Tags: For the last 10 years, the OpenX community has believed that ad serving should be free. In fact, we contributed a large amount toward bringing ad technology CPM rates to nearly zero over the last 5 years. Google’s announcement of a free ad server, Ad Manager, validates our marketplace.
Our publishers love Google Adsense, which is Google’s ad network product. Lots of them use Adsense for the ad inventory that they cannot sell otherwise. Adsense does very well in giving our publishers revenue for unsold inventory.
With the announcement today, Google now becomes three things to a publisher:
- Ad Network provider (supplier of advertisers)
- Ad technology / analytics provider (owner of your data)
- Competitor to ad revenue to a publisher (they are also a publisher)
As a publisher, I would find this a dangerous cocktail and I would worry that it may marginalize my revenue.
Google is Your Biggest Competitor
By allowing Google Ad Manager to serve all ads on your site, you are reducing your ability to get advertising elsewhere. Because Google could ‘cherry pick’ users that are the most lucrative for Ad Sense, they will leave the other users for your remaining advertisers. Therefore, your advertisers will not get as much ROI, and leave you for another website.
The same theory goes for ad networks. If ad networks do not have access to your most lucrative users, then they will not pay you as much for them.
Google’s Margins will Increase, Not Yours
By allowing Google to serve your ads, you allow your biggest competitor for ad revenue to know how much you make from ALL advertising on your website.
Therefore, if your average CPM from Google is $0.75, and your average CPM from other ad networks is $0.50, there is no reason that Google should give you more than $0.51! Remember, it is up to Google to determine what revenue share that they will pass back to websites.
Why is OpenX Different?
The best way for a publisher to get the most revenue from their site is to create a truly open marketplace, which is controlled by the publisher:
- Control. The publisher decides who gets access to each part of their inventory.
- Independence. There is no single entity which owns all parts of online advertising.
- Customisation. The publisher can use hosted or downloadable versions, and can modify our product to suit their specific needs.
OpenX is a BIG FAN of Google Adsense
Google Adsense is probably the biggest revenue generator for our publishers. We have provided levels of integration with Adsense in the past, and are building much more integration with Adsense in the future.
By using OpenX with Adsense, you keep Google guessing how much inventory you have, and what you are making from the inventory they do not see. Therefore, they will try to give you the best price possible.
Conclusion
OpenX is not a publisher. We do not compete with you for advertisers.
OpenX is not an ad network. We do not use your data for our own benefit and not yours.
OpenX will ensure that online advertising is not controlled by a single entity.
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Related links:
FAQ: How to display Google AdSense ads using OpenX
[...] Scott Switzer at OpenX says the same thing, more bluntly. This entry was written by greg and posted on March 13, 2008 at 6:50 am. Bookmark the [...]
Great News that OpenX want’s to be different. I would really love to get even more control over my inventory in the future.
[...] gente de OpenX sin duda no ha visto con buenos ojo este movimiento del gran buscado y ha anunciado en su blog lo que piensan, y la verdad que no se han quedado cortos, podéis echarle un ojo en el blog de OpenX, en la que [...]
I agree with many things in your post, but the interface for Google Ad Manager looks so much more simple and easy to use compared to OpenX (which is one of the biggest complaints). There will most likely be far fewer bugs than on OpenX and display of ads will be much faster. Post 19 on Techcrunch (http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/03/13/google-enters-the-ad-management-game/#comments) had some really valid points that will force other people to switch over.
Dave,
Thanks for the comments. OpenX has been working hard on improving our product, and making it easier for publishers to use.
We have three major near term goals:
1. Stabilize. Remove any bugs from OpenX
2. Integrate. Build API’s, Plugins, etc., so that OpenX is easy to integrate and customise to your specific solution.
3. Simplify. Because there are so many types of users who use OpenX, it tends to be more complicated. We are working on making this much more simple than it has in the past.
The one thing that is critical for us to produce exactly what publishers want is community participation and feedback. The more involved the OpenX community is, the faster OpenX will become exactly the solution that you want.
To get involved, start here:
http://www.openx.org/community/get-involved
Scott
I can not stress how good this blog post is…
[...] Pero ¿Es tan bueno tener tantos servicios con ellos? a mi, personalmente, no me termina de cerrar, pese a todas las ventajas que puede tener usar un servicio con la confiabilidad de Google, con la integración a los servicios de ellos y la facilidad de uso que ya demostraron con AdWords, AdSense, Analytics, etc… les recomiendo leer la nota de David Carrero, la de Antonio Ortiz y, ultra recomendado, la postura oficial de OpenX. [...]
