Item: Marin Software
Rating: 8
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin Software is a way for our company to manage all of our accounts in one interface. It is a great way for us to manage our Bing and Google accounts and campaigns in one place. The area where Marin really shines is when we need to make changes to multiple accounts without having to go into each account individually. We are able to select all of the accounts that we need whether it be Google or Bing, or both, and we can easily update both with one task. Marin also really helps for setting up a bidding strategy. We do a lot of bidding to position for our ads, and Marin makes this very easy to set up and implement. Overall, Marin is a very nice and easy tool to use, and I would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a way to manage a large account spanning multiple search networks.

Pros and Cons

Marin does a nice job managing both Google and Bing.
Marin has a nice bid optimization tool to either bid to position or bid for conversions for example.
Marin makes it easy to quickly make changes in a bulk sheet and upload and be all set.

The social tool needs a little improvement, like for managing Facebook and Twitter, they are a little lacking. I have used some social tools that have better features.
A better way to push everything live when we need it, not just during the nightly sync.
Marin can be slow at times when trying to pull a large report, possibly need better servers.

Return on Investment

Our overall ad position has increased.
Our CTR has also improved with Marin.
Our ad spend has increased as well.

Alternatives Considered

Kenshoo Search

I really like Marin, I have used it the most of any bid management tool, and it is by far my favorite. Marin has an easy to learn interface and a nice training program that helps get everyone up to speed when they are new to using the program. It is an awesome tool.

Likelihood to Renew

Now that I know the majority of the features available, I like that I know how to use the program already and I do not want to have to learn a new system. I have talked to a lot of people as well, and everyone I have talked to has said that Marin is their favorite.

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin is best suited for managing Google and Bing accounts. I would not recommend Marin if you are going to solely use it for Facebook and Twitter. Marin has put the most time into managing search networks and it shows when you try and use it to manage an account like Facebook.

Users and Roles

30 - The people that use Marin represent the entire search advertising department at the company. We all use Marin very heavily to manage all of our accounts. We use it to build new campaigns, pull reports, set up bids, and run daily budgets to make sure that we are always on track,

Support Headcount Required

2 - We have a few people that have been using Marin for a few years now, so if there are any difficult questions we can go to them to get an answer on these. If these people are not able to answer the questions we will usually use the Marin help hotline to get our questions answered.

Business Processes Supported

Managing Search campaigns.
Tracking Outcomes.
Building campaigns.

Innovative Uses

Managing cross channel campaigns.
Tracking several outcomes.
Creating custom columns to find data for our client.

Future Planned Uses

We might try out social campaigns.
Set up a numeric value to our outcomes.
Conversion optimized bidding.

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Product Usability
Prior Experience with the Product
Third-party Reviews

Marin is provided to me through the company that I work for, but if I was going to select a software in the future, I would select Marin for sure since it has been very easy to use and I already know a majority of the features in the software.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

If I was to redo the evaluation and selection process for selecting a software, I would most likely contact some current and former coworkers that I know have used the service in the past and ask them about the product. I would also ask some people who have used other products to see how they liked that product.

Implementation Rating

Not too much comes to mind for key insights regarding the implementation. Marin made the process as smooth as they could with the large account that we were working on. Once we had everything into the account, they walked us through the basic processes of the system and made sure everything was working properly.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Vendor implemented

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a minor issue with the implementation - There was not a lot of issues in the implementation with Marin since we started using it at the same time that we won the account that we are managing, so it made the process easy since we were not using a different program before. We uploaded everything into marin from the start.

Implementation Issues

It took time to upload the large accounts
It was a little slow uploading these large accounts, the system was bogged down
Not everyone knew Marin so it took a little while to get everyone up to speed.

Support Rating

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.

Marin Software Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Quick Resolution Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved No escalation required Immediate help available Support understands my problem Support cares about my success Quick Initial Response	None

Bug Resolution

Exceptional Examples of Marin Software Support

One of the times I had an issue uploading a campaign, and when I was on the phone with Marin, I shared my screen with the representative and he told me exactly what needed to be done to be able to upload the campaign with out receiving any errors with the upload.

Usability

Marin has a very basic layout, which makes it easy to use and easy to learn and this is very important in a fast paced environment, when there is not a whole lot of time to learn a new program without getting caught behind. Marin has some nice training that makes this whole process super easy.

Usability Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Like to use Relatively simple Easy to use Well integrated Consistent Quick to learn Convenient Feel confident using	Requires technical support

Marin Software Review Breakdown

Overall Satisfaction with Marin Software