Ad networks. Which to choose, which not to?
Hello. I’m Tim. I live in Vienna, Austria and work for a monetization agency. I am an AdOps specialist of six years and have used well over 130 “creative” ways to get the empty space on websites to show some sort of advertisement. Before everybody slams me for a badly written, uninformative and boring article, I would like to defend myself in advance. I am not a very talented writer (the receivers of my emails can confirm) and this article is purely to provide a basic idea as well as my personal take on some of my favourite SSPs, ad networks and exchanges. I’ll start now.
Number One: Media.net. I know you will see this in a lot of the lists you look at when researching these things, but I have to recommend them here again. In the many websites that I have done this for, Media.net always seems to outshine its competitors. Whether it be fill rate, eCPM or just the quality of ads, Media.net always seems to do it better. Media.net’s ads (wow, spelling, huh?) often come in the shape of sponsored links. You may find this using Google Adsense as well, the little search tags that appear completely out of context and in seemingly random placements. It isn’t the same with Media.net. Media.net ads are super-contextual non-intrusive sponsored links or banners that fit in to your site perfectly. Media.net also has a WordPress plugin, making it simple to optimize ad placements on your site. My personal rating for Media.net is 8.5/10, losing a whole point to the outdated payout methods (Payoneer, no others) and the fact that you can only get bank and wire transfers if you are located in the US. Media.net loses another half-point because it is unbelievably strict about the sort of sites they let in, and because minimum traffic is commonly around 10–20k pageviews a month.
Number Two: Sovrn. Sovrn doesn’t seem to be talked about much. Sovrn is more of an SSP. It requires some basic knowledge of what you want for your website, and knowing how to demand it. However, it has been a trusty companion since the start. Sovrn is like that super geeky friend, who keeps talking about random stuff that you might not understand, but can do so many interesting things. While this complicated and badly-written analogy perfectly sums up Sovrn, I will break it down for people who do not share the same interest in Spiderman movies. Sovrn is a great platform for emerging bloggers. It has no traffic minimums, a helpful staff and great love for bloggers that provide long, interesting stories. Sovrn has a bit of a complicated interface, but a quick coaching session from the support staff and some time will grow you accustomed to the platform in no time. My total rating is 8/10, losing two points to the borderline criminal approval standards.
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Number Three: AdThink. AdThink is great. It really is. to sum up Adthink: it is an Ad Server that, on the supply side, plugs into over thirty DSPs and ad exchanges, letting them compete against each other on a platform called RTB. I am going to say a bit to RTB for people just starting off, just skip ahead if you already are a professional at this! RTB stands for Real-Time-Bidding. It basically is a program hosted on an SSPs servers that lets a bunch of DSPs (Demand-Side-Platforms, a.k.a. platoons of advertisers on different ad exchanges) compete in a sort of competition for an ad space on the publisher’s website. Think of it as an auction, a bunch of southern dudes called Pubmatic, OpenX and Appnexus are standing in an auction house. The ad space is placed on the podium, and the bidding commences. Pubmatic, OpenX and Appnexus now all bid on the ad space and the highest bid wins. Whoever wins the ad space (let’s say OpenX) now gets to place one of their ads in that ad space. This way, the publisher is happy because he gets the highest possible amount of money from these bidders, OpenX is happy because they get paid by the advertiser to put the ad there and therefore get $$$ and the advertiser is happy because their ad is now showing up on the publisher’s website. Thanks for bearing with me here, I really have to get better at analogies :).
Everyone who left to skip ahead can come back here now as I complete my review of AdThink. Basically, AdThink utilises this RTB software, but instead of just a few exchanges joining them in the bidding, they drag all of Texas to the auction house. Over thirty exchanges and ad servers participate in AdThinks bidding process, and only one of them gets to deliver the ads. As you can imagine, this makes for an interesting 11ms and some absurdly high CPMs for the publisher. In my experience, AdThink has given approx 70–80% higher payouts compared to Google’s AdSense. Still, using them next to each other is a good idea, especially as I come to my biggest problem with AdThink. ADTHINK DOESN’T SUPPORT AMP OR MOBILE. When I first heard about this, I thought I might cry. I had met this amazing platform and now I found out it has not caught up to the present. But yes, you read the bold, all-caps text correctly, AdThink does not support AMP or mobile placements. While you may be able to use some of the desktop codes on mobile, it will perform very badly. This is why I suggest using Media.net alongside AdThink. AdThink is truly a network for the ages and should definitely be considered by anyone who has a bit of following and is ready to take ads seriously. I have to rate AdThink 7.5/10 though for the following reasons: A) It does not support AMP or mobile (losing one point), b) payout minimum is 300€ (~350$, jeez) for payees not inside the EEA (European Economic Area) which is frankly absurd (this also loses them a point) and c) Parts of the dashboard are only available in French. this is bad because my French only reaches as far as the 5000 character limit in Google translate, making it tedious to navigate AdThink’s otherwise sleek dashboard (this loses them another half-point).
Thanks for bearing with me here, I hope I could help you along a bit. I look forward to hearing back from anyone who does read this :).
All the best, Tim from The Next Step (sneaky backlink, let’s go!)
“Don’t use Adsense” -The AdOps community
