ClickZ has launched an innovative new series of buyers guides, created with the aim of cutting through the complexity of the technology landscape to help our community of readers make better decisions about vendors. The first of this series is dedicated to bid management platforms. These technologies help business get more from their PPC budgets and to enhance their digital marketing strategies.

1. Buyers forum
Bid Management Tools
London, 21st February 2018

2. 1
This Morning’s Agenda
About the guide
Paid search today
The role of bid management software
Company profiles
Break
The survey results
Bid management
Automation
Cross-channel
Strategic insight
Reporting and analytics
User experience
Overall
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3. 2
ClickZ Buyers Guides
Helping you find the right technology partners

4. 3
About the guide
The aims of our guides are as follows:
To inform marketers’ decisions by providing an objective view of
the technology landscape.
To pool the collective knowledge of our community to share
insights into the experience of using different marketing
technologies.
To facilitate long-term relationships between brands and
vendors.
There are over 5,000 marketing technologies today – up
from just 150 in 2011.
33% of the average marketing budget is spent on
technology.
Add in the integrations with legacy technology,
management of stakeholders and the long onboarding
periods - choosing the right technology can be equated to
being dropped into the middle of a minefield and your job is
to lead your team to safety.

5. 4
The search industry today

6. 5
An evolving, growing channel
In 2017, $92.4 billion was spent on paid search advertising worldwide
Google retains a stranglehold of this market and is constantly
innovating to help advertisers maximize ROI.
The industry is about much more than text ads nowadays; search
allows brands to meet customers at the very source of demand,
whether through text, images, or videos, across multiple devices
and languages.
The areas driving growth in 2018 will be:
Increase in smartphone usage and accompanying new features
to advertise at these moments.
Intent-based audience targeting across channels.
More enlightened attribution will reveal the value of search
through the purchase journey.
Dynamic search ads and product listing ads adoption will
continue to grow.
Competition will drive innovation from Google, to the benefit of
advertisers
Digital Benchmark Report, Marin Software, Q4 2017

7. 6
Mobile share of PPC spend
Mobile has surpassed desktop and is still growing
Digital Benchmark Report, Marin Software, Q4 2017

8. 7
Digital spend dominated by Google & Facebook
Digital spend is growing, but the
vast majority of incremental
dollars are going straight to
Google and Facebook.
Advertisers would welcome a
third (and fourth) alternative, but
for now the foundations of a
digital marketing campaign have
to be build on these two
platforms for most companies.
This hegemony has significant
implications for advertisers – both
positive and negative.

9. 8
The market is increasing in complexity
Google and Facebook are diversifying their offerings, while other competitors enter the fray.

10. 9
The modern paid media funnel
Universal App Campaigns
Facebook lead ads
Video ads
Unbranded searches
Visual search
Image search
YouTube
GDN
Dynamic remarketing
Customer match
Branded searches
Dynamic product ads
Amazon sponsored ads
Consideration
Awareness/Discovery
Purchase
Retention

11. 10
AdWords average CTR remains high
Compared to other channels, AdWords still delivers high engagement rates.

12. 11
Competition drives Facebook CPMs up
Facebook is still maturing and it requires a highly agile approach to strategy.

13. 12
While FAN average CTR drops
Facebook’s Audience Network remains a work in progress.

14. 13
LinkedIn CTR slowly increasing
CPMs are increasing at a similar rate, however.

15. 14
LinkedIn CTR slowly increasing
CPMs are increasing at a similar rate, however.

16. “”
“”
15
Demis Habassis, DeepMind
Our A.I. is more powerful because we have removed
the constraints of human knowledge.

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Opportunities to grow: Creative depth
Machine learning algorithms need more options to refine their targeting.

18. 17
Opportunities to grow: Audience usage
Audiences and keywords can combine to create more sophisticated campaigns.

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The role of Bid Management Software
Creating profitability out of increased complexity.

20. 19
These vendors solve business problems

21. 20
They drive better business results

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23. 22
How to choose the right technology partner
A five-stage process to refine your search.

