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    Overview
    ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price

    Microsoft Azure

    Score8.5 out of 10
    N/AMicrosoft Azure is a cloud computing platform and infrastructure for building, deploying, and managing applications and services through a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters.

    $29

    per month

    Skai

    Score9 out of 10
    N/ASkai (formerly Kenshoo) is a cross-channel advertising solution for search marketing, social media and online advertising. The product aims to give advertisers and agencies the control and automation needed to make better investment decisions across search marketing and online advertising.

    $10,000

    Starting Price

    Pricing
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Editions & Modules
    Developer
    $29
    per month
    Standard
    $100
    per month
    Professional Direct
    $1000
    per month
    Basic
    Free
    per month
    Kenshoo
    $10,000
    Starting Price
    Offerings
    Pricing Offerings
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Free Trial
    YesNo
    Free/Freemium Version
    YesNo
    Premium Consulting/Integration Services
    NoNo
    Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
    Additional DetailsThe free tier lets users have access to a variety of services free for 12 months with limited usage after making an Azure account.—
    More Pricing Information
    Community Pulse
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Considered Both Products
    Microsoft
    No answer on this topic
    Skai
    No answer on this topic
    Key User Insights
    Would buy again
    92%
    Would buy again
    34 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Delivers good value for the price
    94%
    Delivers good value for the price
    31 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Happy with the feature set
    95%
    Happy with the feature set
    35 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    89%
    Lived up to sales and marketing promises
    24 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Implementation went as expected
    94%
    Implementation went as expected
    34 Answers
    No answers on this topic
    Features
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS)
    Comparison of Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) features of Microsoft Azure and Skai
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    8.4
    27 Ratings
    2% above category average
    Skai
    -
    Ratings
    Service-level Agreement (SLA) uptime8.126 Ratings00 Ratings
    Dynamic scaling8.725 Ratings00 Ratings
    Elastic load balancing8.624 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-configured templates8.225 Ratings00 Ratings
    Monitoring tools8.326 Ratings00 Ratings
    Pre-defined machine images8.424 Ratings00 Ratings
    Operating system support8.926 Ratings00 Ratings
    Security controls8.626 Ratings00 Ratings
    Automation8.224 Ratings00 Ratings
    Ad Network Integration
    Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Microsoft Azure and Skai
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Skai
    7.1
    10 Ratings
    3% below category average
    Data Transfer00 Ratings8.510 Ratings
    DSP integration00 Ratings5.75 Ratings
    Ad Campaigns
    Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Microsoft Azure and Skai
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Skai
    6.1
    11 Ratings
    25% below category average
    Ad campaign creation00 Ratings7.611 Ratings
    Ad deployment00 Ratings7.611 Ratings
    Display advertising00 Ratings4.310 Ratings
    Ad display and retargeting segmentation00 Ratings4.810 Ratings
    Sequence targeting00 Ratings6.39 Ratings
    Ad Reporting & Analytics
    Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Microsoft Azure and Skai
    Feature
    Microsoft Azure
    -
    Ratings
    Skai
    7.3
    12 Ratings
    6% below category average
    Ad dashboards00 Ratings7.612 Ratings
    Ad performance reports00 Ratings9.812 Ratings
    Ad conversion tracking00 Ratings6.712 Ratings
    Ad attribution reporting00 Ratings7.611 Ratings
    Cross-channel ad management00 Ratings5.910 Ratings
    Ad forecasting and optimization00 Ratings6.211 Ratings
    Best Alternatives
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Small Businesses
    IBM Cloud Object Storage
    Score9 out of 10
    AdRoll
    Score3.7 out of 10
    Medium-sized Companies
    IBM Cloud Bare Metal Servers
    Score8.7 out of 10
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    Enterprises
    SAP on IBM Cloud
    Score9 out of 10
    Criteo Commerce Growth
    Score8 out of 10
    All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
    User Ratings
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Likelihood to Recommend
    8.7
    (96 ratings)
    9.2
    (17 ratings)
    Likelihood to Renew
    10.0
    (17 ratings)
    7.8
    (3 ratings)
    Usability
    8.3
    (36 ratings)
    9.6
    (2 ratings)
    Availability
    6.8
    (2 ratings)
    3.6
    (1 ratings)
    Support Rating
    9.0
    (27 ratings)
    9.6
    (2 ratings)
    Implementation Rating
    8.0
    (2 ratings)
    -
    (0 ratings)
    User Testimonials
    Microsoft AzureSkai
    Likelihood to Recommend
    Microsoft
    Azure is particularly well suited for enterprise environments with existing Microsoft investments, those that require robust compliance features, and organizations that need hybrid cloud capabilities that bridge on-premises and cloud infrastructure. In my opinion, Azure is less appropriate for cost-sensitive startups or small businesses without dedicated cloud expertise and scenarios requiring edge computing use cases with limited connectivity. Azure offers comprehensive solutions for most business needs but can feel like there is a higher learning curve than other cloud-based providers, depending on the product and use case.
    Read full review
    Skai
    Kenshoo would be a good tool if your client has extremely high budgets with low CPCs. For small, geo-specific accounts the capabilities have not be built out. Therefore, the tool could not budget pace our 250+ accounts. The main reason we had chosen Kenshoo was because of its budget pacing capabilities. Unfortunately, it did not save us time and created additional budget pacing issues with over pacing our accounts.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Pros
    Microsoft
    • Microsoft Azure is highly scalable and flexible. You can quickly scale up or down additional resources and computing power.
    • You have no longer upfront investments for hardware. You only pay for the use of your computing power, storage space, or services.
    • The uptime that can be achieved and guaranteed is very important for our company. This includes the rapid maintenance for security updates that are mostly carried out by Microsoft.
