AdStage vs. The Trade Desk

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
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
N/A
The Trade Desk is the eponymous flagship product from the company headquartered in Ventura California, a demand-side / data management hybrid platform (DSP / DMP).N/A
Pricing
AdStageThe Trade Desk
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AdStageThe Trade Desk
Free Trial
YesNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AdStageThe Trade Desk
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 …
The Trade Desk
Chose The Trade Desk
compared to these three, stack adapt is a bit easier to get going plus it's less expensive. I still love Google ads and meta ads for the ability to own the moment in terms of dashboard. Feels like you have more "control" with google ads and meta ads, even if that isn't the case.
Chose The Trade Desk
We compared The Trade Desk against a number of competing programmatic media buying platforms including Google's DV360, Centro's Basis platform, Adobe Advertising Cloud, and the Simpli.fi platform. In the end, we felt that The Trade Desk provides the most tools, options, …
Chose The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk is a much better product than AppNexus. Even though both products showed promise awhile back, AppNexus stopped innovating and The Trade Desk became specialists on data, cross site tracking and CTV inventory thus having a better and more unique product that …
Chose The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk provides the best overall value of all features in one. We didn't evaluate other competitors because The Trade Desk came highly recommended to us by our Board of Directors. Perhaps for other companies' evaluations, we would recommend having example campaigns and …
Chose The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk allows you to manage multiple display platforms from one interface. Google Ads only allows you to advertise on their platform and their network. This limits your ability to find new niche opportunities with Display Advertising. Although Google Ads claims to be on …
Chose The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk is more universal and widely known than their competition. They will be able to provide you with a lot of inventory, but the competition is more oriented towards specific objectives. Vungle specializes in video, Mopub on in app traffic and AppLovin on high impact …
Chose The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk is not as focused on connected TV as Appnexus. Also, they are more open as Appnexus is mostly focused on building a walled garden, while The Trade Desk is focusing on making the internet more open. However, they lack the exclusive publishers that Appnexus have. …
Chose The Trade Desk
TradeDesk is more extensive like DBM compared to DX. Offers an easier building process with templates and being able to duplicate and share libraries at the partner level.

I find TradeDesk clears at higher CPMs than the other platforms. Also tends to perform well for in-view …
Features
AdStageThe Trade Desk
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
6.5
Ratings
12% below category average
The Trade Desk
-
Ratings
Data Transfer7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
DSP integration6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
7.2
Ratings
7% below category average
The Trade Desk
-
Ratings
Ad campaign creation8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad deployment7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Display advertising8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation7.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Sequence targeting6.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
AdStage
8.7
Ratings
12% above category average
The Trade Desk
-
Ratings
Ad dashboards9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad performance reports8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management9.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization8.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AdStageThe Trade Desk
Small Businesses
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.5 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
Enterprises
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 9.0 out of 10
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AdStageThe Trade Desk
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(0 ratings)
9.0
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
8.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
8.0
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
10.0
(0 ratings)
10.0
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
AdStageThe Trade Desk
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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We are a large company, but The Trade Desk seems like it would also work well for small companies. In our limited deployment, we focused on the USA market and Digital Marketing, but we see this platform working for global markets, multi-language, and across all paid search engines. They provide great user engagement and dashboard reporting to help us manage each campaign in real-time. The Trade Desk seems to do all of these things well and would work for most companies. I have yet to see a campaign and/or executive initiative that The Trade Desk can't handle. We have had a favorable experience and believe it has met every objective we have.
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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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  • Manage multiple client accounts for Display Advertising
  • Manage multiple clients' Display Advertising across an array of Display Platforms
  • We were also able to manage clients' Video and Native Advertising Campaigns
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Cons
  • More reporting options
  • More export options
  • Saved templates per user or oganization
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  • They are not very transparent in terms of margins and fees.
  • They need to get more video inventory, there is not enough.
  • The reporting they provide is a bit limited.
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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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No answers on this topic
Usability
No answers on this topic
easy to understand dashboards and the self started ability to get going on your own terms. It's great to target niche groups across the world while still being able to report at a high level to C-suite. Wish it drove more conversions, but display can be a struggle there. Overall, would use it again.
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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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We noted no issues with our limited interaction with support. The software operated just as expected and we found that we were able to navigate needs on our own. We understand that The Trade Desk offers excellent support, so we believe it will be a good resource to us in the future.
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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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We compared The Trade Desk against a number of competing programmatic media buying platforms including Google's DV360, Centro's Basis platform, Adobe Advertising Cloud, and the Simpli.fi platform. In the end, we felt that The Trade Desk provides the most tools, options, advanced technology, and access to third-party solutions than anything other DSP/DMP on the market. TTD has leaned into forming a long-term relationship with our agency, and they continue to provide great strategic service.
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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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  • Positively impacting ability to delivery in-view KPI campaigns across ad types (display, high impact, preroll).
  • Slightly higher pricing structure requires a bit more conservative bidding in this platform compared to others.
  • The customer service has been top notch. Adding to the confidence in building a lasting partnership. Access to product betas and offering product feedback are of interest to our organization.
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ScreenShots

AdStage Screenshots

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