24. 23
Company profiles

25. 24
Kenshoo
Full-funnel search and social platform.
Kenshoo is particularly well positioned to take
advantage of the evolving paid media landscape.
o After launching a pioneering partnership with
Pinterest and adding a list of new features to improve
Amazon performance, Kenshoo offers a paid media
management solution that will appeal to marketers
with complex and multifaceted campaigns under
their management.

26. 25
DoubleClick Search
Deep integration with the DoubleClick stack.
DoubleClick Search has established a prominent position
as a user-friendly platform with sophisticated machine
learning technology at its core and accurate reporting on
cross-channel, cross-device performance.
DoubleClick’s proprietary Floodlight tag provides a
seamless integration of online data sources and the
ability to add custom dimensions, while it is also
possible to upload offline data into the platform.

27. 26
Marin Software
Deep integration of search and social.
Marin Software sees Google and Facebook as the core
components for marketers to get right first, but support
is also provided for emerging platforms like Pinterest
too.
Their position as a third-party solution allows Marin
Software to be publisher agnostic and provide
unbiased strategic recommendations to its clients.

28. 27
Adobe Advertising Cloud
Support for complex campaigns that span on- and offline media.
Customers who already invest in other Adobe marketing
products may find Adobe Advertising Cloud to provide
the most profitable results, as the platform turns this
data into more accurate audience targeting.
In fact, over 200 metrics from Adobe Analytics are
synthesized to create audience segments that can be
uploaded to AdWords.

29. 28
Acquisio
Advanced search management for businesses of all sizes.
The proprietary Acquisio Turing technology brings
predictive analytics to this vendor’s platform, along with
the ability to update bids every 30 minutes.
Acquisio also offers highly valuable features like the
ability to sync with real-time inventory and
dynamically update ads based on stock levels and
prices

30. 29
Wordstream
User-friendly PPC management for SMBs.
Wordstream’s core customer base is in the
small/medium-sized business market and its USP is that
it simplifies paid search to provide business owners with
advanced technology at a lower cost.
Wordstream’s automation technologies can
implement account best practices to any AdWords
campaign.

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The ClickZ and SEW community survey

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Scope and methodology
This guide is aimed at paid media marketers who are evaluating the most suitable technology partner to
boost their digital advertising performance, in particular through search.
For this guide, we have considered 6 vendors that provide bid management, cross-channel optimization, and analytics
solutions for paid search, social media, and display campaigns.
The vendors we have analyzed were chosen based on their position as renowned market leaders, combined with the opinions
of our industry experts and the responses to our survey from the ClickZ and Search Engine Watch (SEW) community.
Industry
research
Survey
responses
1,600+
Expert advisors Market-leading
vendors
6

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ClickZ & SEW survey criteria

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Bid management
Assessing how effectively each vendor manages search budgets to hit campaign objectives.

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Bid management subcategories

36. 35

37. 36
Automation
Using rules-based or AI-driven automation to get better results and increase search marketers’ productivity.

38. 37
Automation subcategories

39. 38

40. 39
Cross-channel capabilities
Vendor support for channels outside Google and Bing search, including social media and display.

41. 40
Cross-channel subcategories

42. 41

43. 42
Strategic insight
Assessment of the additional insight each platform provides into audiences, competitor activity, and
projected account performance.

44. 43
Strategic insight subcategories

45. 44

46. 45
Analytics and reporting
The integration of multiple data sources and the effectiveness of reporting dashboards.

47. 46
Analytics and reporting subcategories

48. 47

49. 48
User experience
Analysis of how intuitive each platform is, and how effective the training and support are for clients.

50. 49
User experience subcategories

51. 50

52. 51
Overall results

53. 52

54. 53
User
experience
results
Best for multi-channel digital: Kenshoo
Best for display/search: DoubleClick Search
Best for social/search: Marin Software
Best for full-funnel marketing: Adobe Advertising Cloud
Best for search: Acquisio
Best for SMBs: Wordstream

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Key takeaways

56. 55
User
experience
results
The distinctions between these vendors are subtle and often come down to the
following considerations:
Integration with brand’s current tech stack
Effectiveness and frequency of vendor’s bid adjustments
Performance prediction accuracy
Mobile/local targeting features
Social media management capabilities
Support for marketing channels beyond search and social
Reporting dashboards
Cost

57. Buyers forum
https://www.techbuyersforum.com/