    • The wide range of capabilities of services that are possible in Microsoft Azure. You can practically put or create anything in Microsoft Azure.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Skai
    • Kenshoo Search bid policies make bid optimization easy and automated. Optimizations are based off of sophisticated algorithms rather than simple bid rules (although Kenshoo Search also offers these). There are many different policies to choose from. Simply choose your type of goal (example: awareness vs. ROI), choose your metric, and assign to your campaign(s) and/or account.
    • Kenshoo Search reporting offers a large selection of reporting templates that are easily exported to Microsoft Excel. In addition, they also offer dashboard reporting with a variety of different widgets that are easily customizable. This feature makes it extremely easy to view metrics that may normally require manual excel work.
    • Kenshoo Search has a Desktop Editor tool similar to Google Adwords Editor that makes bulk optimizations easy and time efficient. This is a huge resource win for me and my team!
    Read full review
    Cons
    Microsoft
    • The cost of resources is difficult to determine, technical documentation is frequently out of date, and documentation and mapping capabilities are lacking.
    • The documentation needs to be improved, and some advanced configuration options require research and experimentation.
    • Microsoft's licensing scheme is too complex for the average user, and Azure SQL syntax is too different from traditional SQL.
    Read full review
    Skai
    • When working with large accounts, such as mine, the tool can be slow. There are a lot of times where the editor tool will freeze, and I'm not sure if I need to reboot or exit the tool. I wish it was a smooth process, much like the AdWords editor tool.
    • Kenshoo support can be slow to respond at times. In the ticketing industry, things are very much based on time of day or time of the week. If the product is down or not functioning during an on-sale or a major event, it can be difficult to get tech support on the phone.
    • Their reporting really doesn't set them a part from the competition. I've used social tools such as Marin and a few others, and they're all pretty similar as far as reporting. If possible, I think you're better off using Google Analytics for reporting, just so you have a common denominator.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Likelihood to Renew
    Microsoft
    Moving to Azure was and still is an organizational strategy and not simply changing vendors. Our product roadmap revolved around Azure as we are in the business of humanitarian relief and Azure and Microsoft play an important part in quickly and efficiently serving all of the world. Migration and investment in Azure should be considered as an overall strategy of an organization and communicated companywide.
    Read full review
    Skai
    We received great customer service from the Kenshoo Social team, they listen to feedback, and truly work to get things fixed. The tool works well and they are always working on ways to improve it to help improve performance for our clients
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Usability
    Microsoft
    As Microsoft Azure is [doing a] really good with PaaS. The need of a market is to have [a] combo of PaaS and IaaS. While AWS is making [an] exceptionally well blend of both of them, Azure needs to work more on DevOps and Automation stuff. Apart from that, I would recommend Azure as a great platform for cloud services as scale.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Skai
    Set-up like other marketing platforms. If you know Google Ads, you know Kenshoo
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Reliability and Availability
    Microsoft
    It has proven to be unreliable in our production environment and services become unavailable without proper notification to system administrators
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Skai
    No answers on this topic
    Support Rating
    Microsoft
    We were running Windows Server and Active Directory, so [Microsoft] Azure was a seamless transition. We ran into a few, if any support issues, however, the availability of Microsoft Azure's support team was more than willing and able to guide us through the process. They even proposed solutions to issues we had not even thought of!
    Incentivized
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    Skai
    Very responsive and bring fast answers for problems
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Implementation Rating
    Microsoft
    As I have mentioned before the issue with my Oracle Mismatch Version issues that have put a delay on moving one of my platforms will justify my 7 rating.
    Read full review
    Skai
    No answers on this topic
    Alternatives Considered
    Microsoft
    As I continue to evaluate the "big three" cloud providers for our clients, I make the following distinctions, though this gap continues to close. AWS is more granular, and inherently powerful in the configuration options compared to [Microsoft] Azure. It is a "developer" platform for cloud. However, Azure PowerShell is helping close this gap. Google Cloud is the leading containerization platform, largely thanks to it building kubernetes from the ground up. Azure containerization is getting better at having the same storage/deployment options.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Skai
    I think Skai beats the competitors with its advanced bidding management system, this is a unique feature of them that if you implement properly, your accounts will surely benefit from this, especially if you have tons of data that the algo can learn from and optimize accordingly. In terms of reporting, they are the best we've got so far, scheduling options are great.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Return on Investment
    Microsoft
    • For about 2 years we didn't have to do anything with our production VMs, the system ran without a hitch, which meant our engineers could focus on features rather than infrastructure.
    • DNS management was very easy in Azure, which made it easy to upgrade our cluster with zero downtime.
    • Azure Web UI was easy to work with and navigate, which meant our senior engineers and DevOps team could work with Azure without formal training.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    Skai
    • ROI is harder to track due to reporting/column & time frame default tech in my humble opinion but generally better results when compared to other products
    • Since the interface is difficult to navigate and paid search is a reactive medium, can produce barriers to change.
    Incentivized
    Read full review
    ScreenShots