Ep 6: Your ad server is not an SSP

A common mix-up. Your ad server and your SSP do different jobs.

An ad server is the referee that decides which ad fills each slot.

Picture the top slot on sports.example. Three offers arrive. A direct campaign your sales team sold. A header bid from an SSP at two dollars fifty. And AdX, Google’s exchange, at two dollars twenty. The ad server checks every offer against your rules, like priorities, targeting and minimum prices. Today the direct campaign has already hit its goal, so it steps aside. Two fifty beats two twenty, and the SSP’s ad wins. The SSP found the buyer and ran its own auction. The ad server just picked the winner. Google Ad Manager blurs this by bundling an ad server and an exchange.

Make two lists today. Your ad server, and the SSPs feeding it.

Next, ad network versus ad exchange. Where AdSense fits.