I’m about to fly out of Austin but thought I’d post a link to a story that broke this morning on the official AdSense blog – they’re releasing a free Ad Manager service.
I’ve been sitting on this story for a few weeks and even got a sneak peak at it and I think it’s going to fit with the needs of quite a few medium to larger bloggers who want more control over their ad serving. It’s able to be used with a variety of ad networks as well as your own direct sales of ads.
“If you operate a site with remnant ad inventory as well as reserved ad inventory that you sell directly to advertisers, then Ad Manager is for you. It can help you sell, schedule, deliver, and measure directly-sold and network-based inventory. Google Ad Manager offers a wealth of features, including an intuitive user interface, automated yield optimization, and proven Google speed and reliability.”
The service offers:
- Inventory management
- Yield optimization
- Ad targeting
- Trafficking, ad delivery, and order booking
- Creatives and rich media management
- Reporting
- User interface navigation
- Account administration
You can learn more about their Ad Manager and apply to be in the beta here.
Just signed up for the beta, hope to get in! Tried out PubMatic and was not impressed at all! Hopefully this will yield better results.
This is definitely something I will be looking into. Could this be because of their acquisition of DoubleClick :???: or am I wrong?
/Andreas
I believe you are right Andreas… or at least it played a part in it. Google is setting themselves up to play a major role in the online advertising game for many years to come.
Even though they are a major force in serving ads, if you choose to go with another network, Google will still be offering a service that helps you organize those network ads.
A bit scary, but I can’t wait to be accepted into the beta.
Google is slowly trying to integrate themselves into more of the internet. The fact that this can be done with any ads and not just those from Google shows how their potential outreach is of greater importance to them than forcing people to use their software or services.
I wrote a similar post on how Google cleverly marketed Google Mail to be an Internet-phenomenon rather than just a bland product release. Read all about it here:
http://www.blog-tutor.com/2007/10/23/the-success-behind-gmail/
Does Google now run the world?
The Masked Millionaire
I think the world has started to become “over” google ads. I can’t even remember the last time I clicked on a google ad. Maybe this will breathe new life into their business.
If this allows us to better manage all the ad networks then we will be signing up to it.
@The Masked Millionare
Well Microsoft and Yahoo were arguing with the EU Board that Google would have way too much influence over the Internet if they bought Double Click, even though we all know it could easily be any other combo between the 3.
Microsoft is frantically trying to buy up smaller ad companies in the hopes of competing with Google who has dominance over most of the U.S. and now European Ad Networks. Asia is the only untapped market with them being fairly slow to adapt to Google. To combat that Google is trying to buy up existing established firms there rather that try to forcibly integrate their brand into the market.
well, ad manager might be a useful tool for few publishers but, i think going forward it can be bit tough for Google to compete with other monitizers like projectwonderful. Their concept seems to be better than that of Adsense.
well, Google should have done this long time back.
Its feeling the heat of the competition only now ??
I think days of Google will be bad if it doesnt learn from its inferior rivals.
Let us wait for better management of adds as getting income from multiple sources is always safe.
It is known fact that some times google bans account of adsence because of reasons beyond the control of blogger.
They shall come with a clean policy regarding that so that people stay tuned for well proved adsence.
Overall, this looks like a brilliant product – from what I have seen from their help pages.
Though still waiting for my invitation to test it…
One point I have noted is that there is no advertiser self-service functionality available with Ad Manager. I wonder, do Google feel it’s unnecessary – or is this in order to protect AdWords?
@Rex — intersting point. I’ve noticed that it seems there are much fewer Adsense ads around. Paradoxically, I wonder if Darren and others are seeing increased Adsense revenue because of that, since it’s no longer so “in your face” everywhere.
One of the items on my todo list is to revisit Adsense, and this may be the ideal time to do it.
It’s interesting to see the fashions come and go. The new darling is the 125×125 banner.
“Google is slowly trying to integrate themselves into more of the internet.”
Can they integrate themselves anymore?!
How would Google profit from this tool?
I DISAGREE with you.
As a Google Ad Manager for about a month, I’ve NOT been impressed.
The user interface is stuck in the past and the whole user experience is like being on a a pen pushing shop assistant.
Perhaps Apple should make an Ad Manger and show these nerds how to design a useful app.
Other ad managers e.g. Trafficspaces, OpenX etc are far ahead of them.
Just because it has a Google brand doesn’t mean its ready. I advise them to put it back in beta
Other webmasters have raised this issue as well. See link:
http://www.webmasterworld.com/google_adsense/3620525.htm