Save to My Lists

Smartly Reviews & Product Details - Page 2

Smartly Overview

What is Smartly?

Smartly is one of the world’s largest SaaS digital advertising platforms, managing nearly $5B in ad spend with 700+ brands worldwide. Our leading end-to-end technology and outstanding customer service help brands like Walmart, FanDuel, L’Oreal, Warner Bros. Discovery, Nestle, and Disney/ESPN to better reach audiences, engage creatives and learn what performs best. We consistently drive scale for brand and performance across the largest media platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, Snap, Pinterest, TikTok, and Google. The Smartly Digital Advertising Platform empowers marketing teams with one primary interface focused on driving profitable growth across a rapidly fragmenting media landscape. Specifically, the our ad tech enables brands to: - Reach Smartly: Automate campaign workflows across all major platforms, reaching audiences quickly, easily and cost-effectively. - Engage Smartly: Create beautiful, cohesive, and effective creative across the funnel that drives action. - Learn Smartly: Extract actionable insights and respond to audience behaviors in real-time to maximize return on investment (ROI).

Smartly Details
Languages Supported
English
Show LessShow More
Product Description

The best way to automate social media advertising.

How do you position yourself against your competitors?

Our customer Jeanine summarises our value proposition better than we ever could: "It is extremely easy to use. Since we started using Smartly our campaign and ad setup time have nearly halved, compared to when we used ads manager and other FMPs. They are quick to roll out betas and new features compared to some of their competitors. Support is fantastic, they usually respond within 5 min. Possibly the best on the market for this. Automated ads are amazing once you take the time to set this up properly. Some amazing video and image template features for both DPA and Automated ads."


Seller Details
Year Founded
2013
HQ Location
Helsinki, Finland
Twitter
@smartlyio
2,271 Twitter followers
LinkedIn® Page
www.linkedin.com
895 employees on LinkedIn®

LC
Overview Provided by:

Recent Smartly Reviews

RE
Ryan E.Enterprise (> 1000 emp.)
5.0 out of 5
"Smartly is an absolute game changer - highly recommend!"
Literally love everything about smartly - the features, the ease of use, the customer support, the onboarding process - I could go on and on. We...
SD
Smith D.Small-Business (50 or fewer emp.)
4.0 out of 5
"Its a Smart way of doing business"
How easy it is to use and deploy, I would recommend it to very one
MS
Mohamed S.Mid-Market (51-1000 emp.)
4.0 out of 5
"very useful for time efficiency and optimization"
The power of saving time when uploading tens of creatives to Facebook the ability to adjust bids for signals that Facebook doesn't even show Bene...
Security Badge
This seller hasn't added their security information yet. Let them know that you'd like them to add it.
0 people requested security information

Smartly Media

Answer a few questions to help the Smartly community
Have you used Smartly before?
Yes

Video Reviews

467 out of 468 Total Reviews for Smartly

4.4 out of 5
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.
Search reviews
Popular Mentions
The next elements are radio elements and sort the displayed results by the item selected and will update the results displayed.
Hide FiltersMore Filters
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.
The next elements are filters and will change the displayed results once they are selected.
467 out of 468 Total Reviews for Smartly
4.4 out of 5
467 out of 468 Total Reviews for Smartly
4.4 out of 5

Smartly Pros and Cons

How are these determined?Information
Pros and Cons are compiled from review feedback and grouped into themes to provide an easy-to-understand summary of user reviews.
Pros
Cons

Overall Review Sentiment for SmartlyQuestion

Time to Implement
<1 day
>12 months
Return on Investment
<6 months
48+ months
Ease of Setup
0 (Difficult)
10 (Easy)
Log In
Want to see more insights from verified reviewers?
Log in to view review sentiment.
G2 reviews are authentic and verified.
MW
Social Media Marketing Specialist
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

Template editor - when I need to adapt creatives to different languages, there is no better tool than smartly :) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

Till now I used mostly template editor. It's great and I really like it but it might include more options similar to adobe tools. Right now some of them are missing, most annoying is that I need to separately open PS to use pippete tool and check color, or externally crop images and upload them again to smartly. Those are minor things which are easy to bypass with external tool but sometimes annoying. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Smartly:

Template creation tool is even better than sales team described it ;)

Campaign creation tool is also ok but when we needed to set up first campaign we had 3-4 moments when we weren't sure what to do. Flow is very similar to Facebook's ad panel but still slightly different. We needed to ask a couple of questions on chat.

