Marin Software Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services Reviews & Insights

Score9.1 out of 10

64 Reviews and Ratings

Community insights

TrustRadius Insights for Marin Software are summaries of user sentiment data from TrustRadius reviews and, when necessary, third party data sources.

Pros

Easy-to-use Interface: Users have consistently praised Marin Software for its easy-to-use and intuitive user interface, with multiple reviewers stating that it allows them to quickly and efficiently perform tasks. The simplicity and efficiency of the interface were highlighted as advantageous features. Flexible Reporting Capabilities: Numerous reviewers have commended Marin Software's reporting capabilities for their flexibility, providing an in-depth analysis of the account at various levels. This feature was specifically mentioned by several users who appreciated the ability to customize views, create custom columns, and set dimensions and labels for filtering campaigns on a daily basis. Effective Conversion Tracking: Many users have highlighted Marin Software's ability to track conversions effectively as a strength. This feature was seen as a valuable tool for improving campaign performance and cost savings. Several users praised the system's bidding strategies based on position, conversions, or revenue as helpful tools in achieving better results.

Marin Software Reviews

22 Reviews

Professional, Scientific, and Technical ServicesMarketing & Advertising22

Marin Software is expensive and intuitive

Rating: 10 out of 10

Incentivized

March 15, 2021

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Marin Software to manage and automate bidding for search marketing keywords and queries on Google and Bing. This is generally how I’ve always used it in the past and in other agencies. Marin software has always approached bidding with an easy-to-use interface, and smart algorithms dictate the process.

Pros

Clean user interface
Great support and sales
Algorithms suit more typical accounts

Cons

Not as customizable as other platforms
Show the secret sauce in the bidding
Does not easily integrate with other marketing platforms

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin Software is pretty expensive but it has capabilities built in to manage most accounts. I would not look to Marin Software to manage offline sales or more intricate or complicated accounts. If you are on a budget, Google Automated Tools can assist with a ton of what Marin Software does

Verified User

Manager in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

6 years of experience

Marin Software - alternative to DoubleClick

Rating: 6 out of 10

Incentivized

February 2, 2018

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It's being used as a data management platform to keep the data from all publishers and data sources within one place, to optimize performance, use bidding strategies and track conversions. Out of 10 clients, we are using it on one significantly big client. Previously i've worked with Marin on another big client. The main reason for clients to choose the platform is that they don't want Google to own their data and also due to lower fees.

Pros

Bidding strategies based on position or conversions, or revenue are very helpful for improving the performance of all campaigns and saving money
It keeps the data easily accessible within one place. Pulling reports, being able to do a web query report, being able to integrate with many data sources makes the platform very useful. Also Marin reps are very helpful
Marin offers a live chat, which is very helpful when you have an urgent question.
Tracking templates are easily adjustable

Cons

The filters on the columns don't always work properly
The platform is sometimes very slow in updating the selected view

Likelihood to Recommend

It's well suited when you have to integrate it with another data source, like an FTP for example. The dimensions you can assign to campaigns or ad group levels help for easier performance management and reporting.
What makes it difficult is that everytime you need to update anything on the account, you can't use the publisher but have to do it through Marin. This makes the whole process very time consuming and causes more mistakes. Also if you have paused anything on the publisher and you don't remember to sync marin after, all changes on the publisher will get lost if you make new changes on marin.

Verified User

Account Manager in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Marin Software Optimized Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

October 4, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin was used for one of our larger financial services clients. It was mainly used by our pay per click (PPC) department, which at the time, was just me. Being a smaller agency with limited resources, having Marin helped manage the account optimizations and bidding across both AdWords and Bing. It saved us a ton of time. With the time saved on these such tasks, we were able to create more customized campaigns and pursue more cross-channel initiatives.

Pros

The automated bidding features are great and work very well.
Automation of tasks such as adding negative keywords or adding long tails via the search terms report saves a ton of time.
Being able to make bulk changes across both AdWords and Bing at the same time.

Cons

Preferring to make bulk changes with AdWords Editor, it would sometimes not upload correctly, which was frustrating.
The reporting features weren't horrible, but I was expecting a little more. It's pretty time consuming to set up initially.
A little slow when it comes to integrating new features - seems like it took a very long time to make a transition to final URLs and there was very little support during that time.