All this is great by Open X and your post is true i would say. There is one issue tho and you need to act fast on it. Google Ad Manager is going to be available and we will not need to have our own server to mind of. What I mean is, you announced free hosted version by you, but its been so long. You need to simplify whatever you’re working on and launch this free hosted service. Whoever gets to it first will gain a lot of customers. I am waiting for Google Ad Manager to open. If it opens I’m going there. Can’t afford to be paying 2 dedicated machines to serve ads! Act fast guys.
[...] folks at OpenX posted a comment about Google Ad Manager [...]
[...] compete against some of DoubleClick’s clients. It’s a similar argument made in the OpenX blog [...]
Hi OpenX Folks,
You are on right track, as your blog article said Google’s entry validates that there is a market to serve.
There are so many scenarios where Google’s AD Manager doesn’t suit publishers need. So why compare..
However create a massive community, developer programs, integration with other apps, frameworks, etc.
All the best,
Santosh
[...] supuesto, el estándar libre de este tipo de servicios OpenX ha declarado que este tipo de sistemas deberían permanecer libres, y también asusta un poco el [...]
[...] El anuncio de el nuevo Ad Manager de Google viene luego de la confirmación de la adquisición de Double Click. OpenX ha sentido la presión y nos recuerda que la plataforma para administrar debería ser abierta. [...]
[...] a long time but Google finally launched its free ad serving product, Ad Manager. Scott Switzer has a good post about it that is a variant of “do I hand over ALL of the keys to my monetization” to Google [...]
Great post, Scott- I believe that 2008 is the year of adserving, free, paid or otherwise… and it’s going to morph into what it always comes back down to — quality. And I’m hoping we start to see a shift to user-based metrics, ARPU instead of RPM/CPM. But we’ll see …
The advertising world needs great competitive alternatives to Google. Good post. Upward and onward OpenX!
Scott,
I agree completely. It is dangerous to give control to a company that intends to dominate the entire web search and ad market. I do believe that there will be other solutions that come along that publishers will use to grow their business and monetize their traffic.
I say let google do what they do. You guys have a great product and the capabilities are very flexible. I intend to use your product for some things on my ad network, but i also recognize the massive numbers google has amassed.
If you guy deliver the best solution possible with the greatest APIs and technology, there will be little need for the generic bland and limiting platform which google tends to develop consistently time and again.
To those who are considering moving to this platform, be wary. The usage of their system will expose your business and your money matters to an organization that does not blink at censorship and continues to horde the advertising dollars online. Remember without the publishers they index they are nothing. Many people are upset how they have spidered and indexed news sites and refuse to open their own news sites up for indexing by others (thats exploitation in my book).
I will partners with google but never let them control my cash flow. Thanks but no thanks.
Dylan Rosario
adUup.com
“Level the playing field”
Congrats for taking a stand.
From my side, I agree totally! and will keep using OpenX in the future, much more control over what’s happening.
[...] CPM. Google Ads Manager will compete directly with Openx (called OpenAds in the past) and in Openx blog, they are talking why not sign with the new Google Ads [...]
[...] is it worth it? That’s for you to decide. But before you do, please go over and read OpenX’s recent blog entry on this. It’s [...]
[...] first free ad serving tool. Venture backed open source company OpenX also offers free ad serving. A post on the OpenX blog breaks down the elements of Google’s ad server play, noting that Google is now an 1) ad [...]
This is the end for OpenX quite simply put. I am a long time user of phpadsnew and it was the only solution where, for the cost of our server hardware and bandwidth, we could serve ads for free (or almost free). The expense of running phpads must include the hardware, bandwidth and system admin time. Google Ad Manager rids you of all the costs so apples to apples google ad manager will cost less, serve ads faster, do everything openX or phpads can do and do it for $0.
This is how competition works and when you are a small entity like openX you don’t stand a chance when a google comes a knockin’. they have billions of dollars, an enormous infrastructure footprint to serve anyones ads from plus almost unlimited programmers to improve and advance Ad Manager so it is light years beyond OpenX.
We already put in for the Ad Manager application and will be switching over once accepted. The negatives brought up by the OpenX team regarding Ad Manager don’t hold water. You don’t even have to use AdSense or serve ANY google ads on your site. This makes it no different from OpenX in that respect. You can if you want to serve up remnant inventory to google ad sense or you can simply choose NOT to if you want. Very simple and classic open google. You can use any ad network too and not just googles. You can use other networks and not googles. They don’t care. Why should they with over 10 billion in cash.
Eventually they will make money because so many will give google their excess inventory plain and simple. Google knows this.
Sorry OpenX but the giant has come knockin and your VC’s are about to take a bath.
[...] Paesi a livello mondiale, E dato che l’Ad Manager di Google si pone in alternativa ad OpenX, sull’OpenX blog Scott Switzer fa notare che l’ad serving dovrebbe invece rimanenere [...]
