Criteo vs. Google Ads

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Criteo
Score 8.4 out of 10
N/A
Criteo Commerce Growth (formerly Criteo Marketing Solutions) helps users to achieve customer acquisition and retention objectives with simple yet powerful automated advertising for the open internet. It features an open commerce dataset to target continuously refreshed, high-intent audiences. The user's first-party datais enriched with commerce data from 22k advertisers & thousands of publishers to up-level how to engage existing customers. The solution enables users to…
$1
per month
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
CriteoGoogle Ads
Editions & Modules
Basic
$1
per month
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
CriteoGoogle Ads
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional DetailsPricing is based on a CPC model and is dependent on traffic generated to a site
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
CriteoGoogle Ads
Features
CriteoGoogle Ads
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Criteo
-
Ratings
Google Ads
3.9
Ratings
3% below category average
Ad campaign creation00 Ratings2.60 Ratings
Ad deployment00 Ratings2.60 Ratings
Display advertising00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation00 Ratings8.80 Ratings
Sequence targeting00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Contextual advertising00 Ratings2.40 Ratings
Social advertising00 Ratings1.00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Criteo
-
Ratings
Google Ads
6.4
Ratings
20% above category average
Ad dashboards00 Ratings2.60 Ratings
Ad performance reports00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting00 Ratings9.00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization00 Ratings2.60 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Criteo
-
Ratings
Google Ads
7.0
Ratings
3% above category average
Ad bidding00 Ratings7.00 Ratings
User Ratings
CriteoGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
8.4
(0 ratings)
5.8
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Usability
8.4
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Online Training
-
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor post-sale
-
(0 ratings)
1.0
(0 ratings)
Vendor pre-sale
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
CriteoGoogle Ads
Likelihood to Recommend
Marketing Solutions by Criteo has a great track record that speaks highly of its reputation, we users of this program are happy with the performance and impact it generates in the cloud, in order to connect with new customers, added to this, This software offers us the appropriate tools to professionally manage all these processes and have total control of electronic commerce. Our case has been the protagonist in the increase in sales, that is why we are always willing to recommend this incredible program.
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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
  • The first strenght of Criteo Retargeting is the user-friendly platform, where you can easily manage your budget and analyse the performance.
  • Secondly, the CPC based model is great advantage of Criteo compare to some competitors.
  • Finally, the post-click attribution. It is more trustworthy and tenable than post-view.
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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
  • Level of control over ads - Most features of Criteo can't be managed directly in the dashboard. That can be a problem when you want ads adjusted quickly, for example, if you make a change to your logo. Customer Service has to be contacted in that case.
  • Cost - Of the several retargeting platforms we tried, Criteo was the most costly. This is in terms of cost per click and cost per conversion. In the end, we just couldn't justify paying substantially more for a similar ad network to Google just for the level of customer service.
  • Reporting - There is no reporting provided automatically, and user data is gated; it was difficult for us to ascertain anything about the audience we were serving ads to, and even basic geographic data wasn't available to us.
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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
Criteo is the only remarketing firm worth using for a retailer, in my opinion.
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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
Criteo's platform is very easy to use from a marketing standpoint if you understand key terms. The frontend is very user-friendly and I personally had no issues. I enjoy being able to see key results and metrics being tracked from the dashboard. It is also easy to filter things as desired to break down data.
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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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Support Rating
I think Marketing Solutions by Criteo offers a very robust solution for an ad tech platform and their support team is very knowledgeable about their product. I would like to see, though, more webinars and training about the technology behind the product to give us more tools to talk to our customers with more information and better visuals.
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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
No answers on this topic
Daily use with advanced account structures. Familiarity with reporting/api and complex setups.
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Alternatives Considered
I feel Criteo had a much better tech stack and features all in one to do a wide range of things in terms of marketing ad campaigns. Also because it is a dedicated tool with a one-track focus, we found it to be a better fit for our needs at this time
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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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Return on Investment
  • Criteo Dynamic Retargeting gives us very good results and positive ROI on our active campaigns with them. Overall we are pretty happy with them and looking to do more campaigns with them.
  • We are also looking to test new things with them in order to get better ROI such us new video creatives, new mobile app campaigns for our app games & also how the app retargeting products work!
  • We should point out that as a company we are analyzing results as a 'last click' attribution model and if you only look to the data from the dashboard it's different. But also both have good ROI for the campaigns.
  • Also your account manager is always looking for recommendations of new CPC options or going for the ARO (automation of the bid) to optimize it.
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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

Criteo Screenshots

Screenshot of CriteoDynamic Retargeting banner