✅ [NOW] Why Do You Need An Ad Server Today? ✅

Simple and short answer - to make more money.

Long answer - There are plenty of sites that use AdSense as one and only ad network and there is nothing wrong with it. However, most of the publishers looking for better ways to monetize their inventory so they could earn more. AdSense pays minimum/default bid, takes up to 60% of your revenue, and is a very risky network to work with.

You can see ad partners of any site by checking their ads.txt records - you will see that most sites have 100s of records:


For this reason, most publishers use an ad server to run multiple ad networks, customize ad serving, and have more control over the ad operations process.

Let's start from the basics:

- What’s an ad server?

Ad Server is a tool that helps publishers to sell ad inventory on their sites. When you place an ad on your site you are selling that space to advertisers who pay you to display their ads.

Ad Server allows you to customize ad serving, optimize your ad operations process, thus greatly increase your revenue by personalizing and improving ad performance on your site.

Ad server helps to optimize ad delivery for higher relevancy and increase your income from advertising.

What Are Benefits Of Using Ad Server For The Publisher?

There are 100's, but let's mention some of the most important benefits:

• Multiple Ad Networks

If you hardcode (place directly) ad tags to your site - you giving that one network priority over specific placement. If you want to run multiple ad networks you will simply run out of places to put an ad on your site. Ad Server gives you an option to run multiple ad networks on the same spot (placement) without overloading your website with ads. One ad network can pass ad request to another if there is no fill or a better rate.

• Advanced Reporting

While ad networks share or deliver reports to you, they may leave out a lot of details that could potentially help you improve your ads or increase revenue.

The ad server will help you analyze much deeper data about your ad performance and earnings, real-time.

Discrepancy report, Key-value report, Viewability report, Placement report, Ad Unit report, Ad Format report, Ad Network report, and 100’s of other reports to help you gather and measure necessary data to improve revenue and optimize performance on your site.

• House Ads

You can serve your own ads to your site (or sites) and customize where, when, and how they are served. This is a great way to run direct ads from your advertisers or promote your own site or a product.

• RTB

Real-Time Bidding - Programmatic Auction (don't confuse with Header Bidding, which is more advanced auction).

• Header Bidding

If you run a single ad network you sell all inventory at the default price. If you run multiple ad networks, depending on your setup, the ad server will pull the ad network with the highest rate.

Example: Without Ad Server/Single Ad Network:

The user came to the site > Ad Server displays an ad from Ad Network A for the price $1 CPM

Example: With Ad Server & Multiple Ad Networks:

The user came to the site > Ad Server runs an auction and collects bids from all Ad Networks A, B, C, D, etc > Ad Server displays ads with the highest bid $2.5 CPM.

• UTM-tracking

UTM tracking displays revenue per source. Knowing where your highest profits come from is an extremely important part of traffic arbitrage. Ad Server allows you to measure the revenue and performance of traffic sources by adding and tracking UTM-parameters to your URLs.

• Control On A Granular Level

Own ad server allows you to control the process of the ad serving. You can define groups, or restrict certain ads from certain pages, you can create custom metrics and settings such as ad refresh, or control ad sizes and how they appear. The possibilities are almost endless and customizable for each publisher.

I'm not into cpm ads but enjoyed your write up.

Thanks for the share and learned sth.

But this:

se900se said:

bids from all Ad Networks A, B, C, D

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Why they have to bid on your site anyway? Say your site puts adsense and another network on, if you don't paste adsense code on a specific spot, it just won't show simple as it, why it want to bid with another network on that spot? Is adsense has such functions? Or API or whatever?

terrycody said:

Thanks for the share and learned sth.

But this:



Why they have to bid on your site anyway? Say your site puts adsense and another network on, if you don't paste adsense code on a specific spot, it just won't show simple as it, why it want to bid with another network on that spot? Is adsense has such functions? Or API or whatever?

Click to expand...

Read the write up well enough, you should understand and see your question was answered.

terrycody said:

Thanks for the share and learned sth.

But this:
Why they have to bid on your site anyway? Say your site puts adsense and another network on, if you don't paste adsense code on a specific spot, it just won't show simple as it, why it want to bid with another network on that spot? Is adsense has such functions? Or API or whatever?

Click to expand...

The ad network code is placed into the ad server, not the site. The process/auction called header bidding and is done with the help of Prebid. Yes all ad networks bid, if they don’t bid, could be something wrong with the setup.

AdSense by itself doesn’t have such functions, only as part of ad server.

Wish there was an easy to follow guide for low-tech guys like me

Windmm said:

Wish there was an easy to follow guide for low-tech guys like me

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you just need to approach the ad server guys normally they set it up for you, or hire a person who knows to set it up

Windmm said:

Wish there was an easy to follow guide for low-tech guys like me

Click to expand...

