Advantages and Disadvantages of an Ad Server
Ad server is the server that is being used to manage the ads that is displayed on the various web pages or the multiple websites. Most of the websites and blogs shows the ads on their web pages to manage the operating cost and maximize the revenue.
Here’s the article to learn about Ad Servers in detail and post the questions in the comments below.
Advantages of Ad Servers
- Flexibility: It creates a flexibility in managing the multiple ad campaigns and shows the summarized the performance on the dashboard to quickly analyze and take necessary action. Also, managing the ads using the ad servers are easy once it is set up along with revising the creative as and when there is a change.
- Better Performance: Ad Servers comes with an inbuilt feature that selects the ad that performing well and maximize the revenue of the publisher by serving most of the time. Also, it enables the publishers to quickly identify the ad delivery performance issues and suggest to fix.
- Multi-level Targeting Options: The Ad Servers enables to publishers to target the desired audience to meet the ad campaign goals and maximize the advertiser’s return on investment. There are multiple targeting options such geography, ad slots, ad positions, geography, browsers/operating system, browser language, device capabilities, bandwidth, mobile carrier, user domain, and custom targeting options. These targeting options will help the publisher to manage the ad campaigns effectively.
- Real Time Statistics: Ad Servers offers the real time tracking to analyze the ad campaign performance at any given time and take necessary action on improving performance. Also, ad servers provide multiple filter options to analyze the performance based on the ad campaign targeting and other criteria.
Disadvantages of an Ad Server:
Here are the top 3 disadvantages that we should look into while discussing about the ad servers.
- Requires time to setup: Ad Servers requires time to setup new websites or ad slots to connect properly in orders to serve the ads. This process requires web developers to review the website design and help the publishers to implement it.
- Increased Load Time: Ad Servers sometimes take longer to time to load the ads depends on the location where the ad server is hosted. The web pages will show up the blank ad slots until it loads the ad and it may impact on the user experience as well.
- Ad Serving Cost: Ad Servers are not suitable for small publishers who are not earning through ad serving. The publisher needs to pay for Ad Servers to enable the premium features to enable the ad campaigns effectively.
Conclusion: Ad Servers adds value to the publishers to manage their inventory effectively and maximize their revenue efficiently. However, there are a few common challenges highlighted above may impact the publisher’s ad serving activities. Also, there are many ad servers are providing free ad serving services to the smaller publishers to utilize and manage their inventory before they sign up for the paid services. The publishers may need to analyze their needs before they opt in for any ad servers to avoid any unexpected issues and loss of revenue.
