What is a Third-Party Ad Server?
A third-party ad server is the technology platform responsible for delivering and tracking advertisements across various websites, apps, and other digital properties through the advertiser. Unlike first-party ad servers controlled by the website owner or publisher, a third-party ad server is usually administered by another company that helps an advertiser serve and track ads across multiple platforms of different publishers. For example, an advertiser might use a third-party ad server like Google Campaign Manager to distribute and track ads across various websites, such as news outlets, blogs, and social media platforms, ensuring consistent performance monitoring and reporting across all channels.
Third-party ad servers host the creative and track its performance, allowing them to deliver in-depth data for important metrics like impressions, clicks, and conversions. This technology empowers advertisers to efficiently manage their campaigns, gain valuable audience insights across channels, and drive higher campaign performance.
First-Party vs. Third-Party Ad Servers
The main difference between first-party and third-party ad servers lies in control and reach. A first-party ad server is operated by the publisher, managing and reporting ads within their own site or platform. It focuses on serving ads solely within the publisher’s digital properties.
On the other hand, third-party ad servers, like Google Campaign Manager, enable advertisers to serve and track ads across multiple sites and apps. This independence from the publisher allows for consistent tracking metrics across a diverse range of publishers. For example, a brand running a campaign can ensure that its ads on news outlets, blogs, and social media platforms are tracked and measured uniformly, giving the advertiser greater control over performance.
How Does a Third-Party Ad Server Work?
A third-party ad server functions by delivering ad creatives (images, video, and so on) to a publisher’s site based on user behavior and targeting criteria. The server can track clicks and views, sending the data back to the advertiser; hence, accurate measurement of the ad performance is made available by this mode of execution.
Generally, the following steps are involved in the process:
- Ad Placement: Advertisers upload their creatives to the third-party ad server.
- Ad Serving: When a user accesses an ad-based website, the ad server will determine which ad to show based on predefined criteria, such as user demographics or browsing behaviour.
- Tracking: It serves the ads from a third-party server, and tracks the ad impressions, clicks, and post-click follow-ups.
- Reporting: Detailed performance data is collected and presented to the advertiser for their optimization and analysis.
Why Are Third-Party Ad Servers Important?
Third-party ad servers are also an integral part of digital advertising because they allow for the advertiser’s independent tracking and measurement, offering several advantages:
- Cross-Platform Consistency: It allows advertisers to run consistent campaigns across multiple websites and applications without any effort.
- Independent Measurement: Third-party ad servers offer independent standardized tracking metrics, providing an advertising party with an independent comparison of one publisher over another in terms of performance.
- Optimization Opportunities: since user interaction with the ad is tracked in real time, optimization to make the campaign work better may be done by changes to creatives, targeting, or delivery frequency.
The use of third-party ad servers provides other benefits to the advertiser: precise targeting, cross-device tracking, and an enhanced level of transparency. This function is probably the most important for any advertiser in programmatic advertising.