AdStage vs. Skai

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
AdStage
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
The AdStage Platform is a self-serve cross-network online advertising platform with full management and analytics for campaigns across search, social, display, and mobile ad networks like Google AdWords, Bing, Facebook, Twitter, & LinkedIn Ads. It's an all-in-one marketing platform, complete with a suite of first- and third-party apps built on the AdStage API, for advertisers of all sizes.N/A
Skai
Score 8.8 out of 10
N/A
Skai (formerly Kenshoo) is a cross-channel advertising solution for search marketing, social media and online advertising. The product aims to give advertisers and agencies the control and automation needed to make better investment decisions across search marketing and online advertising.
$10,000
Starting Price
Pricing
AdStageSkai
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Kenshoo
$10,000
Starting Price
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AdStageSkai
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AdStageSkai
Considered Both Products
AdStage
Chose AdStage
AdStage was the clear winner because it worked well with so many other tools while remaining unique, affordable, and easy to use. The AdStage website is super helpful and their support team has been nothing short of fantastic. The price is right and the returns are clear and …
Chose AdStage
AdStage has by far the best UI and custom functionality of any of the platforms we demoed.
Chose AdStage
We've used tools like Companion Labs and AdEspresso before for Facebook Ads, or Optmyzer or Wordstream for Google Ads, and AdStage has so many features that these systems don't. True, it's drastically more expensive than most, but the feature set is leaps and bounds above. From …
Chose AdStage
I'm actually not aware of a ton of direct competitors for what AdStage is doing right now. As mentioned before, they have some great integrations for deep analytics, they bring all of the different vendors together in one central place and they have some awesome automation …
Skai
Chose Skai
I think Skai beats the competitors with its advanced bidding management system, this is a unique feature of them that if you implement properly, your accounts will surely benefit from this, especially if you have tons of data that the algo can learn from and optimize …
Chose Skai
I personally like Kenshoo better than Marin for a few reasons. When it comes to Ecomm Search, Kenshoo is far better in terms of available features, algorithmic bidding which is more focused on ROAS, and reporting especially for eCommerce. Marin is a good platform, especially …
Chose Skai
Google marketing suite - Good for Google but nothing else
Marin - Was very problematic and lacked easy of use & features
Chose Skai
We selected Kenshoo in 2017 due to its market presence and its notoriety. We learned about Kenshoo's integrations with internal data warehouses, and the bid management aspects were touted as first class. In practice, our unique marketing needs did not align with the limitations …
Chose Skai
Kenshoo's integration with sales and social platforms as well as search made it the only choice when it came to managing campaigns. Other interfaces may be simpler and quicker but Kenshoo's range of external integrations makes it more flexible for certain campaigns and the …
Chose Skai
I definitely prefer Marin for paid search only accounts. I select Kenshoo when my client also purchases Google shopping media, since their proprietary tools there are best in class.
Chose Skai
Some features of Kenshoo outshine other solutions we've evaluated. Kenshoo Infinity Suite is a great product for multi-channel management but overall is less favorable especially from a pricing perspective. We've transitioned several client accounts from Kenshoo to DoubleClick …
Chose Skai
An advantage that Nanigans has over Kenshoo is that their version of 'portfolios' didn't have any budget or flight length requirements and was extremely easy to use. They also offered 'affinity' segments. These are studies they would run on certain audiences that would result …
Chose Skai
Kenshoo is the best in class. With "time" being the most precious resource we have, Kenshoo allows us to get more done in the same amount of time as comparable products.
Chose Skai
I have not explored other platforms.
Chose Skai
While DoubleClick does not fully budget pace accounts I think it overall provides more accurate changes than Kenshoo. When our company selected Kenshoo we were told it would be able to manage hundreds of small accounts with small budgets. It is more designed for accounts that …
Chose Skai
Kenshoo Search offers keyword bid policies based off of sophisticated algorithms rather than simple bid rules. Also, the Kenshoo Desktop Editor allows for extremely easy bulk optimizations. Marin Software doesn't have bid algorithms or an easy-to-use desktop tool. These are …
Chose Skai
Very different tool that Hootsuite - which is a good tool for monitoring, but not for ad management. Kenshoo social was easily implemented since we use Kenshoo Search for paid program. When comparing tools, this one seemed to be the most robust and solved many issues we had - …
Chose Skai
Kenshoo is a more effective and user friendly platform than most competitors. Their tool is more expensive and like I said before, tailored to larger marketing budgets. They set them self apart with the ease of use, the Kenshoo editor, and cross channel functionality. However, …
Features
AdStageSkai
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
6.5
Ratings
12% below category average
Skai
7.1
Ratings
4% below category average
Data Transfer7.00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
DSP integration6.00 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
7.2
Ratings
7% below category average
Skai
6.1
Ratings
24% below category average
Ad campaign creation8.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Ad deployment7.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Display advertising8.00 Ratings4.30 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.00 Ratings4.80 Ratings
Sequence targeting6.00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
8.7
Ratings
12% above category average
Skai
7.3
Ratings
6% below category average
Ad dashboards9.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Ad performance reports8.00 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking9.00 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting9.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management9.00 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization8.00 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AdStageSkai
Small Businesses
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.5 out of 10
