We are a medium sized apparel retail business with a significant presence online. We've decided to give AdRoll a chance after using another remarketing provider for several years.
We were very clear on what the goals should be and the expected ROI (we asked for an 8:1 return). Our AdRoll account reps said they understand our goals although they cannot guarantee a certain ROI. They said a more realistic ROI would be 3:1 or 4:1. We listened and accepted. Our AdRoll rep said "We are here to ensure we get the highest ROI" and also "I'm very confident that we will more than break-even with your campaigns".
We expressed our concern regarding the monitoring of our campaign and got the promise "you will two sets of eyes on your campaigns and account".
We expressed our concern about the use of view-throughs as an attribution method. Our rep said they will not use that if we don't like it.
After the initial phone call, we signed an insertion order and shortly after launched the remarketing campaign.
1 month later I log in to the dashboard to find that AdRoll did not care for anything I said about view-through conversions. We found that we had 342 total conversions of which 298 were view-throughs. I quickly paused the campaign and emailed our rep to find out where in the line of communication I was misunderstood and why. Needless to say, with the above figures we were at a significant loss, as each conversion that's not considered "view-through" cost us $150.
Our rep (actually 2 of them) listened to what I had to say, and promised to adjust the campaign so that we get a positive ROI instead of just a bunch of people who don't buy anything. I explained again that if we they lose our money then I really don't need a service for that. I know how to lose money on my own.
We resumed the campaign several days later, this time with no view-throughs. After 2 weeks I look at the data and I'm shocked. The campaign is performing poorly and no one seemed to care about it. Since the campaign was adjusted and resumed till the day I had to pause it, we were billed $2,594.03 and received $1,986.38 in revenue. This is not positive ROI by any mean and I'm not factoring in the cost of the goods and so many other expenses. In other words, AdRoll continue to waste or company's money causing us a loss of -$1,700 in a period of 2 weeks.
I was very unhappy about what I was seeing and decided to confront them. I scheduled a call with our reps' supervisor. Instead of stand by me and understanding where I was coming from, the supervisor had the nerve to accuse me of not monitoring the campaign on my own. He said I could have logged in at any time and turned it off if I was unhappy. I'm asking you, the reader of this review, do you think this is a fair practice? Where is the "two sets of eyes on your campaigns and account" that I was promised? Am I to pay AdRoll just to have to do their job? And where is the 3:1 or even 2:1 ROI that AdRoll is confident in getting me?
If you're debating whether or not to sign up with AdRoll, I'll leave it up to you to decide. This was my experience with them and it was quite horrific. I don't know if you will receive the same treatment that I did, or a different one. In any case, and based on my own experience I will recommend that you stay away from AdRoll and look for another provider, one who cares about its client.
