With Google Ad Manager, you can control which ads are shown, where they’re shown, and how much you charge for them. You can also use Ad Manager to measure the performance of your ad campaigns so you can optimize their impact. Sounds pretty great, right? And it is!
Once you’ve finished reading this blog post, you’ll have an idea about how Google Ad Manager helps with detailed targeting, reporting, monetizing multiple platforms, and generating ad revenue.
In this article, we’ll take a closer look at what Google Ad Manager for Publishers is, and how it can help you improve your website’s ad revenue. Keep reading to learn more!
Covered Topics
What is Google Ad Manager?
Google Ad Manager aka GAM for Publishers is an advertising platform that allows you to sell ad space on your website and track its performance. This also includes AdSense and AdExchange.
It’s a comprehensive solution that makes it easy to manage your ads while giving you the flexibility to control how they appear and who sees them.
Features of Google ads manager
Compared to GAM’s competitors, its ability to run all sorts of campaigns makes Google Ad Manager a no-brainer for publishers to get their hands on!
GAM’s ‘optimized competiton feature’ maximizes your ad inventory & submits reserved & private market deals like open auctions for publishers.
Regardless of how publishers trade their ad inventory, this platform has empowered thousands of publishers in amplifying their ad revenue.
The 2 Main Versions of Google Ad Manager
Google Ad Manager accounts come in two types – Google Ad Manager for Small Businesses & Google Ad Manager 360. Let’s have a quick rundown on both of these versions.
Google Ad Manager for Small Businesses
GAM for Small Businesses is free and is meant for small to medium-sized publishers who get a few million impressions on a monthly basis.
What do you get with this version?
- Over 400,000 video ad impressions biweekly
- Over 90-200 million monthly display ad impressions depending on your audience’s locations.
You also get access to GAM’s API and reporting features apart from ad serving. The features are limited here since you don’t have to pay for the starter version. However, if you want to unlock all the features and increase ad impressions, the publisher will have to upgrade to Google ad manager 360.
Google Ad Manager 360
Google Ad Manager 360 is the paid and advanced version of GAM that unlocks access to premium features like personalized reporting, video, audience segmentation solutions, etc. With GAM 360, you also get direct access to Google Data Studio, Google Support, and so on,
How does Google Ad Manager Work?
You’re already aware of the fact that Google Ad Manager is an ad server that the majority of the publishers use to manage their direct & indirect advertisers.
Here’s how Google Ad Manager works:
- First, the publisher fills in the ad units details in the ad server. At the same time, you can choose from a range of ad unit sizes already available in Google ad manager.
- You can also generate ad tags (HTML/JavaScript code snippets) that need to be integrated into the page’s source code.
- The publisher creates ad campaigns in line items before auctioning them off to advertisers.
- So, when a user visits your page, the ad tag sends a request to return an ad from Google Ad Manager.
- Post that, Google Ad Manager finds the advertisers that fit your niche depending on the details sent via the ad request and displays the ad on your ad inventory.
How Google Ad Manager trumps Google AdSense?
Both Google AdSense and Ad Manager lets publishers sell ads on their websites, but how are they different when it comes to features and services?
Google AdSense is what most of the publishers flock to when they are starting out. With AdSense, you get to get to sell your ad space in bulk to Google Ads advertisers. Since AdSense is an ad network, you won’t be able to sync in with other ad networks for website monetization.
With Google Ad Manager, you can sell your ad space to both Google and non-Google advertisers. You’ll also be able to connect your GAM with other ad networks giving you a variety of options to generate more ad revenue.
Can I use both Google AdSense & Google Ad Manager?
It’s best to use both Google AdSense and Google Ad Manager together if your main goal is to take your ad monetization to the next level.
The best bet when it comes to improving your ad revenue is selling out all your ad inventory. However, it gets extremely stressful when you’re trying to reach the ‘OUT OF STOCK’ status with just one monetization option.
In this case, what you can do is use Google AdSense to help sell the remnant ad space to Google advertisers. Other compatible ad networks can be run alongside Google AdSense in order to amplify your yield further.
Pros and Cons of Google Ad Manager
Pros
- Advanced reporting – It is impossible to maximize ROI without Google’s seemingly endless ways to read and analyze reports.
- Hyper targeting – You can audit & hyper-target ads to your audience which will help in finding leads that convert best. In addition to them, Google analyzes user demographics, locations, search terms, etc.
- Strong conversion algorithmic updates – The conversion algorithm has become incredibly powerful for smarter campaigns & optimized conversions. The latest updates work incredibly well for both beginner and enterprise-level publishers.
Cons
- Bumper Machine – Even though it’s still in beta, there’s a lot of room for improvement for the machine to pick the right clips.
- Display – The display campaigns & algorithms are not that industry-specific when it comes to transparency and consistency.
The GAM Glossary
Inventory
Inventory is the ad units that are in stock and ready to be auctioned off to advertisers and brands. You can segment your site’s ad space into different categories.
Tags
The HTML and JavaScript codes placed on the website to link ad units to your inventory are called Tags.
Placement
The pattern in which your site’s ad units are placed explains placements.
Trafficking
The process of creating and managing ad campaigns is called ad trafficking. You can also create your own inventory by targeting a niche audience.
Ad unit
The area on your site where an ad or a group of ads can appear.
Forecasting
Forecasting is something that calculates the amount of ad inventory needed depending on the website’s impressions. It also helps when it comes to avoiding inventory overselling.
Reporting
Analyzing ad data to keep track of each ad’s performance metrics is called Reporting. Daily or Weekly reporting helps you improvise on building better ad campaigns and the best thing about them is they are easily customizable.
Conclusion
If you’re not already using Google Ad Manager, it’s time to start testing GAM out. This platform is the most popular in the advertising sector and offers a uniform solution that makes it easy to set up, maintain, and process administration. With all its features and capabilities, investing in Google Ad Manager is worth every penny.
So what are you waiting for? Experience Google Ad Manager in God-Mode today with MonetizeMore.
