LinkedIn Marketing Solutions vs. OpenX

LinkedIn has a much higher CPC than most commonly used platforms resulting in a much higher CPL/CPA. For businesses that don't have big CPC budgets, it would be difficult to be able to run tests without breaking the bank. Unless they get it right out of the gate, they may not find success with their efforts. On the opposite side of that, if a business can afford higher acquisition costs, this platform is likely worth exploring. They offer precise targeting with audiences full of professionals so often the leads are really high quality if you get it right.

Incentivized

This is a wonderful product that is well supported and fully backed by OpenX. If you have green staff that require some training to get their foot in the door for basic ad management, this is a great tool. We've never utilized the OpenX ad market so I can't speak to the quality of the ads in that open market, but for in-house ads in complex networks with its targeting tools, this software would be more than suitable to fulfill your needs.

• Targets the exact right audience for your B2B messaging: you don't have to guess based on likes or any other periphery data to determine whether you're reaching the right audience - you can hit by job title, years of experience, job function, seniority, and other great ways to ensure precision delivery to the correct audience.
• Offers a helpful variety of ad units that are great for different types of campaigns to make sure you're reaching your audience in the right format for the ask.
• Self-service platform now for all ad units, enabling you to take control of your LInkedIn marketing with a hands-on approach.

Incentivized

• When it comes to RTB and spending on the open exchange market, the number one reason why we spend in one exchange over another is simple performance
• When Open X doesn't perform which it tends not to, we have to shut that exchange off. This exchange tends to not perform at a CPA or CPC KPI and tends to not have the safest sites either.
• Because I only use Open X as an exchange which I tap into from a DSP I can't speak to it's other capabilities.

• LinkedIn has a relatively limited audience size when compared to other social media platforms.
• There is a large group of LinkedIn users that create an account and never return, but messages still hit their inboxes.
• LinkedIn targeting by job title can be limiting, as they set a hard limit on targeted titles per campaign.

Incentivized

• Propagation could be improved; ad units that need to go live immediately could take up to 45 minutes to propagate.
• Over-complexity can be confusing. There are multiple tiers before assigning ad units per order and it seems unnecessary.
• Real-time reporting or a status dashboard would be great.

I would renew use of OpenX as it is a solid ad serving platform that is easy to use, install, and maintain with some great advanced features that give more control to publishers ad ops teams large or small while reducing the costs associated with managing, serving, and delivering ads from third party vendors.

in terms of promoted content reporting and usability, the platform is not as flexible or easy to use compared to more established social platforms like Facebook. However, it does offer plug-ins to Google Data Studio which makes pulling and manipulating data easier. My main usability gripe comes when looking at organic performance of a company page. There isn't an easy way to export organic performance data.

Incentivized

I was given the system to use as part of setting up a whole new site from scratch in less than 2 months, with a large number of specialty hub pages to run ads on and lots of content I needed to run disease specific ads on. The system was easy for me to learn on the fly in a very compressed time frame. I would have loved more chance to really dig in under the hood to see all that it could do, but given how fast I had to work, I got everything up and running and looking great. And I did it ahead of my launch deadline too. My only reservation might be for people who are not as patient as I am in picking things up, or as hands on. Customer service was great if I needed them, and a quick start guide with the essentials would be ideal for those people.

So, everything what I just said previously adds up to the value of LinkedIn Marketing Solutions. Definitely recommending it to a friend. It has its things to improve but its nothing major or nothing to worry about. So I give a 9 because it still has that, some user interface glitches that can be improved but do not damage the experience that you have with it.

Incentivized

They went above and beyond without ever asking for additional money and we met our launch date and immediately started to meet and even surpass our business goals. Nothing was too much trouble, which really stood out compared to other companies I had and was at that time also working with. Customer service can really make or break any business; if i expect my staff to give good customer service, I expect to get it too, and Open X gave it.

LinkedIn offered a different way to market and that was through direct messaging on the platform. Those direct messages result in a push notification and an email (depending on the user's settings), so we knew that was a more creative and attention-getting spend. It made more sense for our professional clientele as well.

Incentivized

Double Click, Adbrite before it became sitescout. We chose Open X because it was easy to integrate into the back end of our site and we liked the reports it provided and the ease of use. Double Click is a Google company, and frankly, while they are good at some technology, their products can be clunky failures AND we are not so sure we want to give them so much data about the inner workings of our business and keyword universe

• As an agency, LinkedIn gives us one more way to demonstrate worth: we're managing the LinkedIn page of many of our clients, and this is demonstratively an improvement from before.
• Also as an agency, LinkedIn ads allow us to offer an additional way to get leads in the door. When we've struck out on other ad programs, we usually try LinkedIn Ads before moving on to a higher investment channel (such as list rental).

Incentivized

• OpenX made it easy to manage online advertising. At the time I used the product I was the lead developer in charge of implementing the solution but quickly was put into the role of managing the traffic and training other users. It was really easy for a technical user to become a traffic manager. Getting other users trained and up to speed was very efficient.