Ad Server

The companies listed to the left offer advertisers and / or web publishers software called ad servers.

This software offers you more control over when and which ads are served on your web site or on other web sites for you.

More control over ad serving offers a few benefits:

1. You can directly buy or sell advertising and eliminate the commissions collected by ad networks.
2. You can directly control and monitor advertising on your site or other web sites without relying on someone else's support.

Possible costs to consider in using an ad server:

1. Higher performance ad servers usually require paying a monthly fee - calculated based on usage (typically per 1,000 impressions).

   
   

   Free alternatives like OpenX and Google AdManager are available as well. The difference between "free" and "not free" - outside of price - is in the features offered and level of support provided.

   
   

2. Support. Free ad servers are a good choice when your ad serving requirements are relatively simple or you need to do something that is simply not currently available in the market.

   
   

   Examples of either situation would be

   
   

   1. Managing advertising campaigns that do not require significant sophisticated types of targeting, reporting or analysis for fine tuning (aka "optimization").
   2. Managing a limited number of creatives or advertising campaigns (less than 20).
   3. Creating a new type of online advertising and needing an ad server to deliver it.

As a general rule, the more targeting, reporting or optimization needed for your advertising campaigns or publishing ads on your site, the more costs you will incur customizing a free ad server to support those needs.

Otherwise most ad servers are used to manage serving display ads (aka "banner ads"), rich media - i.e. banner ads containing animation or movement of some kind - or text ads.

Serving ads inserted into online videos requires a type of ad server listed separately on this site under Video / Rich Media Ads.

Browse Ad Server sites

Use the following reference points to evaluate and compare ad servers:

Targeting

This refers to controlling when and where ads are shown. This includes

How can ads be delivered after the viewer visited a web site or web page? (Retargeting / Behavioral / Profile)
How can ads be delivered by content? (Content / Contextual)
How can ads be delivered in connection to keyword searches? (Search)
How can ads be delivered by the geography of the visitor? (Geotargeting).
How can a group of ads be delivered in sequence or in rotation? (Sequencing)
How can ads be delivered only at certain times of day or the week? (Dayparting)
How can ads be blocked based on their content? (Filtering)

Reporting

This refers to reviewing data about ads served. This includes

Allowing more than one type of access to control what users can and cannot see
How can reporting be combined from the ad server with reporting from Web Analytics?
How can reporting for clicks, conversions or revenue earned be used to automatically adjust ad serving? (Optimization)

Ad Formats Supported

What types of ads are supported? E.g. Banners, Takeovers, Rich Media, etc.

Self Service and Integration

This refers to letting someone outside your company or web site (like a customer or partner) to use the ad server.

How easy is it to serve tags from other ad servers into this ad server?
How easy is to match reporting for tags from other ad servers to reporting provided by this ad server?
How easy is it for third parties to upload and manage their own creatives or access reporting?

Support

What APIs are available to customize the ad server?
What kind of technical support is available to users?