AppNexus vs. Google Ads

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AppNexus
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
AppNexus AppNexus offers online auction infrastructure and technology for data management, optimization, financial clearing and support for directly negotiated advertising campaigns. It integrates with advertising sources including Google's DoubleClick, Microsoft's AdECN, and aggregators.[3]N/A
Google Ads
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Google Ads (formerly AdWords) is Google's pay-per-click online advertising program. With Google Ads users set their budget and choose where their ads appear in search listings, and on partner websites. Google Ads uses cost-per-click (CPC) bidding.
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Pricing
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Offer A
$500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer B
$1500
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offer C
$3000
in Ads credit in the first 60 days
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Features
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.5
Ratings
14% above category average
Google Ads
-
Ratings
Data Transfer8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
DSP integration9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Google Ads
3.9
Ratings
3% below category average
Ad campaign creation8.00 Ratings2.50 Ratings
Ad deployment9.00 Ratings2.50 Ratings
Display advertising7.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation8.00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Sequence targeting8.00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Contextual advertising00 Ratings2.30 Ratings
Social advertising00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
8.2
Ratings
6% above category average
Google Ads
6.4
Ratings
20% above category average
Ad dashboards9.00 Ratings2.50 Ratings
Ad performance reports7.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting8.00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization8.00 Ratings2.50 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
AppNexus
-
Ratings
Google Ads
7.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Ad bidding00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
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AppNexusGoogle Ads
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The Trade Desk
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Score 9.0 out of 10
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User Ratings
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(0 ratings)
5.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
4.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
5.0
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Availability
10.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
6.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
2.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Configurability
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Ease of integration
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Product Scalability
5.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
6.0
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
4.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AppNexusGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
AppNexus is well suited to use for programmatic campaigns that we have to launch for clients. Everything from standard display, native, high-impact, and video can run within the platform. Our trading team is well experienced within AppNexus (APN), and it's typically the first DSP they learn when starting.
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Clients who are selling products such as dresses, clothes, jewelry, beauty products, etc., generally work well. Also, in some cases, it doesn't fetch a good ROAS for very small business owners. If a client is already doing well in SEO, the probability for it to perform well over Google Ads is always enhanced, and if it doesn't have a good organic reach, Google Ads also suffers.
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Pros
  • As per my experience they have strong support personnel. Solving the issues as and when required.
  • We can solve certain issues like campaign performance, inventory optimization and more with the help of AppNexus wiki. We get all the required information in the Wiki itself.
  • They have given the right platform to both buyers and sellers to workout and meet their digital marketing needs and goals.
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  • Keyword Research - Google Ads has a handy built in tool that helps determine important keywords to target both for Ads & SEO
  • Intuitive Analytics Dashboad - Google Ads makes it fairly simple to see and analyze important metrics on how your ads are running week after week
  • Intuitive Setup - Google Ads makes it easy to figure out how to run ads with little to no training (although training is highly recommended to run effective ads), as their interface is clean and easy to figure out (unlike competing products).
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Cons
  • Better visualization and dashboard will make it a perfect product.
  • The product concept is hard to master. More video training in addition to the interactive training may help.
  • More report templates will make my life easier since it takes time to build one.
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  • Google's heavy dependence on AI makes many of the campaign behavior inscrutable and, often, it performs poorly as a result.
  • Their responsive ads, for example, which are heavily recommended by them, often perform significantly worse than normal text ads.
  • Their support, while relatively quick, becomes useless if you need any deep insight/help.
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Likelihood to Renew
I love almost everything about AppNexus because I feel like the user data is easy to track because of the identifiers, you can see which adverts got clicked and which were ignored. We can track the location of the ad on the page fold and this makes it so much easier for future campaigns. The only thing I don't like is that the data is only kept for a year, and I'd like it for a longer period of time
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As of today Google AdWords leads approximately 90% of paid searches globally. There is practically is no other network that can offer such a relevant and engaging audience at the price. The PPC model is also unique in that no media dollars are wasted, since PPC models ensure brand interaction versus traditional media which has heavy ad avoidance and clutter but still charges a hefty amount for ads.
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Usability
Because I think the interface is kind of confusing at the beginning and it confuses you a lot.
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This is more of a subjective rating, because I think it can be increased with how much our ad spend is. The more of an ad spend, the more visibility we can get, and therefore all features can climb. With an overall larger presence the usability is that where we can get messages out quick, and that's the main thing we try to do with our campaigns.
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Reliability and Availability
I've never had any problems with appnexus - the software is always available
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No answers on this topic
Performance
Yes, everything works great in that sense
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No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Because the support team does give you support, they take 24hrs to get back to you but once they open a ticket they focus on resolving the issue for you. My only problem is that you don't have a specific account representative assigned to you.
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We have not yet had an account rep who hasn't tried to bully me or other employees to raise our budgets. At the same time, several years ago, one attempted to help refine our ads and ended up changing the ads to be something we were not affiliated with
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Online Training
Online training are not user friendly and not easy to understand
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Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Alternatives Considered
Appnexus is less retargeting-focused than Criteo. Their solutions are more focused on building awareness and not so much on the bottom of the funnel and on conversions. Regarding MoPub, their focus is on mobile, and Appnexus, even though it has a very strong mobile set of solutions, is specialized on CTV and other media channels.
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Google Ads remains at the top advertising channel within our business for both lead volume and revenue generation, whilst maintaining a reasonable cost per lead (CPL). Both Meta Ads and Microsoft Ads have a much lower CPL, those channels don't contribute as much revenue and lead generation.
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Scalability
Because it's a great DSP but not the best
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No answers on this topic
Return on Investment
  • After using AppNexus for our banner ads, which used to be a simple task became a complex one and we lost time building it out.
  • After realizing there is no dedicated way to contact AppNexus for troubleshooting and exchanging many emails going into long threads we lost even more time.
  • Our return on investment was poor with AppNexus due to the vastness of the platform and poor support experience limiting what we could do and losing time.
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  • Once we got the hang of it and had everything setup, it was a great monthly expense that we could count on ROI from. Either by obtaining new customers or literally staying above our competition in search rankings.
  • We also started consulting on ads for customers and helping them set things up, which created a new revenue stream for us.
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ScreenShots