It is only suited for marketing. Make sure you have analytics on your site to track the people coming, final sales, and conversions because it is at it's best when you can use it to really read and understand the data at hand. Google Ads does everything it needs to in ads, and you don't need to be an expert to begin with it. However, I would not just tell someone to "go create an account" if they know very little about digital ads. Consult with someone first. It can be a little daunting if you were to do that!
Hyper targeting - I love how we can target, analyze, and then hyper target [advertisements] to our audiences to be able to hyper target the audiences that convert best. [Audiences besides] Google understands them, but also demographics, locations, search terms, and more.
Advanced reporting - Without Google's seemingly endless ways to read and break down reports, we would not be able to best make decisions to maximize ROI.
Strong conversion algorithm updates - The algorithm has become impressively strong for 'maximized conversions' and 'smart' campaigns. [That's] coming from someone who hated these portions of the algorithm until about 2019 where the updates (and continued updates) have worked incredibly well for these algorithms' purpose.
Sometimes it can bog down and crash. This is rare, but it is processing a lot of steps/changes all at once and it's not expected to be perfect.
Being able to quickly filter by campaign types would be nice (PPC/Display/Video Pre-roll). Our fix is to run these campaigns in totally separate accounts, so there is no overlapping in reporting/etc. This helps with seeing stats clearly without having to filter constantly.
I think it's useful for our team and we rely on it to improve our business. It is within our budget also. Although we still will need an approval from the upper-level management team, I don't see any problem with that
Love the product and how the GUI is as it is user friendly. When working with the product it is better to have some knowledge of what ad's you want to deploy where so that it is easier to use and move forward.
Smaato has a UI where you can control your line items on the traffic you want to receive. That is a key unique selling point that other SSPs don't offer. Most of the items that you will need like reporting can be done on a self serve manner and that is a big plus, specifically for changes that need to happen really fast and you don't need to deal with account managers that may take some time to answer emails.
I could say a lot about this topic. As an agency, we get a new [representative] to talk to almost every quarter to go over select accounts and the campaigns within. Most of the time, these [educated representatives], don't provide any new feedback, or I just simply [disagree] with their approach. This is not all the time however. I have learned a lot from a rare few, [individuals] that have given me new strategies and access to betas early on. The other side of support, is the [overseas support platform]. [It] is usually not very helpful, but you can [emphasize] issues and they can research [them]. The Google Tag Implementation team is pristine though. When you need them, you need to set an appointment, which is usually 2 weeks out; they are so over-my-head intelligent, I've never had a bad experience with them and whenever I needed them for a fix, they solved it [within] the first call.
Smaato's account management team is very professional. They are quite fast in terms of customer support, which is very helpful. One item that stands out is that they are willing to understand what you need for each campaign and what is the best way to move forward. They don't just jump quickly into trying to upsell more of Smaato's products (audiences, data) like other SSPs do.
As I alluded to earlier, you kind of have to be on Google if you want to search marketing. I've tried Bing Ads and I just don't see the same volume or quality. With dwindling targeting abilities on social media sites like Facebook, Google is still tall and mighty and helps us with intent-based targeting rather than just interest-based targeting.
Smaato has better anti-fraud controls than most exchanges. Even if the inventory ends up being a bit pricey, I am more comfortable running campaigns on Smaato because I know there won't be any issues with the clients claiming refunds for invalid traffic. I believe that as the industry matures, other SSPs will follow suit and prices will increase along with the board.
We have seen prices a bit high, thus reducing profitability
However, the vast reach has allowed us to get more budgets and fulfill them so the net effect is positive.
We have been able to run campaigns that targeted the same user on mobile and desktop by running with Smaato and that has allowed us to get more budgets from specific clients.