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin Software is great for large volume accounts ($100K+/month). It is also good with extensive keywords lists and campaigns. The more data and volume the system can use to optimize the bidding the better. Also, if an account is using a CRM such as Salesforce, integrating can allow you to optimize and prioritize around the actual lead disposition, which is very difficult without a tool like this.
Smaller accounts would likely not benefit as much and the fee would probably be used more effectively if put toward the actual spend.

Vincent Misiewicz

Sr. Search Engine Marketing Analyst in Marketing at Traffic Digital Agency (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

View profile

Marin Saves Time and Money

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

May 17, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin is being used by our search team to assist with bidding and reporting. We will soon use Marin to buy FaceBook and Instagram display ads.

Pros

Budgeting. Marin allows you to easily see budget and manage budget across engines. It is easy to shift budget from google and bing in real time.
Bidding. We have found the bidding tool extremely successful across our clients to lower cost per conversions and save money.

Cons

Marin's customer support could be more responsive.

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin is great for users who are in both AdWords and Bing. Marin pulls both engines together to easily see performance and optimizations. If are working in a smaller account that is only on one or the other interface, Marin may not be as useful.

Verified User

Strategist in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

3 years of experience

Marin is easy to navigate for reporting on larger clients!

Rating: 9 out of 10

Incentivized

March 29, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

It is used by our performance media department but only certain clients/teams are using Marin. I think it helps us report and stay organized for the larger clients that are spending $1MM or more a year.

Pros

The overview tab is helpful for overall knowledge and quick updates for spend, ROI, etc.
Ability to filter in endless ways.
Reporting is easy to customize and can be pulled across clients.
Adding dimensions makes your life easier and can be customized per client needs.

Cons

We have a lot of issues with syncing data from Omniture with our Marin clients. Often times, data will be missing for certain days.
Sitelinks are not the easiest to upload and view in Marin.
Better download speeds for reporting would help us get more done in a day.

Likelihood to Recommend

I think larger clients or clients with multiple initiatives and programs are better suited for Marin. Also, clients who have consistent and reoccurring reports that need to be accessed should use Marin. The web query abilities truly make reporting and bid strategy 100 times easier! The overview is intuitive and customizable according to your liking or your client's needs.

Nikita Patel

Media Manager in Marketing at Performics (Marketing and Advertising, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Probably best if you're managing high volume accounts

Rating: 3 out of 10

Incentivized

January 28, 2016

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Marin Software as a bid management tool across most clients' paid search accounts. The whole team uses it.

Pros

Gives a complete overview across different paid search platforms e.g. it's easy to see how the same ad groups/keywords/ads etc., are working on different platforms.
You can create bidding scenarios as a test before rolling them out.

Cons

You have to learn to use the platform yourself & there's very little help with this from the customer support team.
Account managers are very hands off and refer you back to customer support for everything.
Strategic support would be helpful in terms of how to test and implement.

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin Software is probably best if you have really big accounts. The scenarios only work on high volume conversions.

Lol Lowe

Paid Search Lead in Marketing at toinfinity (Marketing and Advertising, 11-50 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

View profile

Newbie Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

November 2, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin was used at my old job at MediaCom across all paid search teams of my client. It helped us manage the large amount of keywords and bids and easily pull pacing reports to present to the client.

Pros

Bid Management
Automated Reporting

Cons

Implementing new technologies

Likelihood to Recommend

Marin Software is great to use for paid search, when there are numerous amounts of keywords.

Danielle White

Media Buyer/Planner at SERINO/COYNE (Marketing and Advertising, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Solid tool, but a lot of room for improvement..

Rating: 7 out of 10

Incentivized

October 23, 2015

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin Software is being used across the SEM department. It helps streamline management of our clients' SEM campaigns.

Pros

Bulk editing across engines. Can make large-scale account changes in a flash.
Simple, easy-to-use interface. Makes training new employees on the tool a quicker process.
Custom dimensions. Allows for flexibility in slicing and dicing your data in a way that's easily viewable directly in the tool.

Cons

Ad extensions - the process for adding/editing ad extensions is cumbersome and needs to be completed in both the tool and the engines themselves. Not consistently supported between extension type or even engines. Process for editing is not nuanced and not intuitive.
Pivoting features - it would be great if there were a pivot table-like functionality where you could look at aggregated data directly in the UI without having to pull a report.
Budget pacing - no budget pacing functionality is available which is a key piece of our day-to-day campaign management.
Bidding - bidding folders are clunky and do not support more nuanced/advanced calculations.
Data by device - the current format is extremely clunky and doesn't easily translate into an Excel or pivot table. This functionality needs to be improved and more consistent with the typical views in the UI.
Non-keyword based campaigns - the platform does not support direct UI management of non-KW based campaigns such as YouTube and GDN display.

