The third-party ad server called advertiser-side-server is used by advertisers to run ad campaigns. Besides hosting and serving ads, third-party ad servers enable you to manage and optimize advertising campaigns and get detailed reports on ad-serving activities. An ad server is where advertisers upload and track ads as it goes live. It is the base of the ad-serving process. The third party in the name means that the owner of this server doesn’t have direct access to the ad-serving process and provides creatives.
How does a third-party ad server work?
When visitors visit a website, they see content on the site. The ads that they see on that site come from another server. Every website has ad inventory slots. Once the visitors visit the site, the website calls up the ad creative from an ad server. As these ads get displayed on the website or app for the users to see, the ad server starts tracking clicks, taps, and engagement the ads receive. It then displays it in an easy-to-read reporting dashboard.
Ad server also tracks the two most important metrics called viewability of ads and dwell time.
Features of third-party ad server
- Forecasting
- Deep targeting
- Automatic optimization
- Real-time reporting
The advantages of using a third-party ad server
Whether it is an in-house ad server or a third-party ad server, advertisers, publishers, and ad agencies who consider using a third-party ad server experience the following benefits-
One-stop solution:
Ad server offers a wide array of advanced features that allow advertisers to create running cross-platforms, revolutionary ad campaigns that meet their every demand. It allows tracking your campaign performance in real-time. This allows you to make necessary traffic and creative optimization at the early stage of the campaign.
Budget management:
When you know how much to shell out to a third-party ad server every month, it becomes easier to manage your cash flow. The pricing is established at different stages of usage. Adopting a third-party ad server route makes it easier to upgrade and downgrade your finances, as maintaining your budget is a significant factor to consider.
Empowers the advertisers:
Third-party ad servers enable advertisers to host their ad campaigns and share their tags with other advertising platforms. The third-party ad servers also empower the advertisers to change, modify or update ads without reaching other advertising partners. The ad servers allow them access to review the performance reports of the ad campaigns hosted with multiple publishers.
A/B and Multivariate testing:
Third-party servers give you control over your ad creatives beyond choosing the types of ad formats you wish to run. With an ad server, advertisers can do creative A/B testing. As ad servers are tied up with dynamic creative optimization technologies, it will allow you to create dynamic ads where content changes according to the data fed to it.
Transparency:
Third-party ad servers allow you to track the quality of the ad inventories and the performance of your ads. These are the most important things to do for ad campaigns. Ad servers enable transparency in terms of ad metrics report, breakdowns of inventory, and ad viewability report. You may make necessary adjustments by ignoring the non-viewable inventories and considering the performing inventories.
Reliability:
Before choosing a third-party ad server, you have the liberty to compare the credibility of different companies, their backgrounds, and years in business before moving ahead. It assures you that your third-party ad server is dependable in privacy, reliability, and data secrecy.
Advanced reporting feature:
Reporting is one of the requirements of advertisers, publishers, and ad networks to opt-in for third-party ad servers. They utilize a granular level of data to optimize the ad campaigns or set up the ad campaigns to meet their business goals. The ad servers also allow the advertisers, publishers, and ad networks to conduct an in-depth analysis of the ad campaigns by using the data collected and accordingly optimize the ad campaigns to meet the KPIs.
To sum it up, third-party ad servers help manage all your videos, mobile, desktop, and in-app ad campaigns.