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Does anyone use Marin Software to manage a large paid search budget?
We are rapidly growing our paid search budget and in need of an application to manage our bids efficiently. Marin Software is the name that keeps coming up the most in my circles but looking for other outside perspectives. If not Marin Software, what else would you recommend and why? What should I be paying for a service like this? Thank you.
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6 Answers
Last year we interviewed just about all the big name mid-market or enterprise-class paid search management vendors. We ended up choosing Marin Software.
The deciding factor for me went beyond "the algorithm". If it really came down to it, our internal team could have analyzed the historical data and done that math. But beyond the data and bid side, I just felt Marin had the best UI, reporting, and feature set. The post-implementation customer support has been amazing, as well.
In terms of pricing for these bid management suites, you're going to get quoted somewhere between 3%-15% of your spend. Negotiate heavily because nobody pays 15%. A lot of their customers don't even have 15% gross margins...
Over the last year or so I've recommended Marin to SMB's and to multi-billion dollar enterprises without any reservations whatsoever.
Hi Adam,
I'd be happy to connect you with a representative at Marin Software to give you an overview on the benefits and features of Marin Search Marketer. We currently have over 150 clients including Razorfish, Neo@Oglivy, University of Phoenix, Zip Realty and Angie's List collectively managing $600MM in annual paid search spend.
I've included links to our client case studies that have demonstrated an increase in ROI, conversions and volume, all while reducing paid search spend and the amount of time spent managing paid search.
Client References:
Trouvé Media case study - http://marinsoftware.com/customers/casestudies/trouve_casestudy.html
Extra Space Storage case study - http://marinsoftware.com/customers/casestudies/extraspacestorage_casestudy.html
CenturyNovelty case study - http://marinsoftware.com/customers/casestudies/centurynovelty_casestudy.html
Reply! case study - http://marinsoftware.com/customers/casestudies/reply_casestudy.html
I hope you find this information useful. If you have any other questions or concerns, feel free to reach out to me directly at slee @marinsoftware.com
Regards,
Samantha Lee
Marketing Manager
Marin Software
There are plenty vendors in this space. It depends on your level of expertise, your monthly spend, your market, etc. I work for ClickEquations and compete with Marin daily. I happen to think ClickEquations has the most powerful platfrom commercially available. Whether Marin, Clickequations or one of the other many platforms is right for you...I can't say without knowing more about your business. Other plaforms available to you include ClickEquations, Kenshoo, Aquisio, SearchIgnite, Clickable, WebTrends Ad Director, etc...etc...etc.
Peter Vogt
ClickEquations
203-981-9170
Hi Adam,
Let me tackle your second question, "What should I be paying for a service like this?", to start. Most of the paid search management platform vendors on the market charge a percentage of spend, ex: http://www.clickequations.com/ppc/pricing/.
Make sure you ask if there are any setup fees, how much support costs and what's included. The right tool has to work from a feature set and total cost.
I haven't used Marin Software, but I am the Marketing Manager at ClickEquations, a complete paid search management for large advertisers and agencies. In order for any bid management system to work, it has to be built on great data. Garbage in, garbage out, right? We have killer data and reporting - Impression Share, Quality Score, Minimum first page bid, full search queries for all three engines and a lot more. We support multiple attribution types: first click, last click, linear and weighted attribution. The best part is that we calculate all 4 types simultaneously, so you can always analyze your historical data. Plus, you can choose which attribution type to use when you setup our bid management system.
Our site is www.clickequations.com. I'd be happy to answer any questions: acohen @ clickequations.com. If you're at Ad:Tech in NYC this week, stop by booth 1824 for a demo.
Cheers,
-Alex
Marketing Manager, ClickEquations
Hi Adam,
If you are a Multi-Channel Retailer, you should also take a look at our solutions at www.channeladvisor.com. We have the #1 Paid Search platform for Online Retail with deep inventory integration, features built around handling Out of Stock products, and a robust algorithmic bid manager.
Our suite of technology platforms also includes a Comparison Shopping(Shopping.com, Shopzilla, etc) Solution and a Marketplaces (eBay, Amazon, etc) Solution.
Differentiators:
1. We bill on a percent of Revenue, so we are incented to help you grow your business, not drive Ad Spend. We also provide discounts for Retailers who use multiple products.
2. We provide Full Service management to where we handle all strategic and tactical aspects of your campaign, and we also provide a Self-Service option where you can use the technology yourself.
If you are interested in hearing more, feel free to visit our site (www.channeladvisor.com) and fill out a product demonstration request or send me an email at andrew.belsky (at) chaneladvisor(dot)com.
If you are looking at Marin I encourage you to look at Kenshoo as well. We have a hybrid bid management system with both Rules based and Portfolio based technologies, all developed in-house and customizable to you needs. We have countless other features as well including automated keyword harvesting and expansion, conversion attribution, a negative keyword manager and more.
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