AdStage vs. LinkedIn Marketing Solutions

We've increased conversions by 25% through budget optimization with AdStage. This was the first time we saw tangible returns on an ad monitoring service and it has allowed us to spend smarter over time by reviewing the ads, seeing what worked, and adjusting on the fly. At the end of the day, the goal is more conversions or at least more information on win/loss. AdStage makes it easy to see all of that in one cute little place

LinkedIn has a much higher CPC than most commonly used platforms resulting in a much higher CPL/CPA. For businesses that don't have big CPC budgets, it would be difficult to be able to run tests without breaking the bank. Unless they get it right out of the gate, they may not find success with their efforts. On the opposite side of that, if a business can afford higher acquisition costs, this platform is likely worth exploring. They offer precise targeting with audiences full of professionals so often the leads are really high quality if you get it right.

Incentivized

• AdStage has a great onboarding process. We have a dedicated support rep who walked our entire team through each of the three major sections of AdStage, talked about use cases and even recorded the training so we could provide it to other, future team members.
• The real power of AdStage for us is in the Automation. You can set up rules for when to do things like increase budget or raise bids on certain ad channels. If something is doing well, push more money to it without ever logging in. Likewise, if something is tanking it gets turned off without you having to be at your computer. It frees up our team to focus on more strategic, creative endeavors by handling the "grunt work".
• The ability to create custom metrics is a real plus. Sometimes, even with systems as advanced as Google and Facebook are, they just don't understand how to set up what you want to measure. Maybe I want to know the cost for all purchases across apps and my website? AdStage's custom metrics let me design that, and then use it in my reports, dashboards or rules.

Incentivized

• Targets the exact right audience for your B2B messaging: you don't have to guess based on likes or any other periphery data to determine whether you're reaching the right audience - you can hit by job title, years of experience, job function, seniority, and other great ways to ensure precision delivery to the correct audience.
• Offers a helpful variety of ad units that are great for different types of campaigns to make sure you're reaching your audience in the right format for the ask.
• Self-service platform now for all ad units, enabling you to take control of your LInkedIn marketing with a hands-on approach.

Incentivized

• More reporting options
• More export options
• Saved templates per user or oganization

• LinkedIn has a relatively limited audience size when compared to other social media platforms.
• There is a large group of LinkedIn users that create an account and never return, but messages still hit their inboxes.
• LinkedIn targeting by job title can be limiting, as they set a hard limit on targeted titles per campaign.

Incentivized

AdStage has been great and the only reason we wouldn't renew is if we decided to build this all out internally for API access. But, customer services is great, the product is great and I'd definitely recommend it.

Incentivized

in terms of promoted content reporting and usability, the platform is not as flexible or easy to use compared to more established social platforms like Facebook. However, it does offer plug-ins to Google Data Studio which makes pulling and manipulating data easier. My main usability gripe comes when looking at organic performance of a company page. There isn't an easy way to export organic performance data.

Incentivized

AdStage had great support. They got back to me quickly every time, they always had or found an answer for what I was looking for, they took my feedback well, and they were knowledgeable with the platform and any issues I had. I have worked with a lot of other companies that are slow and AdStage definitely isn't one of them.

Incentivized

So, everything what I just said previously adds up to the value of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Definitely recommending it to a friend. It has its things to improve but its nothing major or nothing to worry about. So I give a 9 because it still has that, some user interface glitches that can be improved but do not damage the experience that you have with it.

Incentivized

We've used tools like Companion Labs and AdEspresso before for Facebook Ads, or Optmyzer or WordStream for Google Ads, and AdStage has so many features that these systems don't. True, it's drastically more expensive than most, but the feature set is leaps and bounds above. From automation to reporting to even campaign monitoring being in a single platform with this level of customization, it's playing at a different level than anything else we've used off-the-shelf.

Incentivized

LinkedIn offered a different way to market and that was through direct messaging on the platform. Those direct messages result in a push notification and an email (depending on the user's settings), so we knew that was a more creative and attention-getting spend. It made more sense for our professional clientele as well.

Incentivized

• We haven't been using it long enough to have a positive ROI, but I'm confident we will as we optimize our campaigns based on the data we receive from AdStage.
• AdStage saves myself and my team hours of time each week that we would normally spend preparing reporting or doing ad analysis in excel. This was the reason we purchased AdStage, and it's really living up to its promise.

Incentivized

• As an agency, LinkedIn gives us one more way to demonstrate worth: we're managing the LinkedIn page of many of our clients, and this is demonstratively an improvement from before.
• Also as an agency, LinkedIn ads allow us to offer an additional way to get leads in the door. When we've struck out on other ad programs, we usually try LinkedIn Ads before moving on to a higher investment channel (such as list rental).

Incentivized