Smartly Pros and Cons

Literally love everything about smartly - the features, the ease of use, the customer support, the onboarding process - I could go on and on.

We are a multi-location franchise with nearly 100 locations and offers every month. It would take forever to launch new ads every month and scale them nationwide with localized content. With smartly, we can now do that in minutes.

They support nearly every native Meta Ads feature - DPA, DCO, Instant Experience, Instant Form, Placement Customization, etc.

Our entire campaign structure can be managed from easy to use Google Sheets automation feeds. Budget, creative, copy, targeting, etc - all managed live from Google Sheets!

The reporting is out of this world. To be honest, I didn't think I would find much value in it at first because I am a Looker Studio power-user, but now I live and breathe in Smartly's reporting. The ability to blend multiple ad accounts, channels, create custom dimensions, metrics, and save custom views has been an unexpected, but welcome surprise.

They also support TikTok, Google, Snapchat, and Pinterest - we haven't had a chance to explore these channels YET, but love that Smartly's efficiency gains will allow us to expand our reach to multiple channels with even less workload than previously required for just meta. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Smartly does not currently support DPA catalog campaigns with an instant form destination. We are a B2C lead-gen focused advertiser so this is super important to us and we would likely have media spend of $100k+ /month on these campaigns. They are adding new features weekly, so hopefully this will come soon!

Smartly's image template editor is not as robust as other dynamic image editors we've used in the past like creatomate. Particularly around font auto-sizing and dynamic image layer alignment. Still super powerful and we make it work, but sometimes have to make some small design concessions or use conditional rendering workarounds. Hopefully Smartly's product team can look at Creatomate's editor and implement some of their features :) Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

I can manage all my Facebook and Instagram campaigns in a very effective and easy way, and I can also check all my campaign metrics very easily. Love it and I would recommended it to anyone managing lots of campaigns. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Some bugs when uploading ads (vieos). But doesn't happen too frequently. I've only had issues with these a couple of times, and with the help of customer support, I quickly solved it Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

How easy it is to use and deploy, I would recommend it to very one Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

nothing may be they can work more on the UI and fix it asap Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The number of options it offers. How it allows us to go one step further than BM and how it perfectly complements the needs of users.

In my opinion, it is a necessary option if the client has a very high volume of campaigns or markets with which to work. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

He does not always have the required fluency and there have been certain moments where he has been caught. There are certain functionalities that it cannot offer yet. The connection with other social networks (not FB) is still under development. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

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

Beneficial and resourceful support Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

More comprehensive Help articles / knowledge database would save more time to provide instructions on how to work with sheets of creatives upload Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Smartly is more than just a tool to manage and report on your social media campaigns. They are also a strategic partner to your business or agency. They have all the industry insights on best practices and think with you on how to improve your account structure and performance of campaigns. The reporting is superb and the creative features are amazing. Also, the ability to connect Google Analytics to your campaign reporting for last-click performance is a huge quality of life improvement for anyone working in performance marketing. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The learning curve is quite steep. I would recommend hiring a specialist for the onboarding period in order to educate your team and to make the test period a success. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Automation features, tools for collaboration and easy-to-use creative tools for image as well as video ads. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Price model is quite heavy, as is the learning curve. They are in the process of adding more channels but the integration of automation features is not quite 100% yet. For Facebook, they are best in class though. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It makes campaign management and testing very easy. The creative optimization capabilities are excellent, especially for DPA campaigns. And there chat support is simply the best Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Not much to dislike, honestly. Sometimes during peak season, it becomes a bit slow. Also, sometimes bugs appear with the Facebook API, which causes problems Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

The functionality of automated ads and additional optimization strategies are lovely. The support team is very fast and helpful, something that too many people don't understand until they deal with Facebook support. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

It's a very glitchy program, there tend to be many errors without explanation and we consistently have to troubleshoot. When a feed reprocess fails, sometimes the explanation is complete jargon and illegible. I also tend to find the UI rather clunky and I think it could be designed in a more user friendly flow. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Bulk and being able to make lots of changes quickly. Easy to check stats on pivot table. Excellent customer support. Easy to reach. Accessible to ad new groups and ads. I'd never go back to use Facebook Manager again. My Facebook campaign performance has increased since I started optimizing using smarly. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.

Pivot table is still kind of slow and not so friendly to use, but it's getting better. The team makes a great offer upgrading the product and coming up with new updates. We have meetings every two weeks to be updated regarding the product and the new features.

Sometimes you can find bugs when uploading new ads and its annoying because we can waste a lot of time.. Review collected by and hosted on G2.com.