AdRoll vs. Taboola

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

I think Taboola is great for either lead gen or for shopping product sites. I would definitely have a full-time person running the campaigns. If not managed properly, things can get out of hand with costs going up and conversion rates dropping.

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.

• A good value on clicks -- they have visitors for all CPCs!
• Worldwide reach and relatability -- so many providers use Taboola. It's very easy to reach your audience wherever.
• High quality -- their policies ensure that only enjoyable, modest content is provided.

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

• I have noticed that customer support has decreased in the past year as Taboola has grown. It sometimes takes four days or more for a campaign to be approved. It used to be immediate and always within 24 hours.
• Credit card billing with high fees is now mandatory. If a company is going to make credit card billing mandatory don't charge fees. Our expense has increased by around 2.5% which I need to always keep in mind when comparing the CPC of campaigns on competing platforms.
• Our customer support rep used to give us a lot of help with optimization. We stopped getting support from her over eight months ago and we recently got an email that we now have to contact support@taboola.com even though our spend had almost doubled! However, we just were informed that we will now have a new rep, hopefully we will get more support now. When I say support I mean a rep that contacts us with optimization ideas.

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 was pretty straightforward getting an account set up and having an account rep assigned. Compared to some other platforms Taboola is actually rather intuitive when it comes to navigating the user interface. Pixel implementation was easy and we didn't have any discrepancies tracking conversions. Also the ability to target LALs was very useful and semi-straightforward to upload.

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

Support on Taboola has been great. We have always been in constant communication with their team and they have answered all of our questions and helped us when we had any issues or concerns.

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

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

Taboola ranks pretty low for us, right next to Criteo and Revcontent, but above Traffic Junky. It's still nowhere as good as the social media platforms or Google. We selected Taboola because we had previously run ads years ago and wanted to see if we could make it profitable again. It offers more targeting options than Revcontent and Traffic Junky. I didn't care for the billing by credit card though. I would much prefer a net 15 or net 30 plan.

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

• Taboola guarantees stable user flow across the campaign period. I use balanced spending setting on my campaign so that the budget is well spread throughout the month, but usually, the traffic is higher nearing the end of the campaign.
• New users and more awareness. Taboola allows us to reach potential readers without much hassle.
• Users from Taboola are a high-quality audience who spend a lot of time on your website and read several pages. Unlikely to be bots.

Incentivized