Sizmek Ad Suite (discontinued) vs. The Trade Desk

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.

Incentivized

After extensive research of DSP and DMP platforms in the market, our agency made the wise decision to license TTD's platform and develop a long-term partnership. TTD continues to innovate and offer cutting-edge media buying solutions, access to more audience data segments, and access to new and emerging media channels like CTV/OTT and digital-out-of-home. We couldn't be happier with TTD's technology and is one of the most advanced agency users of TTD is a key differentiator for our agency.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• User engagement - Cookie matching provides better engagement and effectiveness
• Reporting of campaigns - Great reporting on display advertising & platforms
• Dashboard reporting - Scalable to global deployment & campaigns

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Reporting platform leaves a lot to be desired. Requires a lot of trial/error to pull exactly what you need to drive optimizations/learnings.
• The "stop"/"continue bidding" feature for sitelists, devices, player sizes, etc is awful. When you set something up specifically, you should not have the AUTOMATIC option to serve beyond those parameters.
• Trafficking video (VAST/VPAID) tags requires a manual insertion of a click URL. Completely redundant ask and is not provided by advertisers as that URL lives within the ad tag. Should not require multiple actions traffic a video tag.
• Creative approval process (manual) doesn't seem necessary and is not a part of peers' platforms. There is no "pause/deactivate" feature for creative, you remove them or adjust the end date.

Incentivized

easy to understand dashboards and the self started ability to get going on your own terms. It's great to target niche groups across the world while still being able to report at a high level to C-suite. Wish it drove more conversions, but display can be a struggle there. Overall, would use it again.

Incentivized

We noted no issues with our limited interaction with support. The software operated just as expected and we found that we were able to navigate needs on our own. We understand that The Trade Desk offers excellent support, so we believe it will be a good resource to us in the future.

Incentivized

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.

The Trade Desk is a much better product than AppNexus. Even though both products showed promise awhile back, AppNexus stopped innovating and The Trade Desk became specialists on data, cross site tracking and CTV inventory thus having a better and more unique product that actually adds value to your advertising efforts.

Incentivized

• 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

Incentivized

• The good thing about having an agency account is The Trade Desk lets you add your markups to the client billing.
• We had a very positive response from clients regarding their perceived ROI on their ad spend through The Trade Desk.
• We did not have many national clients, mostly local dealerships, so it was difficult for them to allocate a lot of funds to display advertising, even though the ROI yield was acceptable.

Incentivized