Once you onboard try to ask your rep to set up your first campaign step by step with him during video call. We didn't do it this way and right now we think it would be much more effective.

In general tool is helpful and we think it was a good decision to start using it.

It might be your choice, especially if you run global campaigns with similar creatives in several markets and you need to adapt master creatives to each local market language. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Creatives adaptation to different languages - that's the biggest pain that we had and right now Smartly helps us save a lot of time here. Even adobe tools are not as helpful as smartly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

RL
S
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

The real power of Smartly lies in it's "back end" abilities to create dynamic, targeted ads with minimal building. My experience with it, however, is mostly "front end," meaning that I use it to design templates, so my view of Smartly is more as a tool along the lines of Photoshop/After Effects. In this regard, Smartly is surprisingly capable as a layout/motion graphics tool. Of course it is a limited incarnation of the Adobe products but I have been able to build assets with an unexpected amount of control over the elements. I am also able to deliver templates to teammates who are able to modify them to their specific uses without having extensive knowledge of the more complex, traditional tools. This is a credit to Smartly's relative ease of use. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

To answer this question I fired up Smartly to see what stuck out as a deficiency but nothing lept out for me. If I had a wish list I would like to see some improvements around the motion transitions. There is a great, basic set in place but control over them is quite limited (no F-curve for example). Another improvement could be around masking. As it is, I am forced to use square shapes to conceal items and to control where they are revealed and this gets to be difficult when organizing layers. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Smartly:

As a designer/content creator do not be afraid of using this platform. It is easy to learn and is capable of handling most of your desired outcomes. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Again, as a visual designer, I already have tools to accomplish the things I do in Smartly but it allows me to do them at scale. I can build a single template that can be used to showcase our entire catalog, saving an unthinkable amount of time. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Marketing and Advertising
UM
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

It's versatility--you can automate creative to not only run through campaigns, but you can use it to develop winning dynamic creative that removes a lot of the headaches of traditional development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

Nothing really, I would say if I had to say something, it would be a better NLE system for video, it's a little limited but does the job for now. It could have more effects. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Again, the problems we have solved are creating a massive amount of scalable, dynamic creative with little to no effort proportionately speaking. It's truly a game-changer. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

LD
Senior Paid Social Specialist
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
(Original )Information
What do you like best about Smartly?

The 24/5 support chat is undoubtedly Smartly's best feature. To have hundreds of specialists available online and ready to help you with anything from campaign set-up to API use cases is completely unique. Organisations that don't use Smartly are really missing out on this expert knowledge! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

There's very little I dislike about Smartly. Occasionally there might be a delay in making certain features available that are already accessible in Ads Manager, but the team is quick to ensure minimal disruption. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Smartly:

Definitely go for it. I couldn't imagine having to work without Smartly now. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

We use Smartly to streamline the process for creating localized assets at scale. By using a combination of Smartly video templates and automated ads campaigns, we have been able to save hours of work within the Paid Social and Creative Studio teams. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

CD
Analyst - Biddable Media
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
Business partner of the seller or seller's competitor, not included in G2 scores.
What do you like best about Smartly?

Ability to find all the social media campaigns on one platform Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

The sync of Facebook with Smartly API sometimes takes time, and as a result, the work gets delayed. The occasional bugs are difficult to deal with. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Smartly:

Smartly.io is a tool that's been very handy to build campaigns across platforms, has also made campaign management a much simpler process. The additional features of the campaign spend pool and optimization features based on the campaign's performance are a huge plus. The rich UX of the platform and the intuitive layout also help the user adapt quickly from the native platform to switch to smartly.io. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Bulk QAs are now much easier. With many accounts, building the campaigns is much easier. The ability to handle all the campaigns on one platform is a boon! Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

GG
Marketing Executive
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
Business partner of the seller or seller's competitor, not included in G2 scores.
What do you like best about Smartly?

