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Google Opens Ad Manager To All; OpenX in Trouble?
Google has announced this morning that they have opened up their ad serving tool Google Ad Manager to everyone. Google Ad Manager is very similar (nearly identical) to the OpenX ad manager software. Google Ad Manager runs on Google's servers while the main OpenX ad manager requires you to install the software on your server. You only need a Google AdSense account to use Google Ad Manager.
I've been using the Google Ad Manager for the last couple of weeks and found it relatively easy to setup and use. You setup your own campaigns, your default ad networks and you can backfill ads with Google AdSense ads so that an ad slot is always filled. It works just like OpenX in that you setup ad slots and ad types and then fill those with your customer ad impressions. This seems perfect for the small to medium size publisher and it does require a bit of basic advertising knowledge to get everything setup to work properly. Their walkthrough could really use some work and would be better as a video instead of a Web overlay.
What would be smart is if they hook up Google Ad Manager into Google Checkout and allow publishers to sell ads directly inside of Ad Manager.
The Google Ad Manager is much more robust than I expected and could put a hurting on the OpenX hosted platform that is apparently coming soon. Back in January OpenX (formerly OpenAds) announced a $15.5 venture capital round and the upcoming launch of their hosted ad manager.
Just remember as with all Google services, the more you use Ad Manager, the more they know.
Awesome. I've been waiting for a hosted ad manager like this. I'm sure the checkout integration to allow direct selling can't be too far down the line.
yea - so far it works very, very well.
Sorry mate,
Ad Manager's User Interface is crap. It has a very industrial feel to it.
OpenX gives you full control without BIG BROTHER getting to know how much you sell your ads and consequently how little to pay you in Adsense earnings.
Trafficspaces allows you design the look of your own ad manager and to sell to advertisers using a self-service interface.
Google Ad Manager is just a bit too basic for my liking, especially with OpenX and Trafficspaces doing the same thing without all the disadvantages.
Google Admanager is good tool for very small publishers, but the key problem is that it needs to have javascript inserted into the head of the websites, and cant be added into 3rd party ad servers. Unlike OpenX it can be added into other ad servers and works fine.
This is a huge problem with a site that gets decent traffic.
Because CN is running on Drupal, you might be interested in the admanager module I just released: http://drupal.org/project/google_admanager
Just an easy module to configure and add your ad slots to the regions or your Drupal theme.
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