
Why I Moved From AdRoll to Perfect Audience - ryankelly
This week, I decided to move our ad retargeting business from AdRoll to Perfect Audience for a number of reasons, which I will explain:<p>1) Better Results
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post describing the differences between AdRoll and Perfect Audience in terms of performance.  Both performed well, but PA performed better, and for less cost.<p>2) Clearer Billing Practices
One thing that frustrated me about AdRoll was their vague billing methods, especially when you are running multiple campaigns for multiple customers.  AdRoll would build up a "reseve" in our account, even though the campaigns weren't exhausting it.  Perfect Audience sends a very clear, detailed summary of the billing each week by campaign, showing what was used the prior week, and what they need to replenish the campaign to get it to the weekly amount.<p>3) Easier UI
Both systems have similar UI in terms of the setup, but PA is the winner here.  I like their UTM tag builder, and the way I can differentiate between clients in what I would call "agency mode."<p>4) Receptive to Customers
I thought that PA did a fantastic job of reaching out to customers and getting feedback.  I gave them a few ideas that seemed to get their interest, and I like dealing with companies who value my opinion.<p>As I said earlier, both systems are great platforms, but I prefer to use Perfect Audience for the reasons above.
======
brandnewlow
This is us :) <http://perfectaudience.com>

Really terrific to see folks appreciating the time we spent slaving over the
billing system and trying to make it not completely suck.

If anyone on HN is curious about retargeting, especially on Facebook, where
low CPMs are plentiful, drop on by!

~~~
omarchowdhury
Is PerfectAudience going to look into CPC billing in the future?

~~~
brandnewlow
It's possible! We've got so many feature requests rolling in though that it
might take a while.

Can you explain why CPC is important to you?

If we did CPC pricing, we'd still be buying the inventory on a CPM basis. That
means we'd have to develop an algorithm that determins what CPM to bid based
on your CPC bid. To make sure we don't lose money on it, we'd have to add some
safety margin in there which ultimately means you're paying more.

------
hayksaakian
Retargeting as a concept is so counterintuitive.

User X visited your site and bounced. Now you need to show an ad to convince
him to come back.

If this is a solution to visitors bouncing, this seems to be going about it
incorrectly. You should give them a good reason to stay on your site in the
first place. If this is a solution to visitor retention - as in people leaving
because they used your site and forgot about it - then you need to provide
them a reminder that you exist as well as some ongoing value proposition.

I guess if this is delivering ROI though then I'm totally wrong.

~~~
omarchowdhury
It's also being used for branding. You see an ad for a service or product
everywhere, and you'll think they're big.

~~~
ryankelly
This is almost always the first reaction from customers. They love that they
are able be "everywhere" for relatively little money.

------
calbear81
I've been using Perfect Audience for Room 77 for a bit over a month or two now
and I have some feedback to share as well.

\- I appreciate the much better UI for managing campaigns and the
funding/billing was all very clear. Kudos for creating an intuitive and simple
UI.

\- I think the CPA metrics should be broken out into click conversions only
and click + view conversions as the view conversions are frankly much less
attributable without doing an attribution modeling study. You also run into
issues around double counting with any other retargeting or display platforms
I might be using.

Wish List

\- I'm moving my budgets on display more towards vendors who are providing
more support for dynamic ads (feed inclusion, API integration) such as Criteo
and Triggit which promises to use information about the products a user was
interested in to create more targeted ads that deliver higher CTRs and more
relevance.

\- Maybe I'm missing it but can I adjust frequency caps myself to specific
rules like "no more than 7 ads in a 24 hour period" etc.?

~~~
brandnewlow
Hi, Roger! I really appreciate this. Responses:

1\. Re: CPA reporting, we do break those numbers out in the campaigns table
down below your main reporting graph. Sorry that's not more clearly labeled!

2\. Re: Dynamic ads, that's not something we have in the main self-service app
that you're using but it is something we offer folks who commit to minimums.

3\. Re: Frequency caps. We set sane frequency caps automatically and adjust
them over time for self-service customers. This protects our brand and the
advertiser's! For folks who commit to minimum spends we can give over full
control of those settings if desired.

Happy to chat anytime this week about getting you squared away on these
fronts. I just wrote to the e-mail address attached to your account to see if
we can chat. Feel free to ping me at brad@perfectaudience.com if that's
easier.

~~~
calbear81
Thanks for reaching out so quickly regarding the feedback. I'll touch base
with you as we build out our display and retargeting strategy.

~~~
brandnewlow
Sounds good!

------
china
Thanks for the info - I was signing up with Perfect Audience (currently an
adroll customer) and chatted with their olark chat. After getting pretty
technical with the guy on the other end, he said "Sorry, I'm not 100% sure on
this - I am the CEO not the lead dev. I like to chat to get to know the
customers!"

#rad.

------
spo81rty
I use Perfect Audience for Stackify (<http://stackify.com>) and it works
really well. I also used AdRoll before. PA's UI is much better for sure. Their
support has been amazing and I highly recommend them.

------
gavinbaker
Thanks for sharing this. I had a marginal experience with PA and your post is
making me take a second look.

As an aside, it would be great to see more posts on HN about "why I chose X
over Y"

~~~
brandnewlow
Hi, Gavin,

Feel free to drop me a line anytime at brad@perfectaudience.com.

Launching a product is one thing. Building a brand and a business is another.
We had a ton of companies sign up and check us out during the first few weeks.
Meanwhile we kep making our tools better and better. We've launched at least 5
major updates in the last month alone. Would love to see if we can hook you up
with more sales and conversions.

------
nobody_nowhere
Did you evaluate any other competitive platforms?

~~~
ryankelly
I've used Retargeter in the past, but at a $500 per month flat fee, it's not
always going to win over our customers. They prefer the smaller, weekly
billing based on usage model.