Don't bother setting up Prebid if you are a one-person team. The development cost and time are not worth it. Plus opening accounts with major Ad Exchange requires millions of pageviews.

Instead, look for networks offering header bidding services for a fee or fixed percentage out of your revenue.

Small sites with monthly 10K-100K page views can work with Ezoic, Mediavine, and AdThrive that offer header bidding setup and good customer support.

WannaBeIzaya said:

Small sites with monthly 10K-100K page views can work with Ezoic, Mediavine, and AdThrive that offer header bidding setup and good customer support.

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Have you tried Ezoic yet? Many websites are using Ezoic and I am thinking to give it a try.
What is the revenue comparing to Adsense?

Windmm said:

Wish there was an easy to follow guide for low-tech guys like me

Click to expand...

Learn first. Jumping into something you don't know may not bring the expected result!
The beauty of the ad server is that each setup is custom, therefore there are no one-fits-all guides.

Mr Positive said:

you just need to approach the ad server guys normally they set it up for you, or hire a person who knows to set it up

Click to expand...

Wise words

WannaBeIzaya said:

Don't bother setting up Prebid if you are a one-person team. The development cost and time are not worth it. Plus opening accounts with major Ad Exchange requires millions of pageviews.

Instead, look for networks offering header bidding services for a fee or fixed percentage out of your revenue.

Small sites with monthly 10K-100K page views can work with Ezoic, Mediavine, and AdThrive that offer header bidding setup and good customer support.

Click to expand...

I wouldn't say 'don't bother', but in reality, I don't know anyone who creates content for the site, drives traffic, manages ads, and also can work with prebid - you only got two hands. In most cases, ads handled by the ad ops department (or at least a single ad ops person), while the site owner focuses on the content and the rest of the business.

That is true - all networks look for high traffic sites first as they bring most revenue, but I also want to give an example of my own site that generates over 500k pageviews from 25k visits and over 2M ad impressions. What I am saying - there is no need to overcomplicate the process, it could be done with smaller sites too.

The header bidding setup is a technical process, getting into the network is mostly communication, these proceses can be done separately. Doing header bidding on your own by hiring tech or a firm is better and way more profitable than getting it done by the network or mediation company like the ones named above. Own setup will be customized to your needs and setup from the companies above would be one-fits-all.

Be careful, before hiring a tech to do the HB for you - you should know what features you want, so you may want to do the analysis first or hire someone to do it for you.

Ezoic/Mediavine/Adthrive, etc., are the companies for those who outgrown AdSense but not ready to go on a professional level yet.

se900se said:

Learn first. Jumping into something you don't know may not bring the expected result!
The beauty of the ad server is that each setup is custom, therefore there are no one-fits-all guides.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the great recommendation. I have learned a lot from this thread.
Currently, I am looking for a better replacement for Adsense. Any recommendation?
I only got 20% US traffic so that Adthrive didn't approve my request on their platform.
Thank you so much!

Kenobii said:

Thanks for the great recommendation. I have learned a lot from this thread.
Currently, I am looking for a better replacement for Adsense. Any recommendation?
I only got 20% US traffic so that Adthrive didn't approve my request on their platform.
Thank you so much!

Click to expand...

AdSense doesn't need replacement - it should be running along with other networks.
What is the GEO of your traffic? How much traffic do you have?

se900se said:

What is the GEO of your traffic? How much traffic do you have?

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Sorry, I meant I wanted to use an ads median platform such as Adrhrive, Ezoic, etc on my site.

Currently I want to improve the revenue of a site having 1M5 pageviews per month. 20% coming from US and top tier countries.

Thank you!

Kenobii said:

Sorry, I meant I wanted to use an ads median platform such as Adrhrive, Ezoic, etc on my site.

Currently I want to improve the revenue of a site having 1M5 pageviews per month. 20% coming from US and top tier countries.

Thank you!

Click to expand...

Where is the rest of the traffic coming from? Europe or Asia?

se900se said:

Where is the rest of the traffic coming from? Europe or Asia?

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This is the last 30 days report.
Thank you so much!

Interesting read, what ad serving platforms would you suggest?

@se900se For the ad server do you need a separate hosting service for it or does wordpress have a plugin. Can you recommend a hosting service and plugin for wordpress?

typo619 said:

@se900se For the ad server do you need a separate hosting service for it or does wordpress have a plugin. Can you recommend a hosting service and plugin for wordpress?

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Google.com/DFP - is a free ad server.
No plugin necessary.

@se900se I'll look into DFP, appreciate the response.