The Complete Ad Server Resource Center

Google Ad Manager (GAM) contains an ad server as part of its brand offerings to publishers. While the ad server is just one component of GAM’s offerings, it’s important to note that GAM’s ad server is considered one of the premier servers available today.

If you currently rely on third-party cookies of any kind to gather data on users, and if that data informs audience segments and other strategies to increase your CPMs, you need to consider an identity solution before Google finally kills the third-party cookie once and for all.

It’s difficult to say which ad server is best because the answer depends so heavily on your unique needs and how large of a publisher you are. For example, Google Ad Manager provides a comprehensive ad server that could reasonably serve the needs of many small to medium publishers on its own. In other cases, some publishers need ad servers that are more readily equipped to balance premium ad units or direct-sold advertising.

Ultimately, the best ad server is the one that best serves your needs as a publisher without costing you too much in time or money. And there is no shame in trying different ad servers to try to find the perfect fit.

This question might be better phrased as “Do I need a dedicated ad server?” That’s because, in all likelihood, you’re going to use an ad server of some kind if you do digital advertising. The question, then, is whether you need your own ad server to allow you to manage your inventory.

If you are a new or very small-scale publisher, the answer is probably no — you don’t necessarily need a dedicated ad server. However, as your audience grows and you begin to try out more advanced digital advertising strategies, you may find that you do, in fact, need your own ad server.

Unfortunately, building your own ad server is an option reserved for only the largest publishers in the world — those with millions of dollars and whole teams of developers lying around.

To build the basic functionality of ad serving technology is an enormous undertaking in and of itself, but then you would have to ensure that the server could integrate with the many other parts of the ad tech ecosystem. Then, for anyone to be able to use it, you would have to get it approved by the major agencies — yet another years-long undertaking.

The good news is that you don’t have to build your own ad server. There are plenty of high-performance ad servers available to publishers right now. Building your own would likely offer you a few advantages over the options that already exist.

Yes. Many ad servers can balance direct-sold advertising with programmatically sold advertising. In fact, this capability is one of the key reasons why publishers seek out ad servers. They want the high yield of direct sales and the consistency and volume of programmatic, and they want to manage it all in a single place: a high-quality ad server.