AdRoll vs. Basis DSP

I used AdRoll at my previous agency and liked it. So much so, I am in the process of getting my new agency on board with using AdRoll. The primary reason is that it can be very advantageous for a small agency that doesn't meet many of the programmatic minimum ad buys to use. For many of our clients, re-targeting is also very important. I have found that I can get those types of campaigns up and running much quicker than using a platform directly. Overall, AdRoll is really easy to use and can be a great, low-barrier option for smaller agencies.

Incentivized

Basis DSP is well suited to every type of campaign imaginable. My firm specializes in outreach and education campaigns and we use Basis DSP in order to turn people out to events and to take specific actions. Basis has changed how we do business for the better. The hyperlocal campaigns, native campaigns, and audio campaigns have all added excellent additional capabilities to our tool box and have allowed us to complete very compelling campaigns for our clients.

Incentivized

• A customer service rep can help us out with any campaign questions, any time during the work week.
• The platform has a very transparent platform that provides great detail about analytics of the ads.
• The platform shows what digital advertising mediums are working the best for your website, not just the ads that you run through them.

• Customer Service and Support is fantastic. Always willing to educate our team and help us get the most value out of the platform.
• The ad fraud features are great. Through DV360 we need to use a third-party which comes with additional costs.
• Easy to use platform.

Incentivized

• Improved level of support during the technical setup process would really improve the onboarding process
• Consistent, proactive account management is key with organizations like AdRoll. A dedicated rep goes such a long way.
• More granular reporting would help with back-end optimization and client recommendations

Incentivized

• Managed service is a little pricey and tends to have slightly lower performance
• interface is very 90's, could use a real facelift purely from an aesthetic perspective
• Reports are continually being updated but could use some refinement in output for client-facing reports

Incentivized

Here are the questions we asked when we were going to renew (note: adroll does not have annual contract and you can cancel at anytime)

• what new products/ updates were released in the last 6 months?
• did I find these new products/updates helpful
• was I informed of these products in a timely fashion?
• did my Account Manage and Ad opps rep make suggestions on how I could make my campaigns more efficient and effective?

Honestly, AdRoll is like every other ad management system. In fact, all ad management systems are pretty much identical with a few proprietary tweaks. Creating a campaign is done in one seamless screen with everything you need right there. The ability to add creative and even order AdRoll to create ads for you is also easy. The monitoring of a live campaign is easy as you can see all the necessary information from the main screen. Super easy to use and reliable deliverability

Incentivized

It's pretty basic, nothing is hidden and nothing ever moves so you can count on finding what you are looking for each day

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

We have a dedicated account rep. She makes it seem like we are her only client, she is very responsive, helps each time we have a question and understands our campaign goals. Anytime we need support, our rep is available either email or call and if she is not going to be available, she will let us know ahead of time to provide back up and inform them of our current campaigns so they can better assist us.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

There are a ton of tactics and strategy to implement in the DSP platform. There isn't really a selection of the different types of campaigns or tactics to choose from, you just have to learn as you go. Once you figure out the strategy and goal of the campaign it is very easy to implement the tactic and to achieve its goals.

Incentivized

Adroll is slightly better than Criteo, in my opinion. Criteo, only does web ads right now, which is frustrating if you are also running social campaigns. Adroll continues to be a one stop shop for all advertising campaigns and is extremely convenient in that regard. Criteo works off of a PPC type of structure and Adroll charges per impression. Criteo would be more beneficial with that model.

Incentivized

Basis [DSP] has much better fraud control than SmartyAds DSP. Even though they do not have the amount of supply inventory as Smarty, they have much more controls for invalid traffic and bots which is very important to minimize discrepancies and issues with clients. Compared to other DSPs though, it lags on performance solutions.

Incentivized

• Mixed - while the tool provides an invaluable productivity gain the actual ROI it provides is less certain. We found if used in combination with other revenue analytics it was useful to determine the impact it had on revenue from returning visitors. If data is used on its own the impact on revenue is less quantifiable.

Incentivized

• Basis DSP allows us to reach users in many different places while controlling costs - access to major exchanges at a competitive bid rate allows us to provide a lot of added-value to clients without dramatically increasing the cost they incur.
• The team is friendly, helpful, and responsive, so we don't have a lot of situations where we're locked in campaign downtime due to a customer service issue with negative downstream impacts to the bottom line.
• Periodic reporting outages have resulted in campaigns that overpace and incur needless costs (however, this is certainly an exception, not the rule).

Incentivized