All Ad Servers Are Not Created Equal – Know the Difference

So you’ve created a great ad, the agency has approved and now it’s ready to go, but there’s a problem. It is not usable for enough sites and applications, what is the problem? Perhaps it the ad server? Ad serving is a key part of every campaign. While there are more and more ad serving options coming up every day, there are three primary ad server options that almost every advertiser and publisher use.

Doubleclick (owned by Google), Mediamind and Atlas (owned by Microsoft) are the top three ad serving companies. They all offer both online video and mobile ad serving, along with the standard display ad serving. But each has a slightly different way of serving ads. One thing that is common to all three is that they have advertiser solutions and publisher solutions. Measuring the effectiveness of ads served drives advertiser solutions and Publisher solutions are driven by the need to serve a variety of ad types.

From a business perspective, Doubleclick is the by far the solution most agencies use to serve their ads. They account for roughly 80% or more of ads served. But Mediamind and Atlas are fast gaining competitive ground. Because they are working towards gaining competitive ground, Mediamind and Atlas are constantly evolving and have become more responsive to publisher and advertiser needs. Which means more and more publishers and advertisers are Mediamind and Atlas. So if you are building your ads only around one ad servers technical standards, your ads may not be getting served. Understanding the differences between the ad server is the best insurance for getting your creative accepted and served. For more on their specifications and suggestions for best practices, check out their sites –

http://www.google.com/doubleclick/advertisers/dfa.html

http://www.mediamind.com/

http://www.atlassolutions.com/