Microsoft Advertising vs. Skai

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Advertising
Score 7.7 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads) contains Microsoft's advertising solutions. Advertising formats include search (Microsoft Search ads), Display and Native ads, Retail Media, and Video and Connected TV (CTV) ads. Services include Performance Max, the company's conversion optimization AI assistant and guide.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
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Kenshoo
$10,000
Starting Price
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeRequired
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Considered Both Products
Microsoft Advertising
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft is the best if you want to target the USA business; it has a great standing against these other platforms.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
We're using both. Basically using directly importation from google to Microsoft Advertising. If you already run ads on google, it's very easy to copy the structure on Microsoft Advertising as well.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
In my opinion, Microsoft Ads is definitely inferior to Google Ads as a platform, but there's no reason you can't use both. We have never chosen Microsoft Ads solely over Google Ads, it's only a supplement because Google Ads provides so much more scale potential from its search …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Because of duckduckgo we have to use Microsoft advertising and it turns out as the worst user experience given the company of this magnitude. Worst.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
This is a platform that had potential if only it was run by ethically minded people. It's not.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Not a good experience I will you skippable ads on Youtube.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Technically, there is no comparison with the above systems - just a lack of features and a bunch of technical bugs.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
The cost per click is definitely lower than Google Ads. But the drawback of it is that the audience size is smaller as well. The reason we picked Microsoft Advertising is that it is a good complementary solution to Google Ads. We use both of them with different budgets and we …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising supports Google Ads integration, one of the efficient paid search engine extension. More so, Microsoft Advertising has a responsive, and informative live chat option, simplifying the customer help services. Microsoft Advertising supports conversion …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft advertising is a creative, and diverse marketing option, which makes it preferred by many enterprises. The success rate of Microsoft advertising due to its stability and consistency is another huge merit, and this results to practical results. Finally, Microsoft …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Obviously Google is a huge competitor. Typically Google is top of the game for many advertising solutions including search. Microsoft ads has a lower scale and reach compared to Google. However, Microsoft ads audience does not overlap much with Googles, providing incremental …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Microsoft Advertising has more trustworthy and reliable keyword targeting, but the volume is much lower on Bing.com and related networks than on Google.com and related networks. The display capabilities and performance is lower on Bing as well. The import tool is easy to use …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
It's a smaller market and different demographic, but CPCs can be lower so your ROI can be decent. Overall the interface feels a bit clunky and it's hard to find some features, but that may be because I spend most of my time in Google Ads.

We picked Microsoft Ads because it's …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
[Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads)] has access to superior traffic volume and ability / capability to spend ad dollars. [Microsoft Advertising (formerly Bing Ads)] is really the only paid search advertising option that competes with google ads in any capacity whether …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Unfortunately, I don't think anyone has been able to properly and effectively compete with Google. They are the mammoth in the space - so therefore, I don't think either Bing or Gemini have had a fair shot to showcase their potential worth.
Again, I have found it very difficult …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Bing Ads has a bit less traffic, however, its syndicated network is preferred because we can see where traffic is coming from. I would like to see custom mods for publisher sites to become a feature.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
You have lower volume on Bing ads but the traffic is usually better and you get lower CPC with higher conversion rates.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Bing Ads works similarly to Google Ads (Formerly AdWords) in the fact that it is search engine marketing. It differs in how it reaches a slightly more educated audience, has lower CPC (less competition) and often a better ROI. "Green technologies", solar, wind, etc. work …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Bing Ads is an excellent complement to Google Ads because most likely, it is reaching a different audience. Depending on where your traffic is coming from, one search engine may be better to focus on than the other.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Less cost than Google Ads but smaller audience. The interface is not as user-friendly and it is somewhat slow. The Bing Ads audience is smaller as they only have about 20% of the search market place. So you are limited by the number of searches vs. budget usually.
Chose Microsoft Advertising
In general, Bing Ads as an alternative to Google Ads is pretty weak. As mentioned, while it does have its use cases, many times these are limited as well. With Bing, it seems like there is always a large drop off in the quality of traffic versus advertising products, which …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
Bing is definitely most comparable to Google; in terms of audience sizes, it has about 30% of the traffic that Google Ads can drive; however, its costs are much more efficient, and this additional inventory is less competitive. Additionally, Bing has some features not available …
Chose Microsoft Advertising
As mentioned, it is overall more cost effective and you cannot afford to ignore all that Search traffic.