Likelihood to Recommend

Key questions to ask:
-White glove service - set up expectations in advance. It's difficult to get a straight answer when reps keep sending you to the generic help section or insist that you dial the customer service line.
-Integration with third-party tracking services - the Marin tracking pixel is not always the answer for clients but certain functionalities will be limited if you don't use their proprietary conversion pixel.
-Expectations around what can/can't be managed in Marin - such as YouTube, GDN banners, dynamic remarketing, etc.

Verified User

Account Manager in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 1001-5000 employees)

Vetted Review

2 years of experience

Marin Software Review

Rating: 8 out of 10

December 12, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin Software allows for easy management across multiple accounts with automation features like scheduling, bid automation, and reporting.

Pros

Reporting both automated and web query based reporting into excel
Campaign management and ad, keyword, campaign scheduling
Bid automation

Cons

KPI reporting

Likelihood to Recommend

Larger agencies will benefit the most from the enterprise level or those needing to make bulk changes. Also, those in need of data directly imported into Excel for reporting will benefit greatly from the Excel web query function.

Verified User

Strategist in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 51-200 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience

Efficient, User-Friendly Paid Search Management Platform with Tolerable Shortcomings

Rating: 8 out of 10

Incentivized

June 4, 2014

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Marin is our company's bid management software. It is used across departments and we strive to integrate Marin tracking into any new platform or product pitched to us. We use it to upload all our campaigns, keywords, ads, manage our bidding, determine our ad positions, set our destinations, and manage our budget. When it's time for reporting, whether ad hoc or monthly, we use Marin numbers as a rule.

Pros

Marin is a self-serve platform. You can tailor your campaigns per your preference/convenience/needs. You can customize your view, see % changes, create custom columns depending on your Key Performance Indicators, and set any sort of dimensions and labels that will help you filter for your campaigns on a daily basis.
Bidding and changes to destination URLs can be done through mass edits within the UI, without having to upload bulk-sheets. You push any changes from Marin to the Engines, and can also pull in your changes from Bing/AdWords engines by syncing your campaigns as well. The system will not publish anything you do not manually post until Midnight PST. You can copy paste straight from your excel bulksheet into the uploading tool (or upload the document through unicode text).
The Administrative log keeps track of all changes, and keeps users (through their logins) accountable for any edits. This way, you can filter for your name, and find the edits that you made, just to double check your work, or to make sure you are publishing the correct changes. There is a keyword- group- and campaign-level history/settings log, where you can see the name of the user who created, edited, published, paused, activated, deleted, etc. any item.
You can set up alerts that will help you manage accounts: anything from active campaigns with 0 ad copy, to finding keywords in low ad positions.
If you push duplicate keywords, the system will reject them, keeping our accounts from getting clouded due to human error. There is no need to download existing keywords or groups and use their keyword or group IDs to make any edits--instead, editing is a breeze because the system detects the new changes automatically. The only need for IDs is when making edits to creative.

Cons

The Marin (corporate) reps we deal with on a daily basis are atrociously condescending, difficult to deal with, and need to work on their transparency. We encounter attitude when requesting logins for new team members! However, the help desk is staffed by the friendliest professionals willing to help.
While the filtering options (filter by account, campaign name, group name, keyword name, destination URL, dimension, strategy, model, etc) are very extensive, you cannot filter for 'either/or'. For example, if I want to filter down to a specific group of campaigns in the same account that contain "A", but do not contain "B", I cannot make this filter in the same area. I would have to find the common denominator between those campaigns on say, the "strategy level", and exclude the ones I do not want on a "model" level.
Just like any other platform where corporate paid search accounts are managed, sometimes it takes a while to pull reports. However, I've worked across a few other search management platforms, and Marin speeds are tolerable.

Likelihood to Recommend

Ask whether your Key Performance Indicators (outcomes/clicks/site actions) can be integrated/tracked within Marin.

Verified User

Strategist in Marketing (Marketing and Advertising company, 201-500 employees)

Vetted Review

1 year of experience