The way I see it is when you’re a publisher it’s YOU who needs to know who your customers are and what ads they are most likely to click on.
Now, you may know who your customer is, but when you use Google’s Ad Manager you simply won’t know what ads work best.
Google’s solution is not a good long-term strategy for the publisher.
What’s even worse is that they compete with you as a publisher. You may not agree with this but one day you will. Talk to other publishers!!
I never used OpenX but they appear to have good intentions but there’s no reason for me to use either Google’s Ad Manager or Open X. Open X is just not good enough.
I just sell my ads directly to advertisers. It does take me some time but it’s easy, it’s fast and I build a network I can rely on. I wouldn’t say my profits are higher when I take into account the time it takes me but you won’t hear me complain. Right now I have 3 types of customers. All 3 get to see different 3 different kinds of ads. Not google, not openx, no-one is able to target those customers like I do. And not just based on geo data.
It does take time, but the business scales very easy. The costs stay the same, the audience grows.
That’s more money in my pocket!
Then there’s the issue of Microsoft & Yahoo. Yahoo’s a big publisher, what do you want me to say?
If Microsoft were to support an open platform it would be a very smart move because to beat google you need to be open. Microhoo will be an even bigger publisher than google. It won’t work, it’s worse than google. Unless they open up an ad platform and level the playing field.
OpenX, the future’s there, hurry up and it’s yours.
[...] announced their free “Ad Manager” for small and medium size publishers, but Scott has a post on the OpenX blog about [...]
[...] Miguel de Icaza (miguel@gnome.org) wrote an interesting post today onHere’s a quick excerptFor the last 10 years, the OpenX community has believed that ad serving should be free. In fact, we contributed a large amount toward bringing technology CPM rates from $0.50 to $0.05 (or less) over the last 5 years. … [...]
OpenX is a BIG FAN of Google Adsense ? I’m a big fan of openx. =)
[...] me gusta un monopolio publicitario en Internet y somos muchos los que empezamos a desear un movimiento libre, un movimiento que no dependa de una sola empresa, queremos que el opensource llegué a la publicidad online y despierte la creatividad en las mentes de los desarrolladores como [...]
[...] información | NYT: Google’s Trojan Horse: Let the Free Ad Serving Begin, OpenX: Why Should Ad Serving be Open?, PubMatic: Is Google Ad Manager Good for Publishers?, Denken Uber: Google AdManager: toda tu [...]
[...] guys at OpenX has come up with a good article on their blog. ( click here to view ). They go with the fact that it is never good that Google knows everything about you, and also [...]
[...] account today, to start evaluating this new offering. Actually, the guys at OpenX has come up with a good article on their blog. They go with the fact that it is never good that Google knows everything about you, [...]
[...] Switzer is founder and CTO and his post on why Google Ad Manager is a threat to Publishers is well-rounded and recommended reading. What’s exciting is that Google Ad Manager completely [...]
We have, up to this point, relied on Google and others to serve ads on a number of sites. But we are now slowly migrating over to our own adserver (OpenAds) in an effort to take a little more control away from the automated services.
I think many publishers rely on the Googles’ and the Yahoos’ of the world to serve their ad content simply because of simplicity, ease of use. Drop a little bit of code in your page, and let Google do the rest…
Many thanks for all the fine work you’ve done.
Karl A. Krogmann
PACSDigest
[...] Google announced a new tool: Google Ad Manager, which will compete with OpenX. The folks at OpenX responded. One site criticized Google Ad [...]
[...] no ha tardado en contraatacar al anuncio de Google de su nuevo Ad manager, donde más puede doler a Google, incitando los fantasmas del monopolio y haciendo hincapié en los [...]
[...] française de l’article “Why Should Ad Serving be Open?“. Auteur : Scott Switzer - Traducteur : Bernard [...]
Google Ad Manager’s TOS
https://www.google.com/admanager/terms/US/Terms.html
“You agree that Google may aggregate Program Data with data collected from other Program users, and use such aggregated data, provided that Google will only aggregate data in a manner such that no third party could identify which users’ data contributed to the aggregated set.”
[...] (previously OpenAds), developers of another popular free ad server, recently made their concerns known. But in doing so they cleverly painted a picture of Google as Big Brother…placing doubt in [...]
you probably read about it by now… yahoo is also working on a “revolutionary new” ad serving tool
http://advertising.yahoo.com/amp/
Scott, this is a great post on addressing Google directly.
I think a key point that was missed is Google Ad Manager has an incentive to stay simple. They will dumb down to not compete with DoubleClick $7k min monthly product.
It seems you have a larger roadmap ahead of you to build out on.
I would also address the quality of the product that was criticized in the Techcrunch comments. The interface is clunky, many bugs, and real long load times. How have you been addressing this?
And why not offer a hosted solution like Google?