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
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Ad Campaigns
Comparison of Ad Campaigns features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Advertising
3.9
Ratings
3% below category average
Skai
6.1
Ratings
24% below category average
Ad campaign creation7.10 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Ad deployment8.00 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Display advertising1.90 Ratings4.30 Ratings
Ad display and retargeting segmentation3.60 Ratings4.80 Ratings
Sequence targeting1.00 Ratings6.30 Ratings
Contextual advertising4.50 Ratings00 Ratings
Social advertising1.00 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Reporting & Analytics
Comparison of Ad Reporting & Analytics features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Advertising
5.3
Ratings
1% above category average
Skai
7.3
Ratings
6% below category average
Ad dashboards4.70 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Ad performance reports4.70 Ratings9.80 Ratings
Ad conversion tracking6.30 Ratings6.70 Ratings
Ad attribution reporting5.40 Ratings7.60 Ratings
Ad forecasting and optimization5.40 Ratings6.20 Ratings
Cross-channel ad management00 Ratings5.90 Ratings
Ad Auctions
Comparison of Ad Auctions features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Advertising
6.6
Ratings
3% below category average
Skai
-
Ratings
Ad bidding6.60 Ratings00 Ratings
Ad Network Integration
Comparison of Ad Network Integration features of Product A and Product B
Microsoft Advertising
-
Ratings
Skai
7.1
Ratings
4% below category average
Data Transfer00 Ratings8.50 Ratings
DSP integration00 Ratings5.70 Ratings
Best Alternatives
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Small Businesses
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager
Score 8.5 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
WordStream
WordStream
Score 6.9 out of 10
The Trade Desk
The Trade Desk
Score 9.0 out of 10
Enterprises
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Score 8.6 out of 10
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
LinkedIn Marketing Solutions
Score 9.0 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Likelihood to Recommend
5.9
(0 ratings)
9.2
(0 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(0 ratings)
7.8
(0 ratings)
Usability
6.0
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
3.6
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.1
(0 ratings)
9.6
(0 ratings)
Implementation Rating
7.0
(0 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft AdvertisingSkai
Likelihood to Recommend
Despite using our account for advertising with every other social media company, Microsoft flagged ours as fraudulent. After dealing with them for weeks, we finally got to a manager, who said that they didn’t know anything, couldn’t provide any information, and was unable to do anything about it. It seems odd, but it would flagger account every time we try to upload the campaigns from Google directly into their ad manager. I would suggest if you try and use their platform, don’t tell them you’re using Google cause they seem to have a thing against it. Once your account is flagged, they have no reasonable way of resolving it, nor they are able to offer any support. You’re better off to just try a different way. Ultimately, just don’t use Microsoft advertising if you can possibly avoid it. Hopefully soon DuckDuckGo will have their own advertising platform and we can eliminate Microsoft given the terrible time we have working with this one of many, social media platforms.
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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
  • Familiar interface, offers editor for bulk changes, adding negative keywords is much easier than in Google Ads
  • Nice reporting tools within the interface, detailed reports can be made fairly easily
  • Had very nice tools to help import/export ads directly from Google Ads, which saves a ton of time
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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
  • Bing's ad platform could definitely use some improvements - it hasn't been updated in a long time, and it feels very outdated.
  • We feel that the optimization algorithms don't always perform as well for Bing Ads as they do in Google Ads (optimize for conversions, etc.).
  • It would be great to have even more integrations with LinkedIn audience targeting offered - right now, you can just make some bid optimizations in a couple of areas; we'd really like to get more robust options there, and maybe even things like cross-platform tracking.
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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
We have had good success with it over all of our clients. We continually recommend bing to reach "the rest of the searchers".
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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
It's very easy to use overall. It has an import from Google Ads to make things simpler. Overall, I would say you can get up and running very quickly. It's similar to other platforms, so if you have used them, it's intuitive.
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Set-up like other marketing platforms. If you know Google Ads, you know Kenshoo
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Support Rating
Our Bing Ads reps are very good and attentive. They've offered good recommendations and are quick to resolve unexpected issues and problems. Occasionally they have roped in technical support folks that have been friendly and helpful too. The general helpline for Bing Ads is also very good, especially when compared to Google's customer support.
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Very responsive and bring fast answers for problems
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Alternatives Considered
Obviously Google is a huge competitor. Typically Google is top of the game for many advertising solutions including search. Microsoft ads has a lower scale and reach compared to Google. However, Microsoft ads audience does not overlap much with Googles, providing incremental reach. Although Microsoft ads lags a bit behind in adapting the new updates that Google comes out with, their customer service is very good and they are likely to go out of their way to adapt their platform to your needs whereas their competitor does not
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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've had a very hard time spending our budgets on Bing which has caused us a lot of extra work on our end. We've essentially had to move that money back to Google or other platforms.
  • It does have an easy import from Google so you're not doubling efforts.
  • The CPCs tend to be less expensive than Google - which is always good for business owners.
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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