G2 Crowd announces Winter 2015 rankings of the best search advertising platforms, based on user reviews
Four platforms earn Leader status while Kenshoo tops overall satisfaction rankings in crowdsourced report
Jan 13, 2015, 01:16 ET
CHICAGO, Jan. 13, 2015 /PRNewswire/ -- The first Grid℠ report for search advertising platforms, published today by business software review site G2 Crowd, ranks 10 products to help purchasers in their selections.
The Winter 2015 report is based on more than 450 reviews written by business professionals.
The Grid℠, which is created from G2 Crowd's software review engine, factors in customer satisfaction reported by users and vendor market presence determined from social and public data to rank products.
Search Advertising software, also referred to as paid search or search engine marketing (SEM) tools, refers to products that automate the processes to buy, manage, and place advertisements on search engines such as Google, Bing, or Yahoo. Search advertisements are targeted based on keywords searched and appear above or to the side of organic search results.
Search advertisements may be placed directly through a first-party platform such as Google AdWords, Bing Ads, or Yahoo! Advertising, or through a third-party platform. This report includes both first-party and third-party platforms.
To qualify as a Leader, a product must receive a high customer satisfaction score and have substantial market presence. Kenshoo, Google Adwords, Marin Software and DoubleClick for Advertisers were named Leaders. High Performers have high customer satisfaction scores with a smaller market presence than Leaders. Raven Tools was the only High Performer named. Kenshoo earned the highest overall customer satisfaction score.
Across all search advertising platforms, reviewers reported the product they use meets their requirements at an average rate of 79%, and on average reviewers said they were 74% likely to recommend the product they use.
Some highlights from the search advertising platform reviews on G2 Crowd:
"Kenshoo has a lot of features that make managing SEM much easier. Scheduled actions, advanced search, and Kenshoo Editor [allow] you to easily make and schedule changes across engines...There are a ton of reporting options and it is very easy to set up automated reports."
- Matthew Lieberman, Search Analyst at MediaVest
"Adwords is THE go-to for PPC advertising. For businesses wanting to improve their placement in Google's search results... Adwords is the tool you need to master."
- Barry Myers, Marketing Manager at Strongwell
"I've tried numerous tools and [Marin Software] is by far the most user friendly. We have huge campaigns with millions of keywords which Marin helps us manage. They have added features like across account uploading features that helps us scale large changes."
- Matthew C. Torres, SEM Associate Manager at PriceGrabber.com
"Doubleclick [for Advertisers'] bid strategies give you an easy to use option to have keywords optimized to budget pace, KPI, cost per KPIs, and position constraints (e,g. if you want to ensure certain terms, like your brand terms, stay in top position)."
- Eitan Rosenberg, Associate Director of Search/Social at MediaVest
"Raven Tools [uses] Google-provided data that we know we can rely [on,] and they offer a fairly competitive feature set when compared against other search marketing products."
- Jared Usrey, Marketing Technologist at SMS Holdings
Of the more than 20 software vendors listed in G2 Crowd's search advertising category, the 10 ranked products each received 10 or more reviews to qualify for inclusion on the Grid℠.
Satisfaction rankings are generated from the user reviews, and market presence is calculated from vendor size, market share, and social impact. Based on a combination of these scores, each software solution is categorized as a Leader, High Performer, Contender, or Niche.
Premium research access can be purchased on the site for $599. These offers the original data for filtering and weighting, as well as individual profiles of each platform with the most helpful positive and negative search advertising software reviews, detailed company information, user satisfaction ratings, feature scores and customer metrics. Future refreshes of the Grid℠ will provide updated rankings based on the latest reviews and social data.
Be sure to check out the new Grid℠ for the best search advertising tools and subscribe to the premium research.
About G2 Crowd, Inc.
G2 Crowd is the leading business software review platform on the web, leveraging its more than 22,000 user reviews to drive better purchasing decisions. Technology buyers, investors, and analysts use the site to compare and select the best software based on peer reviews and synthesized social data. Co-founded by the founder and former executives from SaaS leader BigMachines and backed by more than $4.5 million in capital, G2 Crowd aims to bring authenticity and transparency to business technology research. For more information, go to G2Crowd.com.
SOURCE G2 Crowd
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