The interface is really intuitive compared to any other platform I've used - it's so much easier to change and schedule multiple ads. My clients also really like the custom template feature for dynamic retargeting ads and usually witness improved results when using them. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

I'm not a massive fan of the triggers section - the on and off areas don't seem to make any sense as functionally they offer the same options. I also find it frustrating that the only to add ads to dynamic campaigns is manually through the campaigns, unlike the static ads, which can be added simultaneously through the campaign view. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

I find scaling for clients with Smartly really easy, budget and bid manipulation makes it easy to scale clients. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Retail
UR
Enterprise(> 1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

I like Smartlys support the most. The 24/5 chat that I can always find available. Answers are always very quick to come by Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

The learning curve is pretty significant. Additionally, it'd be tough to learn how to create _helpful_ pivots without a lot of knowledge in setting up a columns Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Smartly makes campaign creation a lot faster. It saves time and makes it easier to find meaningful data from the campaign Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Apparel & Fashion
UA
Small-Business(50 or fewer emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

The support received from Smartly team is convenient and helpful whenever we face any issue while setting up campaigns. Further, we are able to track performance on different levels, monitor spend and also build custom reports and share amazing previews for creatives; along with the auto-optimization option for creative and constant recommendations to have a healthy and successful campaign. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

What I might dislike about Smartly is missing some features that can even facilitate the process for the campaign creation or becoming more creative while creating ads. Moreover, having training on the updates happening on the platform is important in order to be able to be up to date and build more successful campaigns. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Recommendations to others considering Smartly:

one of their main requirements for a platform that is to be practical, simple, and easy to use and through Smartly, was able to find the easiest way to build my campaigns, simple way to pull reports and track performance and also practically build my own creatives. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Recently with the iOS 14 update, Smartly team was super supportive in fixing any issues we had faced after these changes, and they made sure that we make all the changes required to not miss any tracking opportunity. Further, Smartly team as well was super helpful in case we faced any issue while building a campaign, investigating any error related to creatives or audience sets, which made the campaign creation process way easier than using Facebook ads manager. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

DM
D
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

You can optimise campaigns so much quicker and view data and creative performance with ease.

I also love the creative overlay tools that make our dynamic ads a lot more eye-catching than any of our competition. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

Sometimes there are still things that can only be done on Facebook Ads manager like pinning products in videos to the catalogue but smartly usually catches up pretty quickly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

We save a lot more time in creative setup and optimisations using smartly as we don't have to export the data to pivot it for analysis. We can do it right in the platform. We can also create and share custom dashboards, so the whole team has really interesting viewpoints that update automatically. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Verified User in Consumer Services
UC
Mid-Market(51-1000 emp.)
More Options
Validated Reviewer
Verified Current User
Review source: G2 invite on behalf of seller
Incentivized Review
What do you like best about Smartly?

Smartly makes the template building process much faster than our in-house template process for Google & Facebook ads. Smartly also allows us to offer carousel ads, which is quite exciting as we could not do this before. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What do you dislike about Smartly?

Unfortunately, Smartly does not offer the same customization abilities as our in-house system does. With our internal system, we create templates by directly editing code which allows for custom stylings such as superscripted cents, custom badges, and custom prices. For example, if the price is "Buy One Get One" and the retailer wants "Buy" and "Get" to be red, we can internally customize the code to accommodate that.

If I had to recommend something that would hugely help my team, it would be to implement responsive padding and/or inline editing.

Responsive Padding Example: Right now if I want to superscript the cents within a price, I would need to separate dollars and cents into two different text boxes. The problem here is if the price changes from $20.99 to $2.99, the cents text box does not read the dollar text box width, and a significant gap is left behind.

Inline Padding Example: Another option to fix the above scenario would be introducing inline styling, allowing certain elements within the same text box to be edited (or in the above example, superscripted). Perhaps a way of doing this would be to implement conditional formatting inside the same text box. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

What problems is Smartly solving and how is that benefiting you?

Smartly has allowed us to get through the template creation process faster, as the interface is design-oriented and no code editing is required. It also allows us to create templates to duplicate into different campaigns, which saves even more time in creative setup. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.