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 9.0 out of 10
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AdStageSkai
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AdStageSkai
Likelihood to Recommend
We've increased conversions by 25% through budget optimization with AdStage. This was the first time we saw tangible returns on an ad monitoring service and it has allowed us to spend smarter over time by reviewing the ads, seeing what worked, and adjusting on the fly. At the end of the day, the goal is more conversions or at least more information on win/loss. AdStage makes it easy to see all of that in one cute little place
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Kenshoo Search may not be appropriate if you don't spend much on search engine marketing. It also may not be appropriate if you don't care about tracking conversions and are only concerned with increasing awareness. Or, if you care about tracking conversions but don't expect to capture many, Kenshoo Search may not be necessary.
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Pros
  • AdStage has a great onboarding process. We have a dedicated support rep who walked our entire team through each of the three major sections of AdStage, talked about use cases and even recorded the training so we could provide it to other, future team members.
  • The real power of AdStage for us is in the Automation. You can set up rules for when to do things like increase budget or raise bids on certain ad channels. If something is doing well, push more money to it without ever logging in. Likewise, if something is tanking it gets turned off without you having to be at your computer. It frees up our team to focus on more strategic, creative endeavors by handling the "grunt work".
  • The ability to create custom metrics is a real plus. Sometimes, even with systems as advanced as Google and Facebook are, they just don't understand how to set up what you want to measure. Maybe I want to know the cost for all purchases across apps and my website? AdStage's custom metrics let me design that, and then use it in my reports, dashboards or rules.
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  • Customized reporting. There are many features that users can't report out on in power editor. Kenshoo makes it incredibly easy to get everything you need for a raw data dump.
  • Automation. Whether it's automated rules, portfolios or refreshing CRM uploads, Kenshoo helps cut some of the manual tasks out of the process making me more efficient.
  • Staying up to date with Facebook product updates. I can appreciate that Kenshoo does an exceptional job and ensuring new capabilities in Facebook are ready for use in the Kenshoo platform as well.
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Cons
  • More reporting options
  • More export options
  • Saved templates per user or oganization
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  • Syncing - I have had many issues where syncs would time out, or not show that changes were posted to Facebook.
  • Library - if there was a library for targeting settings that could be saved and easily accessed and input into new campaigns, that would be very helpful.
  • Updates - seemingly basic tools that a social management platform should have often taken a long time to be released.
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Likelihood to Renew
AdStage has been great and the only reason we wouldn't renew is if we decided to build this all out internally for API access. But, customer services is great, the product is great and I'd definitely recommend it.
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It's great to have a product like Kenshoo Social. It has a lot of data and is a great tool to use. Honestly, I think we would have looked somewhere else if we didn't have some much data and time invested into the platform. We had used it across search and social, so we invested a lot of time to get it running smoothly. It is very expensive and we think we could have gone elsewhere to get the same results over time. Once they have your data and the system is running smoothly, it's very difficult to go elsewhere
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Usability
No answers on this topic
Set-up like other marketing platforms. If you know Google Ads, you know Kenshoo
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Support Rating
AdStage had great support. They got back to me quickly every time, they always had or found an answer for what I was looking for, they took my feedback well, and they were knowledgeable with the platform and any issues I had. I have worked with a lot of other companies that are slow and AdStage definitely isn't one of them.
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Very responsive and bring fast answers for problems
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Alternatives Considered
We've used tools like Companion Labs and AdEspresso before for Facebook Ads, or Optmyzer or WordStream for Google Ads, and AdStage has so many features that these systems don't. True, it's drastically more expensive than most, but the feature set is leaps and bounds above. From automation to reporting to even campaign monitoring being in a single platform with this level of customization, it's playing at a different level than anything else we've used off-the-shelf.
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While DoubleClick does not fully budget pace accounts I think it overall provides more accurate changes than Kenshoo. When our company selected Kenshoo we were told it would be able to manage hundreds of small accounts with small budgets. It is more designed for accounts that would be spending minimally thousands of dollars a month. We had extreme issues with Kenshoo budget pacing and increasing our bids. Overall it did not meet our needs, and we will be switching vendors at end of contract
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Return on Investment
  • We haven't been using it long enough to have a positive ROI, but I'm confident we will as we optimize our campaigns based on the data we receive from AdStage.
  • AdStage saves myself and my team hours of time each week that we would normally spend preparing reporting or doing ad analysis in excel. This was the reason we purchased AdStage, and it's really living up to its promise.
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  • ROI is harder to track due to reporting/column & time frame default tech in my humble opinion but generally better results when compared to other products
  • Since the interface is difficult to navigate and paid search is a reactive medium, can produce barriers to change.
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ScreenShots

AdStage Screenshots

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