Top Programmatic Job Advertising Platforms — 2023

Everything you need to know about automating your job campaigns, from top programmatic job ad vendors, features, pricing, implementation tips, and more

Phil Strazzulla
HR Tech Expert, Harvard MBA, Software Enthusiast

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The Best Recruiting Advertising Platforms

Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!

From advertising automation and fast deployable landing pages, to sophisticated email automation and advanced data tracking, SmartDreamers has all the tools you need to elevate your talent acquisition process. The customer base is also quite impressive.
Appcast is straightforward, clean, and trusted by some of the world's leading brands. Thanks to their various enterprise solutions, you're sure to find something that rightly fits your hiring needs.
Recruitics boasts a world-class team of experts, the best-in-class technology, and a 99% customer retention rate. If you believe there's no better combination than that of humans and data, Recruitics might be right up your alley.
ClickIQ has an extensive network of outreach for job ads.
Adway's futuristic UI evidently gives away what the company prizes: disruptive technology and the power of social media. Use the software to attract the next generation talent that's tailor made for you.
PandoLogic's AI enabled platform is not only automated but also self-learning. Exploit the power of their intelligent recruiting algorithms; Dominos did it and saw a 472% increase in applicant volume, all while decreasing their cost by 533%.
Talentify is clean, simple, and a mobile-first platform used by big brands including but not limited to Amazon, Walmart, IBM, and Taco Bell. With just a few clicks, Talentify can help you get more candidates from free sources.

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Introduction to Programmatic Job Advertising Platforms

In recent years, companies have turned to programmatic job advertising as a way to more efficiently promote open roles and get quality applicants into their hiring funnels.The best job ad platforms aim to simplify and automate job distribution by using data and AI to manage, track, and optimize performance in real-time. 

It sounds complicated, but it’s actually quite simple – and, when used correctly, you’ll only spend for the applicants you need. What’s more, you’ll get more of the right candidates in your applicant pool, so you can hire faster. In this guide, we’re going to break down everything you need to know about the process and platforms that make it possible, so you can see if programmatic advertising is right for you.

Keep scrolling to learn more about the best programmatic job platforms, how they work, the features you can expect from them, how implementation works, things to consider before investing, and more.

Our Criteria: Here's how we chose who made the cut

We take research seriously. To make sure we’re offering our readers the very best solutions in a given software category, we are methodical, rigorous, and expansive in our research. We consult with HR professionals, vendors, and industry experts. We cut through the noise to bring you a carefully curated list of vendors, along with other essential information, to help you find the right software platform for your business. 

Here’s how we chose who makes the cut: 

Product: We believe in gaining a comprehensive understanding of a product before we recommend it, so we start by getting to know the software. Whenever possible, we meet with a senior executive (CEO or Head of Product) for a demo and Q&A. We also test the product ourselves to make sure it has a solid UI, intuitive workflows, and the features to make it a best-in-class offering. 

User feedback: We go straight to the source and compile feedback on user experience. Real-world input supports our commitment to diligence in our software evaluation methods and the products we recommend. Keeping up with the everyday experience of HR pros also puts new vendors on our radar, and it keeps us close to our community so we can better connect the right products to the right people.

Financial metrics: We are certified finance nerds, so we use all the data we can get our hands on to make selections for our guides. We comb through data for concrete statistics like retention rates, growth, profitability, and scalability. We evaluate the bottom line of each product because we know making a software purchase can put your reputation on the line. 

Best for a use case: Software is never a one-size-fits-all product. Sometimes the best solution is free or cheap. Other times it’s the one that is best for global companies or the one that’s sized right for early-stage startups. Keeping this in mind, we include solutions across the spectrum so our readers can find the best fit for their unique needs.

Here's more detail if you want to read more about how we research vendors. Our dedicated staff writers rely on hard data, impartial experts, and user feedback to ensure our reviews are helpful, truthful, and hopefully a pleasure to read!

Top Recruitment Advertising Platforms

Here are the top programmatic job advertising platforms that we've come across after surveying the vendor landscape.

