Item: Marin Software
Rating: 8
Author: Robert Frost

Overall Satisfaction with Marin Software

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

At ethology, we use Marin Software for our client bid management and reporting platform. All clients are on-boarded to Marin and all reporting is based out of the platform. We also are rolling out bid management to all clients. Currently, the Paid Search department is using it, with account management and finance accessing it for reporting needs.

Pros and Cons

Pros

Consolidation of multiple accounts. Google, Bing, other...all in one place. This is why reporting is based out of Marin. One data source vs. many.
Bid management for financial goals. Setting a cost-per-conversion goal allows Marin to maximize conversions by adjusting bids up and down. Performance increases are amazing!
Reporting. Flexibility of reports is pretty cool.

Cons

Support. They are addressing this currently, and things seem to have improved lately, but we were experiencing long delays in getting support tickets addressed.
New Google Shopping campaigns will not even show in the tool. Old PLA campaigns are fine however.
Random missing data. Typically this happens after an update, but we've seen data missing in various clients. Usually logging a support ticket and having Marin Support rerun a backend process resolves the issue.

Return on Investment

Positive: Increased efficiency for sure.
Positive: More comprehensive reports.
Negative: Fees come off our bottom line. We've been able to pass through a portion of the fees to clients, but only a handful. The rest is lost revenue.

Alternatives Considered

Kenshoo Search

Marin is very comparable to Kenshoo, and (for us anyway) quite a bit less expensive. Sure, Kenshoo has some additional features not offered by Marin that would be cool to have, but those features come at a hefty premium. Marin does everything we need it to do, at an acceptable cost.

Likelihood to Renew

We have a solid Marin account team that is thoroughly invested in our business. They are insightful, helpful, and are always willing to walk us through any new features or retrain us on old ones. Additionally, the sales dept at Marin has been helpful in providing use-cases, whitepapers, and other documents that have assisted our sales team with closing new business.

Likelihood to Recommend

If you are using Google Shopping campaigns, wait until Q4 to purchase. They are not supported in Marin until then, at the earliest.
Cost: We were able to negotiate a decent % of spend rate, but standard rates can be fairly high, especially when compared to other tools, with the exception of Kenshoo.

Using Marin Software

Users and Roles

10 - Paid search specialists, account managers, paid search management team, finance dept., several end clients.

Support Headcount Required

1 - It's pretty much just me that supports our users. I have the most experience with Marin and have gotten the most training. We rely heavily on our Marin account team and the Marin support team as well.

Business Processes Supported

Reporting
Bid Management
Account Consolidation

Innovative Uses

Using Web Query reports to forecast account spend and adjust daily.
Use exported CSV reports to import into our homegrown reporting tool.
Extensive bid management automation.

Future Planned Uses

Facebook management (if we'd ever get a client who wants to advertise there).
Using their Revenue Connect tool to add adMarketplace campaigns.
Baidu/Yandex campaigns.

Evaluating Marin Software and Competitors

Products Replaced

Key Differentiators

Price
Product Features
Product Usability
Positive Sales Experience with the Vendor

Price was probably the number one deciding factor when we first made the decision to use Marin.

Evaluation Lessons Learned

Perhaps. I was really impressed with the Doubleclick demo we got (and they are very inexpensive), but their integration with Bing and Facebook isn't so great.

Marin Software Implementation

Implementation Rating

I think if we had known what we wanted, the implementation would have been perfect. Since we didn't, there was quite a bit of back and forth between ethology and the implementation team at Marin. The process ended up taking a lot longer than we expected it to take, but worked out in the end.

Implementation Details / Implementation Partner

Vendor implemented
Implemented in-house

Implementation Phases

Change Management Lessons

Change management was a minor issue with the implementation

Implementation Issues

Adoption by employees
Tracking setup for Google Analytics
Bidding setup

Marin Software Support

Support Rating

While they are getting much better with the new restructured support dept, the previous ticketing system was prone to long wait times, inexperienced techs who would just link you to help desk articles that didn't apply, and unresolved issues. I think the addition of a direct support phone number in addition to our account team was a huge help.

Marin Software Customer Support Pros and Cons

Pros	Cons
Good followup Knowledgeable team Problems get solved Kept well informed No escalation required Support understands my problem Support cares about my success	None

Bug Resolution

Yes - The most recent one, no...it's been escalated to an advanced support team. Prior to that since the new support system, yes.

Exceptional Examples of Marin Software Support

Needed to add Google Analytics tracking to Marin, something that must be done on the back end. The tech was able to get this accomplished within 30 min of my logging a support ticket.