Since the inception of digital advertising, a number of technologies have been introduced to the AdTech ecosystem. The objective was to resolve the complex issues that advertisers and publishers face. One such is AdServer…So let’s start…
What is An Ad Server?
An Ad-server is basically a technology responsible for making decisions about what ads to serve on a web/wap sites and then serving them. Apart from selection and serving of ad campaign, it also collects and reports important insights/data such as impressions, clicks, duration etc. This helps advertisers to judge and monitor the performance of adverting campaigns. This technology is generally used by Advertisers, Publishers, Ad Networks and Advertising Agencies.
The Capability of Technology
Since inception, the ad serving technology has evolved with time and now it has multiple functionalities, capable of pulling useful insights to Advertisers, Ad Networks, Agencies etc.
· The language set on the user’s computer
· The URL of the page that the ad is being loaded onto
· The browser type and version
· Targeted user’s operating system
It also empowers advertisers and agencies to monitor and Control:
· Budget – Advertiser and Agency will have control over advertising investments
· Frequency Capping – Advertisers and Agencies can put a cap on the number of impressions to be served during a specific time
· Targeting parameters i.e. Gender, Geo, OS (Operating System), Device etc.
What is the Role of an Ad Server?
Typically there are two types of Ad servers A) First Party Ad-Servers – Generally used by publishers and B) Third Party Server – Used by advertisers / advertising agencies. As far technology is concerned, it’s the same however purpose is little different.
First-Party Ad Servers
It empowers publishers to manage ad slots on their websites and display ads that have been sold directly to advertisers directly. During non-availability of direct ad campaigns, it acts as a management platform to decide which ad codes (From Third Party Ad Server, SSP or Ad Networks) to serve in their ad slots.
Apart from above, it is also responsible for targeting and gathering of data i.e. which ads to display on a website based on certain targeting parameters, serving them and collecting data (total ad impressions, clicks etc.)
Third Party Ad Servers
It generally empowers advertisers to track their advertising campaigns. An advertiser’s ad server ad tag is loaded by the first-party ad server, so its functionality is limited compared to first-party servers. It is mostly used only to collect campaign data and verify certain metrics, such as impressions and clicks.
It can also be used for some creative optimizations – e.g. the advertiser can decide to change the creative used in a campaign or run a series of A/B tests of the creative, but the targeting itself is determined on the first-party ad server side.
The core difference between both is that a third-party ad server is used by the advertisers to aggregate all the campaign information across all publishers, ad networks & other platforms the campaign runs on, and act as an auditing tool to measure and verify whether the impressions were actually served properly. Publishers and advertisers, for various reasons, may report different numbers, but a certain degree of discrepancy is considered normal.
How Does An Ad Server Works
For Publishers: Before the existence of ad serving platform, the buying and selling of ads between an advertiser and a publisher was a direct and manual process. Publishers soon realized that they needed a more efficient and easier way to manage their various advertisers’ campaigns that ran on their website.
For Advertisers: Very soon, advertisers also discovered that they needed a way to host their creatives and measure the performance of their campaigns by analyzing impressions, clicks, and conversions across multiple publishers.
How Does a Third-Party Ad Server Works?
Third-party ad servers work in a slightly different way to first-party ad servers. The image below illustrates the role of a third-party (advertiser’s) ad server next to a first-party (publisher’s) ad server.
Third-party ad servers allow advertisers to:
· · Store and manage their ad codes
· · Pre-defined tracking criteria for ad campaigns
· · Track the performance of campaign i.e. impressions, clicks, conversions, etc. of the whole campaign across all publishers in a single system
· · Verify the reports provided by the publishers
· · Help optimize campaigns
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