite and very friendly.
    • Replies in under 5 minutes.
    • Customer support can jump into your account and make quick fixes if you allow them to.
    Read full review
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    Obviously Google is a huge competitor. Typically Google is top of the game for many advertising solutions including search. Microsoft ads has a lower scale and reach compared to Google. However, Microsoft ads audience does not overlap much with Googles, providing incremental reach. Although Microsoft ads lags a bit behind in adapting the new updates that Google comes out with, their customer service is very good and they are likely to go out of their way to adapt their platform to your needs whereas their competitor does not
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    No answers on this topic
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • We've had a very hard time spending our budgets on Bing which has caused us a lot of extra work on our end. We've essentially had to move that money back to Google or other platforms.
    • It does have an easy import from Google so you're not doubling efforts.
    • The CPCs tend to be less expensive than Google - which is always good for business owners.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Smartly.io
    • Allowed us the ability to A/B test organic content
    • Workflow efficiencies
    • Content insights
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots