Google Ad Manager: An Ideal Replacement for Your Ad Server

Contributor, April 14, 2019

On May 31, 2019, OpenX will be closing its ad server product. Following OpenX’s announcement to all of its users, we have been actively consulting with soon-to-be migrating OpenX users across the globe and advising them on the best steps forward.


Since there are many publishers current considering whether to join Google Ad Manager (GAM) or another alternative, we thought a brief discussion on the topic would serve as a useful guide to those currently on the fence about what to do next.


As an official Google Ad Manager reseller, we have extensive experience advising and setting up the platform for publishers.


Here are five reasons why we recommend Google Ad Manager for publishers.



• MORE TIME
• MORE ADVERTISERS
• MORE FORMATS
• MORE INSIGHTS & OPTIMIZATIONS
• MORE PROTECTIONS



Google Ad Manager is the best available alternative to the OpenX Ad Server.

MORE TIME

    • Cut operational complexity by managing your advertising business holistically across all your sales and consumer channels from one place.
    • Provide seamless experiences wherever your audience engages with your brand.
    • Inventory unification: Ad Manager ad units function as a single unit of inventory.
    • Full transparency and visibility across all sales channels and platform types.
    • A unified and streamlined inventory creation and management workflow.
    • Simplified results with higher revenue and more opportunities

MORE ADVERTISERS

    • More access to advertisers, no matter how they’re buying
    • Connect with all advertising partners, direct and programmatic in one place.
    • Give advertisers the flexibility to work with you in a variety of ways through different deal types.
    • Manage all the ways you work with advertisers on a single platform.

Exchange Bidding


      • Allows multiple third-party exchanges to compete in real-time for publisher inventory alongside Ad Manager.
      • Runs a unified first-price auction that gives every exchange, including Ad Manager, an equal opportunity to compete for every impression.
      • Eliminates inefficiencies of header bidding setups such as line item complexity and increased latency.
      • Provides integrated reporting and billing for 3rd party exchanges.

    Preferred Deals


        • Streamline your non-guaranteed and guaranteed deals into a single platform & workflow
        • Advanced targeting, re-negotiation, creative review, & forecasting
        • Increase revenue with deals that are seamlessly transacted
        • Improved troubleshooting and reporting capabilities

      Yield Groups for Apps


          • Monetize with any network of your choice in Yield Group to maximize mobile in-app revenue
          • Real-time optimization of Google demand to maximize your yield
          • Enhanced competition among ad networks in mediation with automatic data collection (ADC)
          • One platform to manage all networks of your choice with any format

        MORE FORMATS

        Supporting all Formats and Cross-device


            • Display
            • Video
            • In-App
            • Native – NEW – Creates less intrusive, more engaging, and responsive ad experiences.
            • Rewarded – NEW – Rewarded ads give users in-app incentives or digital goods for voluntarily watching an ad.

          Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) & AMPHTML Ads


              • Improving user engagement with fast, compelling experiences.
              • Compelling, consistently fast experiences
              • Increased user engagement, better performance
              • Higher click-through rates and viewability

            MORE INSIGHTS & OPTIMIZATIONS

            Data-Driven Recommendations


                • Gain access to more data and insights with consolidated reporting, powerful visualizations, and turn-key recommendations.

              Machine Learning Optimization


                  • Boost your business by combining all your advertising data with machine learning-based optimizations for better, faster, and smarter business decisions.

                Robust Reporting


                    • Measure the real impact of your brand with metrics advertisers care about most

                  Opportunities and Experiments Self-service framework for publishers to view and experiment with actionable, tailored opportunities for improving yield.


                      • Add native formats
                      • Allow Ad Exchange to compete for your impressions
                      • Lower first look auction floor prices
                      • Lower open auction floor prices
                      • Opt into high-performing ad technologies
                      • Unblock general categories
                      • Optimized competition

                    Homepage Insights


                        • Dashboard to deliver customized business intelligence information

                      Machine Learning Optimizations


                          • It’s now easy to measure the value of Google Ad Manager optimizations
                          • New dimensions and metrics give transparency and insights into the revenue lift from optimizations
                          • Granular data on the performance of machine learning pricing optimizations
                          • Big-level data are available to publishers, for more clarity into auction dynamics.

                        Forecasting New Traffic Forecast UI – allows Publishers to see a visual representation of their entire network’s impressions (Run of network); as well as filtering options for more granular insights.

                        Improved Forecasting Accuracy To make traffic forecasts accurate, we have made several changes


                            • Trends
                            • Seasonality
                            • Accuracy

                          Improved Adjustments Framework

                          MORE PROTECTIONS

                          Tools for publishers to obtain user consent


                              • Funding Choices for User Consent – Desktop & non-AMP
                              • Mobile web
                              • Consent component – AMP
                              • Consent SDKs – App

                            Tools for publishers to control ads personalization


                                • Ad Tech Provider Controls
                                • Line Item Controls
                                • Non-Personalization Ads Solution

                              Tools & Controls to Protect your Website


                                  • Ad Review Tools – Image Search Technology
                                  • Policy Controls – 15 sensitive categories / 21 general categories

                                Ad Manager ads.txt generator


                                    • This tool allows publishers to generate a list of URLs that are available for sale with various buyers. This list ensures that advertisers are only buying your actual inventory from authorized 3rd party sellers.

                                  CONCLUSION

                                  May 31, 2019, is just around the corner for any publishers affected by the changes at OpenX. We hope that this brief discussion on the topic served as a useful guide for any of you all who are currently considering what to do next.

                                  If you are a soon-to-be migrating OpenX user and could benefit from our extensive experience advising, setting up and troubleshooting the Google Ad Manager platform, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us on the form below.