Advantages of a hosted ad server (part 3)
                     Advantages of a hosted ad server (part 3)
John Z
Writes on ad server platform, involved with Adspeed Ad 
serving software & ad server solutions.
In the previous two articles, we considered the ad serving performance and cost savings 
of an ad server. We are going to evaluate the operational and reporting benefits of a 
hosted ad serving solution in this article.
Complexity of ad operations
When you run your own ad servers, you need to constantly monitor them because 
downtime and outage will affect your bottom line. Therefore, it is critical to maintain a 
very high uptime and reliability. With many servers, it becomes a bigger challenge and will 
require a team that are experts at various disciplines including system administration, 
debugging, troubleshooting, server tuning, and software engineering. If ad serving is your 
core competency, which is what distinguishes your business from your competitors, then 
it’s a worthwhile investment. Otherwise, ad serving cost is often a very small part of the 
overall picture. Ad operations can become a distraction to your business resources. 
Outsourcing it to a third-party ad server company that has a proven track record in 
performance and reliability will help your business stay agile and focus on the right areas 
that make the most money.
Additionally, if you buy or license the software from other companies, 
your ability to troubleshoot and debug is limited because you might not 
have access to the code. Even if you can see the code, it takes time to 
understand and be familiar with the code someone else wrote. Any 
issue might need to wait for the software developers to fix and update 
with a new version. This can take days or weeks.
Many, but not all, hosted ad servers write their own code and develop 
their own ad serving software. For the ad server companies that write 
and maintain their own code, they really understand their software 
inside and out. That makes solving issues quicker and easier. 
Furthermore, if you have a feature suggestion to improve your 
workflow, automate more tasks and make your life easier, they know 
how to add this functionality into their code to make the feature 
request a reality.
Independent reporting
Reporting is one of the core functionalities of any ad server, regardless 
of where it is hosted. However, when it is hosted by a third-party 
company, they are independent and have no incentive to adjust, or 
worse, manipulate the ad metrics. When you share an ad report with 
your advertisers or publishers, they will see it coming from a more 
neutral party. To make your life easier, you can schedule a report to 
automatically send out every week or every month to you or your 
advertisers. The recipients can conveniently see the numbers of ad 
impressions and clicks without having to login or access any system.
On the other hand, if you host and control your own ad server, you 
might be perceived to have a conflict of interest. That is not to say it is 
not a reliable report just because it is sent from your own ad server. 
Adjustments or manipulation are not common and it depends on many 
other factors. However, using a reputable hosted ad server with an 
established name in the industry will help your own reputation. 
Therefore, it is important to choose the right ad server because there 
are multiple ad serving solutions available.
About Adspeed
AdSpeed ad server is a reliable & powerful ad serving and ad 
management solution that serves your ads, tracks impressions & clicks 
and reports ad statistics in real-time. Driven by the latest ad serving 
technologies, the goal of Adspeed adserver is to provide a reliable 
platform that can help in executing online advertising strategy more 
efficiently. 
Thank you for spending your precious time in reading this article.