Item: AdRoll
Rating: 7
Author: Lee L Kennedy

Overall Satisfaction with AdRoll

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use AdRoll as a display retargeting platform for a few clients at our agency. We use it to supplement the retargeting capabilities of other advertising networks like Facebook Ads, Google Ads, and Microsoft Ads. We use it on the paid marketing side of things, and it fits in well with our other paid media channels.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Variety of advertising media types and sizes
Variety of audiences you can choose from to advertise to
The interface is pretty up to date and easy to use

Cons

I'm not sure I trust AdRoll's attributed "revenue". It appears to be significantly overcalculating its effectiveness.
I find the interface a bit confusing in a few places like if you want to see reporting for specific audiences split out.
Switching between editing campaigns and viewing campaign metrics is a bit confusing.

Return on Investment

It has positively impacted ROI by providing another channel we can serve our display ads. According to their attribution, it's doing very well.
I'm not sure it's been a worthwhile investment though, as the direct traffic from adroll ads is basically 0.

Alternatives Considered

Google Ads (formerly AdWords), Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) and Facebook for Business

AdRoll has been used by a few of our clients for a long time now, but I'm not sure it has ever proven as valuable as the other advertising platforms. We have continued to use it because it is inexpensive (and because it says it drives a lot of revenue), but it is a minimal investment and we do not actively manage it like we do other channels.

Key Insights

Do you think AdRoll delivers good value for the price?

Not sure

Are you happy with AdRoll's feature set?

Yes

Did AdRoll live up to sales and marketing promises?

I wasn't involved with the selection/purchase process

Did implementation of AdRoll go as expected?

I wasn't involved with the implementation phase

Would you buy AdRoll again?

Likelihood to Recommend

We use AdRoll specifically for retargeting as a supplement to our other display and retargeting channels, as we figure each channel (Google Ads, Facebook Ads, etc) does not cover every potential advertising placement. It is easy to spin up a basic retargeting campaign, but I'm unsure if it's the best platform for more advanced campaigns as the functionality and breadth of placement options appear to be limited compared to bigger platforms.

AdRoll Feature Ratings

Using AdRoll

Users and Roles

1 - AdRoll is used by a client of ours to show retargeting ads to our potential customers. They supplement our Google and Facebook ads by running on a network that those platforms may not be able to reach. We are able to identify multiple segments of our funnel to retarget and are able to show each funnel segment different ads.

Support Headcount Required

1 - Running AdRoll campaigns requires at least a basic knowledge of advertising platforms and an understanding of your advertising goals and tactics. Being able to select audiences, upload ads, and manage the bids and budgets is crucial to performing well. You would need to have direct communication with the stakeholders at your company so you can keep up to date on how your campaigns are affecting sales and profitability.

Business Processes Supported

Retargeting to potential customers
Supplementing the the advertising platforms of our other networks like Google and Facebook.
Being able to target multiple levels of our funnel with specific ads

Innovative Uses

We split our audience across multiple funnel segments and target them with specific ads for each segment

Future Planned Uses

We may expand our advertising on AdRoll to more than just retargeting.

Likelihood to Renew

We like AdRoll as it's filling a hole in our advertising right now, but it's not our favorite platform for running our online ads. Google and Facebook especially are our favorites, as we can do much more with them than we can with AdRoll, hence the 7 out of 10 rating.

Evaluating AdRoll and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Features
Product Usability

AdRoll was attractive in the features related to the retargeting audiences we could use. We knew that we wanted to target the people that had been on our website as many times as possible, so AdRoll's ability to do that on top of our other efforts was important in our purchasing decision.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

The one factor that might affect our decision in the future is understanding how AdRoll reports on the revenue that is created with its platform. It's hard to know how effective the campaigns are because the View-Through revenue that they report seems incredibly high compared to what our last-click reports show.

AdRoll Implementation

Implementation Rating

Implementation was easy, as all we needed to do was use Google Tag Manager's built in AdRoll tag type and input our client ID and we were up and running. If you're not using Google Tag Manager, I imagine the implementation would be relatively easy as well, as all that's needed is a basic pixel.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Implementation Issues

None, just adding the pixel via Google Tag Manager

AdRoll Support

AdRoll Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved	Slow Resolution

Premium Support

No, we did not purchase premium support for AdRoll. We do not use their support enough to need additional coverage than what comes with the platform by default. If we were to expand our usage of AdRoll, we may consider a more advanced package with them so we could work with them to manage the campaigns a bit more than we do now.

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of AdRoll Support

n/a

Support Rating

We don't use AdRoll support much, but when we have it's been fine, in line with other advertising platforms where it takes a few days maximum to resolve an issue that you have with them. In general though, the platform is very self sufficient and we do not have to use their support much, which is a good thing.

Using AdRoll

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Easy to use Technical support not required Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Familiar	None

Easy Tasks

Reviewing how each segment of our funnel is performing.
Navigate between the different campaigns that we're running.
View our campaign performance history and other reporting.

Difficult Tasks

Setting up new campaigns
Navigating through the settings of existing accounts

Usability

Usability for AdRoll is decent, but the interface is a bit tough to navigate when you're trying to identify areas of opportunity or ways you can improve your campaigns. They have some audience definitions, like "High Intent" that are not described, so there is quite a bit of trust required to fully use their platform.

Comments

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