Hand picked by our HR Technology experts after product testing, user research, and much debate - enjoy!
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.
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!
Here are the top programmatic job advertising platforms that we've come across after surveying the vendor landscape.
Why we love it
:
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.
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
Customers:
AdsWizz, Renault, Genpact
AdsWizz, Renault, Genpact
SmartDreamers
Pricing:
There are three pricing plans
There are three pricing plans
Best For
Enterprise companies see most use out of SmartDreamers.
Why we love it
:
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.
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
Customers:
Appcast
Pricing:
Appcast offers three solutions for enterprise companies. They are:
You must contact the sales team to get specific pricing information.
Appcast offers three solutions for enterprise companies. They are:
You must contact the sales team to get specific pricing information.
Best For
Large and enterprise companies that want to source talent quickly.
Why we love it
:
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.
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
Customers:
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.
Why we love it
:
ClickIQ has an extensive network of outreach for job ads.
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
Customers:
ClickIQ
Pricing:
ClickIQ has different packages depending on who is using their solution.
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.
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
Why we love it
:
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.
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
Customers:
Adway
Pricing:
Best For
Companies with over 500 employees looking to engage social networks.
Why we love it
:
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%.
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
Customers:
Pandologic
Pricing:
Best For
Companies hiring rapidly who need to source qualified candidates more efficiently.
Why we love it
:
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.
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
Customers:
Talentify
Pricing:
Talentify starts at $500 a month.
Talentify starts at $500 a month.
Best For
Companies looking for a candidate focused experience.
To start, let’s take a closer look at how programmatic job advertising works:
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...
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:
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:
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.
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.
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:
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:
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.
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 advertising refers to using software to buy digital advertising space. Machines automatically place your advertisements in front of the right consumers.
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.
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.
Some useful features of programmatic job advertising platforms include:
Major benefits of programmatic job advertising tools include:
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.
Stay on top of what really matters in HR and People Tech. Subscribe to our newsletter to keep up on the latest news, trends, and culture.