SmartDreamers

Review:

SmartDreamers has a very slick UI that is wrapped on top of a powerful job advertising platform that allows you to see real-time data around the return on investment from your advertising spend from job seeker to hire. In addition to the data, you can of course start and manage campaigns directly from their tool. They also have career page and employer branding features.

SmartDreamers

Pricing:

There are three pricing plans

  • Essential features social media ads, analytics, landing and career pages, ATS integration, and a detailed Academy.
  • Professional adds job board automation, advanced analytics, Google Analytics integration, A/B testing, custom forms, and multiple teams.
  • Enterprise adds niche website automation, ATS reports integration, custom reporting, CV import automation, custom career pages, and a dedicated account team.

There are three pricing plans

  • Essential features social media ads, analytics, landing and career pages, ATS integration, and a detailed Academy.
  • Professional adds job board automation, advanced analytics, Google Analytics integration, A/B testing, custom forms, and multiple teams.
  • Enterprise adds niche website automation, ATS reports integration, custom reporting, CV import automation, custom career pages, and a dedicated account team.

Best For

Enterprise companies see most use out of SmartDreamers.

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Appcast

Review:

Appcast is definitely one of the programmatic recruitment space leaders that your talent acquisition team should be looking at with over 1,000 customers and nearly 100 ATS integrations. They see most of their customers save 10% of their advertising budget simply by turning off jobs that aren't getting applications, and way more when machine learning is applied to your spend.

Appcast

Pricing:

Appcast offers three solutions for enterprise companies. They are:

  • Premium is managed services for enterprise companies. Appcast will manage job ads for your company.
  • Xcelerate is solely a programmatic job advertising platform. You'll only pay when candidates apply.
  • Global Hiring is an all-encompassing one-stop-shop for enterprise companies. It combines the previous two solutions with more functionality.

You must contact the sales team to get specific pricing information.

Appcast offers three solutions for enterprise companies. They are:

  • Premium is managed services for enterprise companies. Appcast will manage job ads for your company.
  • Xcelerate is solely a programmatic job advertising platform. You'll only pay when candidates apply.
  • Global Hiring is an all-encompassing one-stop-shop for enterprise companies. It combines the previous two solutions with more functionality.

You must contact the sales team to get specific pricing information.

Best For

Large and enterprise companies that want to source talent quickly.

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Recruitics

Review:

Recruitics is actually a job advertising agency that utilizes programmatic recruitment tools as part of their arsenal.  While they aren't a software platform, companies are looking at programmatic recruitment solutions may want to get in touch with them if they're looking for a managed service.

Recruitics

Pricing:

With Recruitics, you only pay for performance. They don't force spend commitments. You must contact a representative to get a quote.

With Recruitics, you only pay for performance. They don't force spend commitments. You must contact a representative to get a quote.

Best For

Companies who don't want to pay for software and would rather have someone else do the work.

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ClickIQ

Review:

ClickIQ is a programmatic tool that was acquired by Indeed in 2019. Even though they are owned by the world's largest job board, they still support their clients in buying demand across many other platforms outside of their parent organization. Machine learning features ensure that job campaigns are automatically optimized.

ClickIQ

Pricing:

ClickIQ has different packages depending on who is using their solution.

  • The In-House Recruiter package costs £299 per month (about $360).
  • The Agency Recruiter package must be worked out with ClickIQ.
  • The Partnership Package must also be worked out with ClickIQ.

In addition, there is a pay-per-click service for job ads. However, ClickIQ only spends when required. If you are able to generate enough free applications to reach your goals through ClickIQ's network, you won't end up spending any extra.

ClickIQ has different packages depending on who is using their solution.

  • The In-House Recruiter package costs ¬£299 per month (about $360).
  • The Agency Recruiter package must be worked out with ClickIQ.
  • The Partnership Package must also be worked out with ClickIQ.

In addition, there is a pay-per-click service for job ads. However, ClickIQ only spends when required. If you are able to generate enough free applications to reach your goals through ClickIQ's network, you won't end up spending any extra.

Best For

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Adway

Review:

Adway helps companies >500 employees to target job seekers on social media and drive them into the hiring funnel.  In addition, they have a retargeting offering that cheaply serves employer brand friendly ads to talent that has visited your job site.

