Top 20 tips: Choosing an ad server

Picking an ad serving partner is a difficult yet crucial task, determining limitations when targeting and delivering direct campaigns. Stream:20 lists the key factors to consider…


In our view choosing the right Ad Server is one of the most important decisions an online marketing operation can make. Why? Because not only does it host all your online advertising and deliver them to your target websites, it also “audits” your online marketing spend by monitoring click throughs and impressions of your online ads.
This gives you a fast and accurate view of where you are spending, how effective it is and how you might improve things.
As a result, your choice of Ad Server will dictate how you use your data, and how flexible you can be with the big decisions in online marketing. So clearly, it is vital you get your choice right.
Here are our Top 20 tips on what to consider when looking for the right Ad Server for your business:
1. First up, it’s worth noting that there are tonnes of Ad Servers out there who offer very similar basic ad serving solutions but each one has strengths and weaknesses and it is important to ensure that all of your business needs are met before implementing any new Ad Server. So be clear on exactly what it is you need and want the Ad Server to achieve as well as what budget you have to spend.
2. Make sure that all channels – whether it’s display, PPC, email, search, affiliates or mobile – run through the same Ad Server so that you maximise the performance of your spend. Each channel plays an important role in the user journey and how they interact with each other and how they are reported on is vital to a campaign’s success.
Let’s take each channel now and discuss the main points to remember when looking for the Ad Server that will best meet your needs.
Display
3. When it comes to Display, ask yourself – is the creative for your display campaign mostly standard flash and gif based or are there rich media requirements such as video? When it comes to the standard formats it’s a pretty balanced market, but when rich media and video capabilities are involved the best Ad Servers are easily identifiable, because they will provide integrated rich media solutions, including dynamic banner capabilities, as well as high quality video streaming up to HD quality. So keep an eye out for those ones!
4. With the boom going on in retargeting products out there at the moment, it’s easy to forget that all they are doing is making use of good ad serving technology. You should have it as a requirement that you do the same. Sophistication in this area is key. You need to be able to consider the ad server’s capability to create multiple discrete targeting groups based on visitors’ behaviour to your site. Using this technology, you can segment repeat visitors to your site.
PPC
5. Paid search often accounts for the largest share of the media budget so it is vital that the Ad Server provides the best possible ad management. Here the two most important factors to consider are:
– how easy is it for large numbers of keywords to be trafficked using features such as bulk upload tools?
– how robust and easy to use is their bid management tool?
Taking these two points into consideration at the start will make your life a lot easier later on down the line when you start implementing large-scale PPC campaigns.
Affiliates and Partnerships
.6 Affiliate activity depends on how accurate the cookie data is and how quickly conversion information can be passed on to third parties to ensure accurate payments. So you need to be sure you choose an Ad Server that can pass all this detail on quickly and accurately.
Mobile
7. With a large volume of the Internet population now going online using their mobiles and tablets, it is more important than ever to make sure the Ad Server can deliver mobile specific campaigns. And although tracking is still at an early stage of development in this channel, it is still important to ensure that the Ad Server is investing in this area and has some ad delivery capabilities.
Natural Search
8. Tracking a natural search is important when monitoring the performance of any search engine optimisation work. And although this kind of tracking can often be a bit pricey, the benefits can be significant, so it’s worth looking into. Why is it so expensive? Well, it comes down to how pages are tagged and tracked; this differs from standard conversion tracking because the tags have to track every inbound link similar to an analytics tag. This means lots of data that can be difficult to process, which means higher costs.
E-Mail
9. Often email is overlooked in the media mix, when considering Ad Servers, because of all the different e-mail specific delivery platforms, but it is still vital to consider this channel in the overall mix. Because E-mails are often sent to customers who are already on your database make sure that the Ad Servers can link the two to get the best possible value.
Now that we have looked at all the different channels, what other considerations are there when choosing an Ad Server?
Accuracy
10. Because Ad Servers are used to audit all media activity and spend, it is absolutely critical that their counting methodology is accurate and importantly, that it can be verified. For example – Advanced tools, such as geo location data, are important for the accuracy of any campaign and good Ad Servers will use the best in breed as it is 95% accurate. Their standard tracking figures are then within the industry standard 5% – 10% discrepancy level when compared to publisher side data.
Databases
11. The ease with which data from all marketing channels can be matched back to any existing backend databases is an important consideration. Existing customer details as well as future customer information provides valuable insight, such as lifetime value, which can’t be tracked without these backend databases. Because cookies expire on average 30 days after the impression and each order ID is considered ‘new’ by the Ad Server there is no way for them to track the lifetime value using the Ad Server alone. So make sure your databases are in order and compatible with the Ad Server you choose.
12. Don’t forget that for Ad Server data to be matched with databases there needs to be unique identifiers that are common across both systems. These unique identifiers are recorded using extended data capture fields. But be careful, these can sometimes be limited to certain character types or even to a limited number of fields, which can reduce the integration with any existing databases. So choose an Ad Server that allows both numerical and alphanumerical characters to be captured in up to 20 dynamic data capture fields.
Tagging
13. An Ad Server’s tag management has to be flexible when it comes to allocating conversions, so that counting methodologies can be changed when necessary, eg moving from a last click wins model to a first click wins model.
14. Advanced tag management is also worth considering because these feed into attribution modelling and allow for all stages in a users’ journey to receive some form of recognition for the role that they played in driving the sale.
Integration with third party platforms
15. Ad Servers are usually one of several tracking tools that you use and often have to run along third party platforms such as analytics, advanced bid management tools (e.g.: Kenshoo or Marin) and rich media tools. So make sure your chosen Ad Server is able to accommodate any of these should the need arise. The more advanced Ad Servers allow these third party platforms to be plugged in to get the best possible results.
Reporting
16. Accurate and detailed reporting is vital to the performance of an Ad Server – it’s why you sign up to them! All Ad Servers will report on the standard metrics such as impressions, clicks and conversions, but it is important to understand what else can be gained from the Ad Server. Good Ad Servers provide the following types of reports as standard:
· Time lag to conversion reports
· Cross site duplication reports
· Reach and Frequency reports
· Order ID reports and other custom variable reports
· Geo location report
17. It may sound obvious, but make sure that the reports are exportable via Excel, CSV, HTML or XML as well as being available to view online. The best Ad Servers may also provide direct access to reports via a plug in that allows reports to be run directly from Excel or to be populated directly into PowerPoint.
18. Other reports that good Ad Servers provide include the “Path to Conversion” report and customer IP reports – but watch out as they may come at an extra cost. The ‘Path to conversion’ reports provide a detailed look at the user journey as a whole instead of sticking to the last click wins model. If this is an additional report then it is important to understand how many events are tracked and how the reports are delivered as this usually varies considerably between Ad Servers.
19. Non-converting data is often overlooked in digital media due to the capabilities of tracking through to a conversion, but good Ad Servers can provide this data albeit usually at an extra cost.
Price
20. The cost of Ad Servers varies considerably and will usually be tiered based on the level of impressions that are likely to be served. The cost can also have different prices based on the following types of creative:
· Click tracking only
· 1×1 impression tracking
· Standard flash
· Rich Media
· Dynamic Rich Media
· Streaming Video
So make sure you are absolutely sure what the total costs are and what the limit is for each Ad Server.
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