Google Ad Manager is an ad management platform for large publishers who have significant direct sales. Ad Manager provides granular controls and supports multiple ad exchanges and networks, including AdSense, Ad Exchange, third-party networks, and third-party exchanges.
Ad Manager is for you if you need:
- A central place to monetize all of your inventory types (websites, mobile apps, videos, or games)
- To manage a significant amount of ad revenue that comes through direct deals from buyers
- To use third-party networks to compete for ad inventory
- More complex reports to gain granular insights
Depending on your advertising business, AdSense or AdMob may be a better fit for you. Compare Ad Manager, AdSense, and AdMob.
About Ad Manager and Ad Manager 360 accounts
There are two types of Ad Manager accounts:
- Ad Manager account: This account type requires you to sign up for a paid account when you reach a specific impression threshold. Learn more in Ad Manager billing setup.
- Ad Manager 360 account: This account type requires you to sign up for a paid account and gives you direct access to Google support and features such as Audience solutions, Data Transfer reporting, Impact estimates, Header bidding trafficking, Publisher provided identifiers, Special ad units, Teams access, Advanced features (may involve additional fees), and more. Learn more in Ad Manager 360 billing setup.
Contact your account manager if you're interested in an Ad Manager 360 account.
How Google Ad Manager works
Most publishers use a single Ad Manager network to manage all their advertising.
With your Ad Manager network, you can manage your ad inventory and create reports on your advertising campaigns. Here's an overview of the process:
- Define your ad inventory (ad units): Inventory refers to the locations on your webpage or app where you want to show ads. Ad Manager generates a tag (a snippet of code) for each ad unit.
- Start serving ads: Add Google Publisher Tags (GPT) to your webpage or app. When a user visits your webpage or app, the GPT ad tag makes a request for an ad from Ad Manager.
- Deliver ad campaigns: Create orders and line items that represent your transactions with an advertiser or buyer of your ad inventory. Campaigns that reference or "target" the ad unit are then eligible to serve an ad to that request. Ad Manager chooses the best ad to serve at the time of the request.
- Gather insight with customizable reports: Through customizable reports, you learn what ads will serve to specific inventory, how much revenue you're likely to earn, and much more.
We encourage you to make use of the many resources available in the Ad Manager Help Center to help optimize your network.