Adway

Pricing:

Best For

Companies with over 500 employees looking to engage social networks.

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Pandologic

Review:

Talent Acquisition teams leverage PandoLogic's programmatic advertising platform, named pandoIQ, to quickly source talent across a broad variety of roles and geographies. Their AI-enabled automation means your team spends less time writing manual rules for job ads, eliminating waste in your media spend and enabling higher volume of quality applicants.

Pandologic

Pricing:

Best For

Companies hiring rapidly who need to source qualified candidates more efficiently.

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Talentify

Review:

Talentify uses machine learning to understand your current job spend, and then optimize it through cutting underperforming job slots and drastically increasing conversion rates into the ATS by offering a mobile-first candidate experience.

Talentify

Pricing:

Talentify starts at $500 a month.

Talentify starts at $500 a month.

Best For

Companies looking for a candidate focused experience.

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Use-Cases: Why Use A Job Advertising Platform

To start, let’s take a closer look at how programmatic job advertising works:

  1. You’ll set up a job listing from your ATS, recruiting CRM, or directly via the programmatic platform of choice.
  2. You’ll set your total budget for the campaign, including what you want to pay for each click or application.
  3. You’ll set ad “rules” that correspond to your ideal candidate for the role in question.
  4. You’ll hit the “buy” button and the programmatic software takes over.
  5. Once your ad is running, the programmatic platform will find candidates online that meet your “rules” and serve the ad where they are on the web, be it a job board like Indeed, Google, Facebook, or another website.
  6. When enough people click on or apply to your ad, the platform will stop running it, so you don’t waste any ad spend.

Very simply put, after you post a job, the platform you use will find the right people to show the posting to, at the right time. Compare this to more traditional methods of advertising for your vacancies: uploading individual job postings to each job board (time-consuming and redundant), using a media buying firm to place job ads for you (expensive and labor-intensive), running separate campaigns across social media — all without real-time feedback or optimization. With programmatic, everything is automated and optimized so you only target the right people, control spend, and hire faster.

There are a variety of reasons why you might use programmatic advertising for your job openings. Companies who are hiring in high volumes or have tough-to-fill roles typically use a job ad platform to make their recruiting efforts more efficient and less expensive overall. 

It might be time to consider a job ad platform if you...

  • Want more applicants in your funnel: But not just any applicants — the right applicants. Job ad platforms are designed to only target people who are a good match to your criteria. When you set up a job ad campaign, you’ll specify “rules” for the type of person you’re looking for; the platforms use data and artificial intelligence to find people who match these rules; and your ad is served to them where they spend their time online, whether it’s a job board, Facebook, or other site.
  • Want to turn off ads (and stop spending money!) when enough people have applied: You tell the platform how much you want to spend on a given job ad, and it will determine the best pay-per-click/pay-per-apply price then stop running the ad when you’ve reached the right number of applicants. That way you only spend for what you need.
  • Support diversity hiring: Most platforms plug in to diversity-focused and other niche job boards (like veteran boards) so you maximize your reach and meet your diversity hiring goals.
  • Are opening new campaign channels: If you currently advertise your jobs on a limited number of job boards, you can use a programmatic job ad platform to more efficiently expand to other newer job boards or even social media. 
  • Manage large amounts of job boards: Rather than posting the same job description to a handful of job boards individually, use a job ad platform to do it only once. Set up your job ad, and let the platform do the rest.
  • Manage non-traditional spend on Facebook and other publishers: If you’re spending across several sites and publishers, you could use a programmatic platform to centralize spending and manage ads from one place.
  • Manage offline media like billboards: If you’re an agency vendor, you might be able to manage your offline media buys from the same platform that runs your programmatic spend.

