Understanding ad servers
June 12, 2008 – 10:54 amWhenever I try to explain to people what it is I do for a living I always get asked the question “what is an ad server” so I thought I would give a brief explanation for everybody to understand.
An ad server is a piece of technology that stores adverts used in online marketing and delivers them to website visitors.
Ad serving describes the piece of kit and service that places adverts on sites. Ad serving companies provide software to web sites and advertisers to serve ads, count them, choose the ads that will make the website or advertiser most money, and monitor progress of different advertising campaigns.
In addition, the ad server also performs various other tasks like counting the number of impressions/clicks for an ad campaign and report generation.
Ad servers come in two types: local ad servers and third-party. Local ad servers are run by a single publisher and serve ads to that publisher’s sites. Third-party ad servers can serve ads across domains owned by multiple publishers. They deliver the ads from one central source so that advertisers and publishers can track the distribution of their online ads, and have one location for controlling the rotation and distribution of their advertisements across the web.
The typical functionality of ad servers includes:
* Uploading adverts
* Trafficking ads according to differing business rules.
* Targeting ads to different users, or content.
* Optimization based on results.
* Reporting impressions, clicks, post-click & post-impression
More to follow……..
4 Responses to “Understanding ad servers”
Good introduction. So who are the biggest players in the ad serving market. I keep on hearing about Double click and Ad tech, are they the only ones?
By Natalie on Jun 12, 2008
It actually makes some sense now!
By She on Jun 12, 2008
was this put up just for me to understand?
By Fizwha on Jun 15, 2008
Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog.
Cheers! Sandra. R.
By sandrar on Sep 10, 2009