What are the Main Google Ad Manager Alternatives? A 2023 Guide
Chris Shuptrine
Updated on
November 1, 2021
Google Ad Manager is by far the leading ad server on the market.
In fact, if you look at the Top 10K US sites, Google accounts for 84% of all ad servers found (discovered using the same tool we use for our header bidding tracker).
But the Google Ad Manager ad server isn't for everyone, for a couple different reasons.
This article dives into where Google's ad server falls short and competitors you could look into.
Why do brands normally use Google's ad server?
Google Ad Manager's ad server has wide adoption for a few reasons:
It's free for anyone with under 90 million monthly impressions. No other vendor offers such a deal
It provides instant access to their Adx ad exchange, potentially increasing the CPMs publishers make from programmatic ads
It's reliable - both from an infrastructure perspective and a business one (Google is not going under any time soon)
Where does Google Ad Manager fall short?
There are three main reasons:
It's not flexible
It's tag-based, not server-side
It's Google
Flexibility
There's a reason that Facebook, Pinterest, eBay, and many other brands with innovative ad platforms chose to build their own versus rely on Google's tools.
Namely - Google Ad Manager, as an out-of-the-box solution, provides little customization ability and doesn't make it easy to:
Show native ads - Google's focus is on programmatic spend, which generally revolves around IAB-sized ads bought and sold through ad exchanges. Such tools work well for displaying banner ads, but less so for custom native ads that blend in seamlessly into the user experience. If your desire is to integrate innovative ads with a unique look and feel, then Google Ad Manager can't provide such flexibility.
Build a self-serve advertising portal - Many brands see the value of building white-labeled portals for advertisers to log into, manage campaigns, and see reporting. Google's ad server makes it nearly impossible to do this without hacks that can cause bugs and slow the system.
It's tag-based, not server-side
Client-side JavaScript ad tags, like those used by Google, are the industry standard for ad serving, but they come with many issues:
Slow sites and apps - Ad tags are notoriously slow - occasionally a couple of seconds - causing jumpy content, poor browsing experiences, and user attrition.
No revenue from ad block users - Google's on-page tags will get blocked by ad blockers. This means that roughly 30% of your inventory can't be monetized if you're using Google Ad Manager (even for direct-sold ads).
Not privacy-law compliant - While ad tags themselves aren't inherently non-compliant, the issue is that the tag - not you - decides what data to send the vendor. This could result in hidden cookies and inadvertent leakage of PII, leaving you prone to potential lawsuits.
The alternative to JavaScript solutions like Google Ad Manager are server-side ad servers, which allow you to integrate the ad serving tech into your backend web and mobile apps directly, without needing client-side code.
It's Google
Given they are a tech behemoth with many product lines, working with Google means that you may be enabling a competitor through data sharing/revenue.
Moreover, a bombshell 2021 report claimed that Google was manipulating its auctions to favor its traffic, at the expense of publisher CPMs. Is that really a partner you want to build a million dollar business with?
The Best Google Ad Manager Alternatives
Diving into the above Google Ad Manager competitors, one of the following vendors will likely be your best alternative to GAM.
1. Kevel
Type: Ad serving Infrastructure APIs
Kevel is the market leader in server-side ad serving, enabled through APIs.
With Kevel, brands can launch custom, fully-bespoke ad servers in a fraction of the time and cost of trying to build it from scratch. Companies expecting to build an ad platform in months or a year can use Kevel to easily release the same one in just weeks.
Kevel's clients include Yelp, Bed Bath and Beyond, Ticketmaster, Edmunds, Mozilla, WeTransfer, and more.
When to consider Kevel:
You care about page/app load times and want server-side ad calls instead of JS-tags
You want customization around the look and feel of your ad unit
You want full flexibility around business rules
You want to build a self-serve ad platform
When to think twice:
You want something you can set up in hours
You don't have any engineering resources
2. Adform
Type: Hosted third-party ad server for programmatic ads
Adform is a GAM competitor who focuses on programmatic-focused publishers. Their platform comes with detailed revenue forecasting, analytics for identifying new monetization opportunities, and bidding tools to maximize CPMs.
When to consider them:
You want to launch quickly without needing engineers
Your focus is on programmatic demand
You want tools for understanding and optimizing all your programmatic partners
When to think twice:
You need more customization than what an off-the-shelf ad server can provide
You want flexibility around the look/feel of the ads, targeting options, and more
You don't want to slow down your page/app by using JS-tags/SDKs
Revive is a self-hosted ad platform (via an open source script) you can download for free. After downloading, there is additional work needed to host and run the code.
When to consider them:
You don’t want to pay a monthly fee to a vendor and like the idea of an open source solution
You have the engineering resources to download, host, monitor, and update the code
When to think twice:
You need customer support. They have a community website, but you won't have a support team for troubleshooting
You need scale. Revive is a large (and often buggy) script that requires a lot of server costs
4. EPOM
Type: Hosted 3rd-party solution for ad networks
EPOM is a GAM alternative that caters to ad networks; their key value is around white-labeling and turnkey RTB integrations. They are also open to custom development.
When to consider them:
You are starting an ad network and want to white-label existing tech instead of building it yourself
You are having trouble scaling your ad network
When to think twice:
You are not an ad network
If you are price sensitive. For instance, for someone with 50MM monthly display impressions, it would be $2,500/month on EPOM, versus free on GAM (though GAM may not provide the features you want)
5. Broadstreet
Type: Hosted third-party vendor for digital magazines
Broadstreet provides a niche adserver to digital magazines and online news sites whose focus is on direct-sold ads.
When to consider them:
You are a digital magazine / news site with a focus on direct-sales, not programmatic ads
You want an intuitive, simple ad platform. Their pitch is they are GAM without the complexity
When to think twice:
You are not a digital magazine/news site
You want instant revenue via programmatic ads
The long-tail third-party options
In addition to the options above, below are other third-party alternatives to Google Ad Manager, with most being smaller brands with fewer than 15 employees.
The benefits of a smaller company is that support tends to be better, but they usually come with fewer features and run the risk of going under, forcing you to migrate your ad infrastructure.
Should I just build an ad server instead of using Google Ad Manager?
As mentioned earlier, many brands have built their own ad system rather than relying on a third-party, tag-based vendor.
This path can be quite lucrative, but does require vision, engineers, and time. The in-house ad platforms of Facebook and Amazon, for instance, took years and many, many engineers to build.
Fortunately, you can now build a custom ad server in just weeks
A new industry trend - ad serving APIs - is emerging to help brands build bespoke platforms in a fraction of the time and cost as doing it entirely from scratch. For instance, companies like Ticketmaster and Klarna have jumped on this new tech to build their own Google Ad Manager alternatives for displaying their native ads.
The leader in ad APIs is Kevel.
Brands like Yelp, Klarna, WeTransfer, and many more have used our tools to build custom ad servers, in just weeks. These are fast, server-side, native ad products that they have full control of.