Pro Tips on Best Recruiting Advertising Platforms

Considerations & Common Mistakes of Programmatic Job Advertising Platforms

Time for some real talk. Programmatic job advertising isn’t for every company. At the end of the day, you need to think about the scale at which you’re hiring and consider who on your team is capable of running point on your job campaigns. So before you invest in programmatic, keep these considerations and common mistakes in mind:

  • Not for smaller companies: Programmatic job ad platforms will save you money in the long run, but you should still budget at least six figures annually for job boards/advertising. So if you’re a smaller company with only a few hires a year, you’re better off using traditional job advertising methods.
  • Analytical Rigor: In order to get the most out of your campaigns and ensure you’re NOT wasting spend, you need to look at the data to see what’s working and what’s not. Be sure to look at data for the full funnel, too — that means down to actual hires, not just click-throughs or CPMs. Of course most of these platforms will help with that.
  • Need someone on staff who understands paid media: These days, there is a huge marketing component to recruiting and hiring. Needless to say, having someone on staff who understands the marketing piece of this (i.e. paid media) will benefit your efforts in the long run. The caveat is that some of these vendors have agency type services where they can manage your spend if you don't have the expertise in house.

Recruitment Advertising Tools Benefits & ROI

There are a lot of benefits to using programmatic job advertising. As we’ve mentioned, it’s more cost-effective, less labor-intensive, and more efficient overall — you’re getting more for each advertising dollar you spend. Let’s break it down:

  • Smarter Ad Spend: You’ll be smarter with your ad spend and ultimately save your company money. This is because you only pay what you want to spend for the right candidates, and can reallocate leftover budget from one job to another as needed.
  • Precision Targeting: You can more accurately target your ideal candidate, which means you’re only getting quality applicants. In addition, your search will be continuously optimized so you only get the right number of applications per role (in other words: you’re reducing the number of jobs with too many applications AND too few applications). 
  • Recruiters’ time used more efficiently: Your people power will be used more efficiently. Since programmatic automates the majority of the job ad process, your recruiters can focus their time on what really matters: vetting and hiring candidates.

To calculate ROI, you’ll want to compare your cost per hire from before you started using programmatic to after. When you do this, you should see a decrease in your hiring costs (from both a financial and time perspective). This is because you’re relying less on outside agencies that charge a lot of money, you’re controlling your spend for each role (i.e. when you have enough applicants, ads stop running), and the time-to-fill decreases because you control how many applicants make it into your pipeline.

Check out some of our ROI calculators here to build your own business case.

Pricing

Most programmatic job advertising platforms will charge a percentage of the spend you deploy ranging from 10-20%. So, if you spend $1 million on job boards and have a 15% fee from your programmatic vendor, then you're looking at a $150k/yr charge. Many of these offerings will also come with an annual SaaS fee for using the product.

While these expenses can get large, they more than make up for it when you look at your overall cost per hire before and after using one of these platforms. If you're spending significant (>$100k) amounts of money per year on job boards and not using one of these vendors, you are either concentrating it all in one place that you've highly optimized, have a very sophisticated internal mechanism for understanding where to deploy job ad spend, or are wasting a lot of money by not having a programmatic vendor.

Features: What You Can Expect from Job Advertising Platforms

As we’ve mentioned, job ad platforms are great tools to improve your overall efficiency when it comes to recruiting and hiring. These platforms offer a host of other features that will keep your job campaigns running smoothly. Here are some of those features:

  • Landing Page Builder: Many of these platforms, let you build your own landing pages for your job openings. You can include your employer branding and still direct candidates to a unique email address or ATS so the process remains seamless for the applicants.
  • Performance-Based Model: You only pay when someone interacts with your job ad. Some platforms charge by clicks, while others charge by applicants. 
  • Spend Tracking: Only pay for what you need. You can set your budget to a specific amount, typically a pay-per-click or pay-per-application. When your ad gets the max number of applies according to your budget, the ads will stop. Not only that, you can specify which jobs to apply spend to, so easier-to-fill roles can run without spend while you invest your budget where it’s really needed.
  • Campaign Analytics: Keep track of how your campaign is performing with analytics that look at the number of views, clicks, applications and spend for each job ad across the web. You’ll be able to see, in real time, what’s performing well and what isn’t, allowing you to make any necessary changes to improve performance.
  • ATS integration: Connect to your ATS or other CRM so applicants are automatically delivered to your recruiters in their normal workflow.
  • Social Recruiting: Extend the reach of your job ads to the social media platforms your ideal candidates are using. This is particularly helpful if a job ad isn’t performing well on job boards.
  • Recruiter Usage: Your recruiters can plug in to your job ad platform and designate spend for their requisitions as well.

Demo Questions: What To Ask During Your Demo

As you’re booking demos to see which vendor is right for you, prepare a list of questions that cover more general topics like features and integration capabilities as well as specific questions about the platform itself. Here are some examples:

  • How will this solution fit into the rest of my tech stack? What integrations do I need?
  • Does your system integrate with my ATS?  What is the specific process to integrate and how long does that take?
  • Does your system integrate with the main job boards we currently use?
  • How do I prioritize roles to put spend behind?
  • How do I set budgets?
  • Do you have an agency component that can help me strategize my budget?
  • Does your system track spend all the way through to hire or is it just cost/applicant?
  • How do you attribute spend to applicants?  Is it people who saw an ad, clicked on an ad, how long after do they need to apply for it to count towards a specific campaign?
  • How will others in the organization use this solution?
  • What are the key features I want to ask about?
  • What are the things that would make me nervous about buying this sort of solution?
  • How does pricing work?
  • What implementation guidelines do they suggest?

Implementation

Once you get your account up and running, you should be able to quickly post your job vacancies and start getting quality candidates. But you might have to engage with engineers and/or IT to get fully implemented. 

Here’s what you can expect from the implementation process. 

  • Integrating with your ATS usually requires engineer time. Try to get a sense for how much time is required, then give your engineering time a head’s up so you’re all on the same page.
  • You might need to share your current contracts with job boards. Platforms might also accept XML or API feeds, ATS or job distributor postings. This can actually take a lot longer than your ATS integration given you need these third parties to cooperate.
  • Training your team can also be a key consideration here depending on if recruiters will be using this tool directly to ask for spendfor a given req or not.

If you have more specific implementation questions, be sure to ask them during your demos.

Implementation Pro Tip: Once you’ve made a decision that you’re going to make the switch to programmatic, put together an implementation team that includes any colleagues who will have a hand in the implementation. In this case, that would be recruiting and engineering or IT. Create a timeline and have regular meetings to go over status reports and expectations so everyone is on the same page.

Programmatic Job Advertising Platforms FAQs

What is programmatic advertising?

Programmatic advertising refers to using software to buy digital advertising space. Machines automatically place your advertisements in front of the right consumers. 

What is programmatic job advertising? 

Programmatic job advertising takes the framework of programmatic advertising and applies it to recruiting. Your open roles will automatically be placed in front of the right candidates at the right time. 

How do I use programmatic job advertising platforms?

First, you set up a job listing from your ATS, recruiting CRM, or directly on your programmatic job advertising platform. Then, you decide upon your budget for the campaign. This can be paid for per click or per application. Next, you’ll set “rules” that correspond to the ideal candidate for your open role. Finally, you’ll let the software take over to buy ad space in the right places. Then, once you hit your budget, the platform will automatically stop running. 

What are some features of programmatic job advertising platforms?

Some useful features of programmatic job advertising platforms include:

  • Landing page builder
  • Spend tracking
  • Campaign analytics
  • ATS integration
  • Social recruiting

What are the benefits of using programmatic job advertising software?

Major benefits of programmatic job advertising tools include:

  • Smarter ad spend: You’ll save your company money by only paying what you want to spend to advertise to the right candidates. 
  • Precision targeting: You will more accurately target the right candidates and cut down on low quality applicants. You search will also be continuously optimized so you get the right amount of applicants per open role. 
  • Recruiter’s time: By reducing the time spent advertising to the wrong candidates, recruiters won’t have to wade through piles of resumes. Just the ones that matter.

Next Steps

At the end of the day, programmatic advertising is a great solution for larger companies hiring at scale (or agencies that handle recruitment marketing for such companies). If you’re looking to be more efficient in your recruiting and hiring, and save time and money in finding quality candidates for each role, you should definitely check out one of the platforms we’ve included in this guide. From there, set up a couple of demo calls to learn more and see if there’s a fit.

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